In 1707 Jonathan
Swift played a celebrated practical joke on the successful astrologer John Partridge,
publishing a fake almanac which predicted the fortune teller’s death of fever at
11pm on the 29th March 1708. The Dean of St Patrick’s went on to publish a famous
account of the astrologer’s death (even though Partridge remained rather inconveniently
alive) and later proof’s that, despite his public protests to the contrary, the
astrologer was really dead.
Here,
five feet deep, lies on his back
A
cobbler, starmonger, and quack,
Who
to the stars in pure good will
Does
to his best look upward still:
Weep,
all you customers that use
His
pills, his almanacks, or shoes.
And
you that did your fortunes seek,
Step
to his grave but once a week.
Elegy
On the Supposed Death of Mr. Partridge, the Almanac Maker– Jonathan Swift
According
to his vilifiers John Partridge was born John Hewson at an alehouse in East
Sheen after his unmarried mother tarried too long in the taproom on a journey
to London. Neither the insinuation of illegitimacy nor the sly hint of
dipsomania on the part of his mother were true; John Partridge was born on the
18 January 1644 in East Sheen, the son of a Thames Waterman who was respectable
enough to act as a sidesman (a sort of assistant churchwarden) and parish
assessor but not rich enough to ensure his precociously intellectual son more
than a rudimentary education or able to arrange for him a career more elevated
than cobbler. The young artisan taught
himself Latin along with a smattering of Greek and Hebrew and sought instruction
in medicine and astrology from local mages like Dr Francis Wright. Again his calumniators
concocted baseless stories alleging that he had everything he knew of the
zodiacal arts from John Gadbury, (“neglecting his shoes,” they said, “to attend
on this fellow’s heels”), the lie meant to undermine him in his later public
battles with the Oxfordshire soothsayer.
In his early thirties he left Sheen and moved to Covent Garden where he
simultaneously plied his two main two trades, cobbler and astrologer. He
published his first almanac from Henrietta Street, Covent Garden in 1678, the Calendarium Judiacum and then swiftly
went on to publish a stream of astrological treatises including Mikropanastrōn,
or, An Astrological Vade Mecum; Ekklēsialogia: an Almanack, Vox lunaris, (‘being a philosophical and
Astrological Discourse of two Moons which were seen in London on 11 June 1679’)
and Prodromus, ‘an astrological
essay’.
In
the 1680’s Partridge was increasingly drawn into politics, joining the Calves
Head Club and practicing Whiggery almost to the point of republicanism. On the
accession of the pro Catholic James II he prudently removed himself to the
Netherlands from where he published An
Almanack for the Year of our Redemption (1687) and Annus mirabilis (1688) under the transparent pseudonym John
Wildfowl. These attacked James’
government and declared that ‘a
commonwealth's the thing that kingdoms want.’ In 1688 he went a stage further and used
pseudo biblical prophecy in Mene Tekel
to predict that King James would die that year. In November he returned to
England joining the glorious revolution that put William of Orange on the
throne. Under the new protection of the
new regime Partridge flourished and his annual almanac ‘Merlinus Liberatus’,
became perhaps the most successful and widely read of the yearly flood of
similar publications that hit the booksellers in the dying weeks of the old
year.
By
April 1708 the 64 year old John Partridge, who now resided at the sign of the
Blue Ball in Salisbury Court, Blackfriars, became one of that select band of
people who discover they are dead by reading about it in the newspaper. Unlike other
people who find themselves in this situation however he had been given 4 months
notice of his imminent demise; the advance warning coming from one Isaac
Bickerstaff Esquire, a mysterious personage who had, in late 1707, published ‘Predictions for the Year 1708; Written to
prevent the people of England from being further imposed upon by the vulgar
Almanack makers.’ As was usual even
with genteel almanac makers Bickerstaff’s opus predicted the death of
several eminent personages including the Cardinal de Noailles and ‘upon the
29th of March next, about eleven at night, of a raging Feaver’ John Partridge. Being a hugely successful vulgar almanac maker
Partridge could hardly object, on principle, to a colleague so precisely
predicting his death, even if it could be considered rather bad manners to do
so. Whatever his public protestations of belief in the systems of astrology, years
of failed prediction must surely have secretly undermined Partridge’s faith in
the accuracy of horoscopes; he would not have been overly concerned by
Bickerstaff’s confident forecast. The 29th March came and went without
Partridge feeling in the slightest indisposed, he went about his normal
business, chatting to friends and neighbours, eating his meals, making plans
for the following days and never giving a second thought to the prospect of
dying. He would must have been astonished therefore when on the 1st April (all
fools day we note) someone gave him a copy of a broadsheet publication entitled
‘The Accomplishment of the First of Mr.
Bickerstaff’s Predictions being an account of the death of Mr Partridge, the
almanack-maker, upon the 29th instant’ in which an anonymous author,
identified only as someone ‘employed in the revenue’, related in great detail the
lugubrious story of Partridge’s last hours on earth.
 |
| A wigless Dean Swift |
The
revenue man explained that “to satisfie
my own Curiosity, I have for some Days past enquired constantly after Partrige,
the Almanack-maker, of whom it was foretold in Mr. Bickerstaff's Predictions,
publish'd about a Month ago, that he should die the 29th Instant about 11 at
Night, of a Raging Fever….I saw him accidentally once or twice about 10 Days
before he died, and observed he began very much to Droop and Languish, tho' I
hear his Friends did not seem to apprehend him in any Danger. About Two or
Three Days ago he grew Ill, was confin'd first to his Chamber, and in a few
Hours after to his Bed, where Dr. Gase and Mrs. Kirlens were sent for to Visit
and to Prescribe to him. Upon this Intelligence I sent thrice every Day one
Servant or other to enquire after his Health; and yesterday, about Four in the
Afternoon, Word was brought me that he was past Hopes; upon which I prevailed
with my self to go and see him, partly out of Commiseration, and, I confess,
partly out of Curiosity. He knew me very well, seem'd surprized at my
Condescention, and made me Complements upon it as well as he could in the
Condition he was. The People about him said he had been for some Hours
delirious; But when I saw him he had his Understanding as well as ever I knew,
and spoke Strong and Hearty, without any seeming Uneasiness or Constrain.” Partridge’s tactless interlocutor could not
stop himself asking what effect Bickerstaff’s predictions had on the
astrologer, to which the response was that they were more or less what was
killing him. After half an hour in the
dying man’s company and “being half
stifled by the Closeness of the Room” the man from the Revenue made his
excuses and retired to a nearby coffee house, leaving a servant at the house to
advise him as soon as Partridge expired. A couple of hours later the servant
arrived with the news that the astrologer was finally dead at five past 7, to
which the revenue man noted “it is clear
that Mr. Bickerstaff was mistaken almost Four Hours in his Calculation”.
 |
| John Partridge's astrological birth chart |
Much
to the disappointment of the many readers of Isaac Bickerstaff (who proved so
popular that his works were translated and published on the continent) Partridge
did not deign to respond to this transparent hoax. If he was not prepared to
join the fray on his own account there were others who prepared to join it for
him. Thus there appeared a counterblast under Partridge’s name but in actual
fact composed by Dr Thomas Yalden, assisted by no less a figure than William
Congreve the dramatist; 'Squire
Bickerstaff detected; or, the astrological impostor convicted’ in which Bickerstaff
was attacked for lambasting Partridge’s reputation, “most inhumanly” burying him alive, and defrauding the country of “those services, that I daily offer to the
publick”. The false Partridge
thanked his “better stars, I am alive to
confront this false and audacious predictor, and to make him rue the hour he
ever affronted a man of science and resentment.” He went into battle for
himself only though, poor Cardinal Noailles “may
take what measures he pleases with him; as his excellency is a foreigner, and a
papist, he has no reason to rely on me for his justification; I shall only
assure the world he is alive--but as he was bred to letters, and is master of a
pen, let him use it in his own defence.” He then at great length demolished the
pretensions of Isaac Bickerstaff to be as astrologer and a man of learning, and
several thousand words later set down his pen thoroughly satisfied with
himself.
The
laughter had barely died down when in April 1709 shortly after the publication of
Partridge’s latest almanac, the Bickerstaffian riposte was finally published; ‘A vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq;
against what is objected to him by Mr. Partridge in his almanack for the
present year 1709.’ Bickerstaff’s
opening salvo was that “Mr. Partridge
hath been lately pleased to treat me after a very rough manner, in that which
is called, his almanack for the present year: Such usage is very undecent from
one gentleman to another, and does not at all contribute to the discovery of
truth, which ought to be the great end in all disputes of the learned. To call
a man fool and villain, and impudent fellow, only for differing from him in a
point meer speculative, is, in my humble opinion, a very improper style for a
person of his education.” He felt
forced to proudly “tell the reader that I
have near a hundred honorary letters from several parts of Europe (some as far
as Muscovy) in praise of my performance. Besides several others, which, as I
have been credibly informed, were open'd in the post-office and never sent me.”
He claimed that there had been only two objections made concerning the
accuracy of his predictions, the first from a “French man, who was pleased to publish to the world, that the Cardinal
de Noailles was still alive, notwithstanding the pretended prophecy of Monsieur
Biquerstaffe: But how far a Frenchman, a papist, and an enemy is to be believed
in his own case against an English Protestant, who is true to his government, I
shall leave to the candid and impartial reader.” The second was from
Partridge himself, but Bickerstaffe was determined to “prove that Mr. Partridge is not alive.” He pointed out that the
increased sales of Partridge’s almanac that year had been down to “above a thousand gentleman” wanting
to know what Partridge said against Bickerstaff
“at every line they read, they
would lift up their eyes, and cry out, betwixt rage and laughter, ‘They were
sure no man alive ever writ such damn'd stuff as this.’ Neither did I ever hear
that opinion disputed.” If “an uninformed carcase walks still about, and
is pleased to call itself Partridge, Mr. Bickerstaff does not think himself any
way answerable for that. Neither had the said carcase any right to beat the
poor boy who happen'd to pass by it in the street, crying, "A full and
true account of Dr. Partridge's death, etc."
 |
| St Mary's, Mortlake |
No
one is sure why Jonathan Swift (for the author of ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ was the true identity behind the pseudonymous
astrologer Isaac Bickerstaff - and of the ‘man from the revenue’ for that
matter) picked John Partridge, to be the butt of his joke when he was clearly
infuriated by the whole tribe of soothsayers, seers, mystics, astrologers and
compilers of almanacs. Perhaps it was simply because ‘Merlinus Liberatus’ was the
most successful and widely read of the yearly crop of horoscopic publication. Or
perhaps it was because Partridge’s mystical mumbo jumbo was so strongly Whig
and so obviously served the cause of Republican propaganda; Swift was by this
point a tepid Tory after starting life as a lukewarm Whig and he generally
eschewed extreme political opinions of any stripe. The hoax he played on
Partridge is generally credited with finishing the astrologer’s career and
often cited as the final nail in astrology’s coffin. Whilst it is true that
Partridge’s almanac did not appear in 1710 this was not because, as is often
alleged, the author was too disheartened at being the laughing stock of Europe to
continue publication but because he was locked in a dispute over money with the
Company of Stationer who were reluctant to give him the £150 fee he was
demanding to allow them to print his work. When this dispute was resolved ‘Merlinus
Liberatus’ continued to roll off the presses and make as much money as before.
Partridge was certainly wealthy when he died; he left over £2000 in his will,
an enormous sum for the time. And as for astrology itself, the quackery is
alive and well as a cursory search of any tabloid newspaper will tell you and
London itself, 300 years later has as many psychics, seers and fortune-tellers
per head of population as it did in the early 1700’s.
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| The burial of John Partridge recorded in St Mary's parish register |
John
Partridge really died in London on 24th June 1715 and at his own request was
buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s in Mortlake on 30th June. His handsome
chest tomb with the black marble top and white marble sides has weathered badly
and the Latin inscription, which is no longer legible, said “Johannes Partridge
astrologus et medicinæ doctor, natus est apud East-Sheen in comitatu Surrey 8°
die Januarii anno 1644, et mortuus est Londini 24° die Junii anno 1715.
Medicinam fecit duobus Regibus unique Reginæ Carolo scilicet Secundo, Willielmo
Tertio, Reginæque Mariæ. Creatus medicinæ doctor Lugduni Batavorum.” Little or
no knowledge of Latin is required to translate the first sentence and the
second claims, almost certainly unjustifiably, that he was a doctor of medicine
for two kings and one queen, Charles II, William III and Queen Mary and that he
was made a doctor of medicine at Leiden in Holland. A more fitting epitaph would
have been “Dean Swift granted me what little fame I have” for without the Dean
of St Patrick’s joke at his expense Partridge would have long since disappeared
into obscurity.
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| Partridge's weathered tomb in St Mary's churchyard, Mortlake |
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