'Without One Wonder in the Sky!'

John Partridge (1677-1715) was an English shoemaker-turned-astrologer who claimed to have refined his “science.” Don’t smirk or pity our benighted forebears. Newspapers still publish astrology columns and dozens of astrological publications remain in print. See Modern Astrology Magazine and Stellar: The New Astrology Magazine. My maternal grandmother, not a stupid woman, subscribed to such things and sometimes made significant life decisions based on what she found in the stars. 

Partridge was a prolific writer in his field, a dedicated Whig and a harsh critic of “Popery” and James II. In the 1708 edition of his Merlinus liberatus, Partridge referred to the Church of England as the “infallible Church.” Jonathan Swift launched a protracted satirical assault on Partridge, using his pseudonym Isaac Bickerstaff. It began with “Predictions for the Year 1708”:

 

“My first prediction is but a trifle, yet I will mention it, to show how ignorant those sottish pretenders to astrology are in their own concerns: It relates to Partridge the almanack-maker; I have consulted the stars of his nativity by my own rules, and find 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.”

 

Swift then published a mock-obituary of Partridge’s death, “The Accomplishment of the First of Mr Bickerstaff's Predictions,” reporting that the prediction was correct. Except that Partridge died around 7 rather than 11 p.m. on March 29:

 

 “. . . Mr. Bickerstaff was mistaken almost four hours in his calculation. In the other circumstances he was exact enough. But whether he has not been the cause of this poor man's death, as well as the predictor, may be very reasonably disputed.”

 

This is a gag worthy of Evelyn Waugh. Scholars have viewed it as an April Fool prank. Swift subsequently published a poem on the affair, “An Elegy on the Supposed Death of Partridge, the Almanack-Maker.” It begins:

 

“Well, ’tis as Bickerstaff has guess’d,

Tho’ we all took it for a jest;

Partridge is dead, nay more, he dy’d

E’re he could prove the good Squire ly’d.

Strange, an Astrologer shou’d die,

Without one Wonder in the Sky!

Not one of all his Crony Stars

To pay their Duty at his Herse?

No Meteor, no Eclipse appear’d?

No Comet with a flaming Beard?

The Sun has rose, and gone to Bed,

Just as if Partridge were not dead:

Nor hid himself behind the Moon,

To make a dreadful Night at Noon.

He at fit Periods walks through Aries,

Howe’er our earthly Motion varies;

And twice a Year he’ll cut the Equator,

As if there had been no such Matter.”