I find in the registers of my family, that the branch of the Bickerstaffs from which I am descended, came originally out of Ireland.[137] This has given me a kind of natural affection for that country. It is therefore with pleasure that I see not only some of the greatest warriors, but also of the greatest wits, to be natives of that kingdom. The gentleman who writes the following letter is one of these last. The matter of fact contained in it is literally true, though the diverting manner in which it is told may give it the colour of a fable.
To ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esq., at his House in Great Britain.
"Finding by several passages of your _Tatlers_, that you are a person curious in natural knowledge, I thought it would not be unacceptable to you to give you the following history of the migration of frogs into this country. There is an ancient tradition among the wild philosophers of the kingdom, that this whole island was once as much infested by frogs, as that wherein Whittington made his fortune was by mice; insomuch that it is said, Macdonald the First could no more sleep by reason of these Dutch nightingales (as they are called at Paris), than Pharaoh could when they croaked in his bed-chamber. It was in the reign of this great monarch that St. Patrick arrived in Ireland, being as famous for destroying vermin as any rat-catcher of our times. If we may believe the tradition, he killed more in one day than a flock of storks could have done in a twelvemonth. From that time for about five hundred years, there was not a frog to be heard in Ireland, notwithstanding the bogs still remained, which in former ages had been so plentifully stocked with those inhabitants.
"When the arts began to flourish in the reign of King Charles the Second, and that great monarch had placed himself at the head of the Royal Society, to lead them forward into the discoveries of nature, it is said, that several proposals were laid before his Majesty for the importing of frogs into Ireland. In order to it, a virtuoso of known abilities was unanimously elected by the Society, and entrusted with the whole management of that affair. For this end he took along with him a sound, able-bodied frog, of a strong, hale constitution, that had given proof of his vigour by several leaps which he made before that learned body. They took ship, and sailed together till they came within sight of the Hill of Howth, before the frog discovered any symptoms of being indisposed by his voyage: but as the wind chopped about, and began to blow from the Irish coast, he grew sea-sick, or rather land-sick; for his learned companion ascribed it to the particles of the soil with which the wind was impregnated. He was confirmed in his conjecture, when, upon the wind's turning about, his fellow-traveller sensibly recovered, and continued in good health till his arrival upon the shore, where he suddenly relapsed, and expired upon a Ring's End car[138] on his way to Dublin. The same experiment was repeated several times in that reign, but to no purpose. A frog was never known to take three leaps upon Irish turf, before he stretched himself out and died.