whereas it is the privilege of other authors to live after their
deaths; almanack-makers are alone excluded, because their
dissertations treating only upon the minutes as they pass, become
useless as those go off. In consideration of which, Time, whose
registers they are, gives them a lease in reversion, to continue
their works after their death.

I should not have given the publick or myself the trouble of this
vindication, if my name had not been made use of by several
persons, to whom I never lent it; one of which, a few days ago,
was pleased to father on me a new sett of predictions. But I
think those are things too serious to be trifled with. It grieved
me to the heart, when I saw my labours, which had cost me so much
thought and watching, bawl'd about by common hawkers, which I
only intended for the weighty consideration of the gravest
persons. This prejudiced the world so much at first, that several
of my friends had the assurance to ask me whether I were in jest?
To which I only answered coldly, that the event would shew. But
it is the talent of our age and nation, to turn things of the
greatest importance into ridicule. When the end of the year had
verified all my predictions, out comes Mr. Partridge's almanack,
disputing the point of his death; so that I am employed, like the
general who was forced to kill his enemies twice over, whom a
necromancer had raised to life. If Mr. Partridge has practised
the same experiment upon himself, and be again alive, long may he
continue so; that does not in the least contradict my veracity:
But I think I have clearly proved, by invincible demonstration,
that he died at farthest within half an hour of the time I
foretold, and not four hours sooner, as the above-mentioned
author, in his letter to a lord, hath maliciously suggested, with