of myself in the way I have done; and that I am able to go on, tracing
every thing in it, as Horace says, ab Ovo.

Horace, I know, does not recommend this fashion altogether: But that
gentleman is speaking only of an epic poem or a tragedy;--(I forget which,)
besides, if it was not so, I should beg Mr. Horace's pardon;--for in writing
what I have set about, I shall confine myself neither to his rules, nor to
any man's rules that ever lived.

To such however as do not choose to go so far back into these things, I can
give no better advice than that they skip over the remaining part of this
chapter; for I declare before-hand, 'tis wrote only for the curious and
inquisitive.

--Shut the door.--

I was begot in the night betwixt the first Sunday and the first Monday in
the month of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and
eighteen. I am positive I was.--But how I came to be so very particular in
my account of a thing which happened before I was born, is owing to another
small anecdote known only in our own family, but now made publick for the
better clearing up this point.

My father, you must know, who was originally a Turkey merchant, but had
left off business for some years, in order to retire to, and die upon, his
paternal estate in the county of ----, was, I believe, one of the most
regular men in every thing he did, whether 'twas matter of business, or
matter of amusement, that ever lived. As a small specimen of this extreme
exactness of his, to which he was in truth a slave, he had made it a rule
for many years of his life,--on the first Sunday-night of every month