Headnote

For this, the ‘genuine’ counterpart to Swift's 1722 hoax The Last Speech and Dying Words of Ebenezor Ellison, see Headnote to that work. The text is taken from the sole printing, a half-sheet printed in double columns on one side only, bearing the imprint ‘DUBLIN: Printed by John Harding in Molesworth’s-Court in Fish-shamble Street. For Elizabeth Sadlier in School-House Lane near Highstreet’.

THE LAST FAREWELL OF EBENEZOR ELLISTON TO THIS TRANSITORY WORLD.

It is an accustomary Thing for those who unfortunately end their Lives like me, to relate something of their past Life and Actions before they leave the World, and appear before the great GOD, who is the Searcher and Judge of our Actions whether Good or Evil; and as I am a dying Man, and expect in a few Moments to meet my Creator in the Face, where the Book of Remembrance will be laid open before me, wherein all my Sins is Recorded, but I trust the Blood of the immaculate Lamb my Saviour being innocently shed for my Sins will wash them away, the which I rely and depend on; and as I am now a Dying Man, what I have to Relate shall be nothing but the Truth. I was Born in the City of Dublin on or about the 10th of July, 1690, my Parents when living were so well-known in this City, that I need not give any further Account of them, only that they discharged their Duty to me whilst living, and their Death by their honest Endeavours left me a very handsome fortune, which with the Blessing of God, I and my family might have lived to the End of my Days very happy and contented; but for want of the Grace of God in the Year 1719 I unfortunately became acquainted with some young Men who had no other Way of Living but by Robbing and Plundering in and about the City of Dublin, some of whom are now living, and others Executed for their just Deserts on or about the 12th of March 1720.

The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius (third century AD) are transmitted (entirely, partially, or in the form of excerpts) by a hundred or so manuscripts. The oldest witnesses of this tradition are three continuous manuscripts (B, P and F), datable between the end of the eleventh century and the thirteenth century, and three collections of excerpts, two (Φ/Φh) copied in a Vatican MS of the twelfth century (and in its descendants) and the third in a MS in Vienna (Vi) written and dated 28 July 925. All other manuscripts date from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, though some manuscripts with excerpts are as late as the eighteenth.

P Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, gr. 1759. 11th/12th cent. Oriental paper. 210×150 mm. ff. I + 251 (ff. 174r end, 174v–176r blanks). Written at Constantinople by two contemporary anonymous hands (A: 1r–95r; B: 95v–251v). There is evidence of six correctors (P2–7), the most important of whom is indicated with the siglum P4. In f. Ar, a later hand (15th–16th cent.) copied an epitaph on Emperor Basil II the Bulgar–slayer ‘Bulgaroktonos’ (958–1025), followed by two further epitaphs, one on Julian the Apostate and one on a certain Bessarion. In f.