John Partridge was a leading astrologer of the early 18th Century - a period when astrology was sliding into disrepute. Rejected by the scientific establishment of the Age of Reason, it became fair game for ridicule by the wits and satirists of the day. In 1708 Dean Jonathan Swift, best known now as the author of Gulliverâs Travels, perpetrated an elaborate hoax at Partridgeâs expense.
Poor old Partridge had the misfortune to cross Dean Swift, partly for reasons of his political allegiance, partly because Swift had a poor view of astrologers in general. Under the assumed name of Isaac Bickerstaff, Swift issued his own almanac to rival Partridgeâs Merlinus Liberatus.
His predictions for the year 1708 are prefaced by a condemnation of... âmean illiterate traders between us and the starsâ. He names Partridge and Gadbury, whose... ânonsense and folly are offered to the world as genuine from the planets, though they descend from no greater height than their own brainsâ. He condemns the pretensions, the learning and even the literacy of those named and offers himself as a true practitioner.
My first Prediction ... relates to Partridge the Almanack-maker; I have consulted the Star of his Nativity by my own Rules, and find that he will infallibly die upon the 29th of March next, about eleven at night, of a raging Fever; therefore I advise him to consider of it, and settle his Affairs in time.
The pamphlet continues with a series of predictions. It was apparently taken seriously enough to be burned by the Inquisition in Portugal, according to the ambassador of the time. Swift kept the jest running around town by next publishing â as âa Person of Qualityâ â a critical account of âBickerstaff'sâ predictions, and challenging Partridge to refute them.
At the end of March, Swift published The Accomplishment of the First of Mr Bickerstaffâs Predictions. Being an account of the death of Mr Partridge ..., which claimed that Partridge had died precisely in the manner foretold. Next he issued a pamphlet under Partridgeâs name entitled: Squire Bickerstaff Detected, or The Astrological Impostor Convicted, in which Partridge was supposed to have protested... âI thank my better stars I am alive to confront this false and audacious predictor...â
The jape was too good for Swift, or the town, to let drop. He followed quickly with a farcical account, again under the name of poor Partridge, of the night of his alleged death â The bell tolling for him brought straight away the undertakerâs men to measure the house for mourning hangings, who brushed aside his protestations that he was not deceased ...
In short, what with undertakers, embalmers, joiners, sextons and your damned elegy hawkers, I got not one wink of sleep.
Partridgeâs humiliation continued in the succeeding months, with those he met in the street amusing themselves at his expense and referring to his wife as âWidow Partridgeâ. His only published response seems to have been in his almanac for 1709, where he roundly abused Bickerstaff, alas without the wit of his persecutor.
Swiftâs next paper was a response to Partridgeâs invective. As Bickerstaff he objected â again satirising Partridgeâs lack of education â to his rough language, and proceeded to prove that Partridge was not alive.
And my First Argument is thus: Above a Thousand Gentlemen having bought his Almanack for this Year, merely to find out what he said against me, 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 damned Stuff as this...
Though Swift (as âBickerstaffâ) ridiculed astrology, his fixation on Partridge, and the latterâs death in particular, fits snugly into his horoscope symbolism. Swiftâs natal 5, at 11°g, opposes the 8th house cusp of Partridgeâs well-timed chart while conjoined to F, which is: in a partile square to Partridgeâs (8th-ruler) F; conjoined to Partridgeâs 5; and opposing Partridgeâs L. There are various other striking synastry arrangements, including strong nodal alignments, which show archetypical astro-signatures for two popular literati locked in controversies with each other.
Here Five Foot deep lyes on his back
A Cobler, 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
From Swiftâs Epitaph to Partridge
More by / about
John Partridge
www.skyscript.co.uk/bickerstaff.html
© Jonathan Ledbury.
This article was first published in
The Traditional Astrologer Magazine, issue 4, Spring 1994, p.10 and first published on Skyscript in August 2004; redesigned with minor amends and chart additions: May 2025.
