University of Virginia Library

John Partridge and the Company of Stationers
by
Richmond P. Bond

John Partridge, the successful London astrologer and almanac maker who entered his fame during the latter years of the seventeenth century, was in 1709 brought before the Lord High Chancellor by the Worshipful Company of Stationers in a significant suit which concerned monopoly in publishing. Early in the reign of the first James the Stationers had obtained royal grants for the virtually exclusive rights of publishing almanacs, if allowed by the Church authorities, and by the end of the century these annuals were established as a kind of publication so popular that the profits therefrom were central to the business life of the Company.[1] This cheap booklet apparently offered the right mixture of instruction and innocent merriment to attract regular purchase by any man of city, town, or farm; here he might find such diverse matter as a Calendar, reference tables, entertaining prose and verse, forecasts, astrological lore, a budget of advertisements, and (if interleaved) space for scribbled memoranda.

The seventeenth century produced two thousand titles and issues of almanacs by three hundred writers, and the total figures for distribution are estimated at three to four million copies.[2] Among Partridge's predecessors or rivals as astrological compilers were Andrews, Booker, Coley, Dove, Gadbury, Lilly, Pond, "Poor Robin," Rider, Saunders, Swallow, Tycho and Vincent Wing, and many another astrologer with a public devoted to his special kind of almanac, full of husbandry or commercial aids or facetious matter, or offering the standard wares

fashioned in his individual mode. Not infrequently an almanac was so well esteemed that its author's name continued to appear on its title page long after his death. These ephemerides had a place, positive and negative, in the history of the Enlightenment,[3] and the charlatan as astrologer naturally found his way into the works of the satirists in several genres of the period. By the time Anne ascended the throne almanacs had taken sure rank in the progress of the printed word as one of the most profitable, influential, indicative, and interesting types of profane publication, and John Partridge had become the leading almanac maker.[4]

The industrious Partridge published miscellaneous readings of the stars, engaged in public quarrels with other pseudo-scientists, claimed to have a medical degree, sold purging pills, and cast nativities for private patients. In his almanac, Merlinus Liberatus, his prognostications courted the obvious and equivocal, all in solemn phrase, so it was natural that the master of precise imprecision should be chosen for the principal role in one of the truly distinguished hoaxes in the history of satire. Setting out to expose the mischief of astrology, Jonathan Swift made the prominent astrologer-quack the butt of his irony. Under the putative authorship of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. he published the Predictions for the Year 1708, in which he specifically foretold the death of John Partridge, and on the appointed day Swift brought forth a paper stating the fulfillment of this special prediction, which Partridge answered in his next almanac with a serious protest that he was still alive and had been alive all the time. Town wits joined in the flimflam by replying to Bickerstaff or by venturing further predictions in his name, and in April of 1709 Richard Steele adopted the popular nom de guerre for the editor of the Tatler, enlisting Partridge as a gambit and Bickerstaff as a periodical eidolon.

This was all very tiresome for Partridge especially since his ill fortune had not been completely of his own making. In the summer of 1709, however, the astrologer found himself in further trouble—this

this time with the powerful Company of Stationers and this time a difficulty which he had clearly brought on himself.

The Court of Chancery

Year after year Partridge's work as a maker of almanacs had been following the pattern usual among his kind. The astrologer prepared an annual pamphlet for the Company of Stationers, receiving a flat fee for his copy, and after the material had been allowed by the representatives of the Church the Company proceeded under royal prerogative to arrange for printing and distribution at a profit. The sales of almanacs and certain kinds of books accounted for most of the Company's revenue, which was used for the expenses of the corporation, charities, and excellent dividends.[5] In 1709 Partridge attempted to negotiate with the Stationers for an increase in his fee but received no satisfaction from that shrewd organization. He then withheld the Merlinus Liberatus from its normal and legal publication and sold the text of his 1710 compilation to John Darby, a member of the Company who had printed some of his early almanacs. No doubt under this arrangement Partridge received a sum greater than the amount expected from the Stationers.

When Partridge and Darby decided to become independent of the authority of the Company, it quickly sought justice for its special privileges and initiated a suit in the Court of Chancery.[6] At a private meeting on 7 July 1709 the Court of Assistants of the Stationers' Company, the governing body of the corporation, considered "some matters in Difference between the Company and Dr. Partridge Concerning his Almanack for the Year Ensueing," and a committee was ordered to meet with Partridge as soon as possible "to Accomodate

and end the said matter in Dispute." On Saturday the 24th a letter from Partridge (presumably a statement of hopes and plans) to Mr. Churchill, a member of the committee, was read by the Court, and a larger committee was appointed to meet on the following Tuesday at two o'clock to examine the question. About this time the Company apparently made its decision to prosecute Partridge and Darby, and to act speedily. On 30 July upon petition of the Stationers as plaintiffs to the Master of the Rolls the two defendants were ordered to appear and answer the bill of complaint. Two days later the Court of the Company "Ordered that the Master and Wardens and whom else they shall think fitt do goe into such printing houses as they have reason to Suspect are printing any of the Companyes Coppyes or Almanacks to See whether they are printing any of the Companys Coppy's." Meanwhile the bill had been prepared in the customary repetitive detail.[7]

This important document cited first the privilege granted by the Crown in letters patent, notwithstanding which "within these Two Months last past He the sd. John Partridge hath fframed & Compiled & the sd. John Darby . . . hath Printed or Caused to be Printed or they or one of them are now Printing or Causeing to be Printed wth.in the Realme of Great Brittaine & diverse Parts beyond the Seas upon their or one of their Account" great quantities of an almanac for 1710 by Partridge and other almanacs by Fowle and Turner. Such a printing at home or abroad by individual members of the Company on their own account and without the authority of the Company was against the letters patent; authorized printing should be carried out by printers appointed or approved by officers of the Company, "managed & Carryed on by a Comon Stock deposited by the sd. membrs. who were to have answerable propor&c.ilde;ons of Advantage over & besides wt. was so as aforesd. limitted for the poor of ye. sd. Company." The plaintiffs offer "not to take the Advantage of any Penalty whatsoever" but desire complete information on all the transactions of the confederates concerning their fraudulent almanacs. They say that unless the complainants are supported the privilege and interests granted by the Crown "must otherwise be Defeated & not only the sd. poor Widows & Orphans must perish but others." They ask that the defendants and their "Confederates their Jorneymen Workemen Servts. & Agents may be Injoyned

. . . from Printing Importing binding Selling Publishing Vending uttering & Bartering away all such Books Almanacks Sheet Almanacks & all other Bookes Sheets or Papers wherein shalbe Inserted or Contained the Callendr. of & belonging to your Oratrs. granted to them & their Predecessors" by the letters patent. On the 5th of August counsel for the Company repeated the substance of the bill, gave in evidence the letter Partridge had written to Churchill, and prayed that an injunction be issued to prevent the publication of Partridge's almanac until he should answer the bill and the court make other order to the contrary, and the court agreed (P.R.O., C. 33/312/363).

In the record of Company disbursements an entry of 8 August states that the Master and Warden (or Wardens) went to search Darby's house at the Oxford Arms, spending three shillings on the expedition, and that eight shillings threepence were consumed at the Queen's Head "on Patridges Affair." In the next two months no orders or decrees were issued save those to force the defendants to answer the bill of complaint (P.R.O., C. 33/ 312/ 469, 438-438v; 25 August, 10 September 1709). But with the approach of the season for the sale of almanacs the Company thought fit to publish an advertisement concerning the injunction, and on 3 October 1709 a notice was approved for printing in the newspapers. It appeared in the Post Boy, stating the fact of the prohibition by the Lord Chancellor and warning that the Company was "resolv'd to prosecute all such Persons that shall do any Act in Contempt thereof."[8] The advertisement ended with a notice of the days of publication for the forthcoming authorized almanacs.

By this time the quarrel had got into the public domain. A minor periodical called the Whisperer, conceived in imitation of the Tatler and written by Bickerstaff's sister Jenny Distaff, took note of the affair. At the end of the first and probably only essay an incident is recorded of a man who escaped from his own wedding; the disappointed bride comes to Jenny for advice, and Jenny asks her what person can give a solution. Jenny goes on —

After some delay the Court of Chancery received the answer of Partridge and Darby (P.R.O., C. 33/ 312/ 448, 458; 13, 22 October 1709. C. 7/ 299/ 3; 27 October 1709), wherein it was admitted that before the exhibiting of the bill of the complainants Partridge had sold the copy of his 1710 Merlinus Liberatus to Darby and had granted him the right of printing the same for his own advantage, and that Darby had printed part of this almanac but not yet the whole of it. The defendants objected that the letters patent, so important to the plaintiffs' case, were not "sufficient in Law" to give the Company the right to exclude from the defendants their own publishing rights. They further claimed that their almanac had not been allowed by the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London and therefore that the authority of the Stationers, by their own showing, to publish such almanacs as had been allowed by the church officials did not apply to the pamphlet in question. Partridge and Darby then humbly prayed "to be hence dismis't with their reasonable Costs and charges in this behalf wrongfully sustained."

The case appeared in the Court of Chancery twice in the month of November (P.R.O., C. 33/ 314/ 9v, 30; 5, 28 November 1709). The defendants asked that they be permitted to print and sell the offending almanac under proper accounting during the period of legal delay, but it was ordered instead that the case be argued more promptly. The great hearing took place on 6 December 1709 before the Right Honorable the Lord High Chancellor, William Lord Cowper.[10] The arguments repeated much that had already been said and written. The validity of the letters patent was the principal point at issue, and it had great force and convenience. In the end his Lordship held with the accepted doctrine and ordered that the demurrer of the defendants be overruled.

The decision for the Company of Stationers received immediate

but brief and matter-of-fact reporting in the Supplement, Post Boy, and British Apollo, and was entered by Narcissus Luttrell in his private Relation.[11] But the most detailed account, and the only one with a turn of wit the time could relish, was that of Abel Boyer in his own Post Boy, which read in part as follows:

Partridge made public his own views in A Letter to a Member of Parliament from Mr. John Partridge, touching his Almanack for the Year 1710. and the Injunction, whereby the Publishing of it is staid for the present, a four-page, folio pamphlet dated 10 December 1709. This polemical epistle begins with a reassurance that the writer is not dead, "as you have been told in Print by a merry witty Gentleman under a feign'd Name," and that the "Injunction was not granted upon the Suggestion of my being dead, as some have foolishly imagin'd." The writer proceeds to give the historical background of the dispute and to reproduce and answer various arguments of the Company: the way people could be misinformed in almanacs written by ignorant men, the use of the Church Calendar, and the "mischievous consequence to the State" of prognostications by ill-affected astrologers. Partridge more than once makes plain his adherence to the principles of the Glorious Revolution and contends with much logic "That the Legislative Power of this Kingdom is not in the Crown (alone) but in the Crown, Lords and Commons" and that printers should not be restrained by a royal prerogative. All of this is clearly an appeal to Parliamentary authority against monopolistic privileges granted at the time of James I, "when Patents were growing in, and Parliaments growing out of fashion." The whole presentation is carefully reasoned, strongly and succinctly stated, and entirely different from the astrological

works of Dr. John Partridge. Perhaps counsel wrote the pamphlet for him, but it appeared as if prepared by the defendant in the current suit and so must be associated with his name as a worthy document in the history of the liberty of the press.[12]

With the new calendar year of 1710 Partridge and Darby submitted a further answer to the charges, repeating some of the points in the Letter and claiming that any pretended right of the plaintiffs was "a Matter cognizable and determinable at the Common Law." They denied that they had imported any almanacs, admitted they had had no license from the Company to print or sell almanacs, and protested that they were being prohibited "from the exercise of their lawfull Employmts. for the maintenance and support of themselves & their familys and for the enabling them to pay what is and shall be assessed and laid on them for and towards the publick taxes" (P.R.O., C. 7/ 299/ 3; 23 January 1710). The case reappeared in Chancery for several legalistic maneuvers, but the injunction remained operative (P.R.O., C. 33/ 314/ 213, 145v, 176, 295v; 23 January, 1, 9, February, 27 May 1710).

On 22 February 1711 the whole business was thoroughly reviewed before the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, whereupon he ordered that a case be made upon the letters patent and two questions be stated — whether the grant given to the plaintiffs be general or restrained as to which almanacs must be allowed by the Church, and whether the Crown has the prerogative to grant exclusive power. The case would be referred to the Queen's Bench for opinions, which would be considered by the Lord Chancellor, who then would "proceed to give his finall Judgmt. in this Case" (P.R.O., C. 33/ 316/ 525-525v. Cf. C. 33/ 318/ 129v; 7 January 1712). And there the matter rested for more than sixty years — a period of delay beyond what might reasonably be expected of Chancery proceedings. In 1769 the great Lord Mansfield after a full study of the case commented as follows:

The rights and liberty of the British subject were not truly vindicated in the publication of almanacs until Thomas Carnan in 1775 won from the Court of Common Pleas the answers to the two questions propounded in 1711 — that the royal grant applied only to ecclesiastically approved almanacs and that the Crown had no power to grant exclusive rights.[14]

In such a manner did a quack astrologer who wanted more money for his famous-infamous almanac pose the problem of an author's choice to publish his work wherever he pleased and not of necessity through the Stationers' Company, which had long been enjoying the profits of a monopoly awarded by a monarch with no concurrence by his legislature. Whatever the intention or status of Partridge he served as unwilling victim of an old inequity, and the suit against him has an interesting place in the history of legal challenge to official privilege. Though this suit was never determined and the liberty which Partridge claimed was not sustained until three score years after his actual death, it raised a pertinent issue and stated distinctly its central questions. By not being allowed to publish an almanac Partridge helped in a small way to create a better position for his successors.

This official circumstance in Partridge's career has never received comprehensive study. A persistent and dogmatic error has prevailed that the Stationers struck the name of Partridge from their rolls, with perhaps the implication that the poor fellow was thereby forced out of employment. The Stationers have furthermore been credited with assuming Partridge to be dead or acting on that assumption by others. The more fanciful interpreters have maintained a kind of competition in artlessness, so that it becomes almost a sport to discover the best misunderstanding. For example, "The Stationers' Company gravely walked into the trap, and officially forbade the publication of further Almanacks bearing Partridge's name, because no one had a right to misuse the name of a dead writer." Or another: "In October 1708, the Stationers' Company published Partridge's almanack for 1709, in which also appeared a denial, but after this actually refused to issue any more of his almanacs on the ground that he was dead!"[15]

This of course is nonsense. The Stationers had a patent to publish almanacs, which it was their wish, need, and habit to protect. When one of their most popular writers decided to withhold his work from their authority, they sought to prohibit him; if he successfully defied the organization, the Stationers would lose the profits of his annual publication and might lose also their power over other almanac makers. The Company did not strike Partridge from its roll of members — he was not a member and so could not be expelled; and the Stationers certainly were not striking him from their roll of astrologers but rather were trying to retain his almanac over their own imprimatur. The Stationers were not primarily interested in a hoax by a pseudonymous prankster or in a continuance of the joke by the town jesters, and they did not for a moment "assume" him dead. The Stationers were hardheaded men of business concerned with their own monetary matters, and they would hardly request an injunction against a ghost.

A few people who were naïve or somber or ready to believe anything they read or heard doubtless accepted Partridge's "death" no matter what the source of the news. But in actuality the Bickerstaff predictions and the prominence Partridge received therefrom had no necessary connection with the legal action of the Company, unless we may suppose that Partridge thought the publicity he had been getting made his services more valuable. The groundless affirmations about Partridge and the Stationers in sober works by prominent scholars present a better than normal example of adherence to received legend and reluctance to consult solid sources. The story of Partridge in Chancery and his relation to the Stationers is interesting enough without recourse to scholarly romancing.

Harris the Pirate

Related to the dispute between Partridge and the Stationers was Benjamin Harris, a prime rascal who spread his deeds over the several careers of author, printer, bookseller, journalist, pirate, and salesman. He spent a term of years in New England and by issuing in Boston the sole number of Publick Occurrences became in 1690 the "first American journalist."[16] Harris returned to London, where he acquired a very poor reputation in the trade as well as a degree of shrewd effectiveness.

In the Merlinus Liberatus for 1706 Partridge warned the reader against "a Supplement added to my Almanack, forged and contriv'd by Benj. Harris and his Son, and Printed as mine, tho' I knew nothing of it till it was printed"; the next year he repeated his warnings against additions made by Harris to his almanac "either in the Middle or End of it."

In February of 1708 the Company of Stationers filed a bill in Chancery against Harris and his sons Benjamin and Vavasour, all freemen of the Company, accusing them of subverting the letters patent "lately within these ffour Years last past" and particularly of printing the almanacs of Partridge and others for 1708, and prayed for an injunction restraining the Harrises from any unauthorized use of the Calendar (P.R.O., C. 5/ 270/ 20; 9 February 1708). In their joint answers the father admitted that he "did in his own Right & sayd way of Trade print or cause to be printed in London some Thousands a Sheet Almanacks goeing under the borrowed Name of one Vincent Wing."[17] On 4 October 1708 the Court of the Company ordered its committee to advise with counsel and move the court for an injunction; the officers spent considerable time away from the Hall in conferences about Harris, with at least three on the 19th; and on the 21st the Lord Chancellor awarded an injunction against the unauthorized publication and sale by Harris of any more almanacs until the hearing (P.R.O., C. 33/ 310/ 490). On 18 November the Courant carried an advertisement announcing that Harris the bookseller had at his shop, the Golden Boar's Head in Grace Church Street, all kinds of almanacs for 1709 "Bound or Stitcht, Wholesale or Retale" and that annexed to the Partridge almanac there would be a printed list of the current members of Parliament at no extra cost.[18]

After this, Harris apparently rested dormant for a year as an open enemy of the Stationers, or else crafty without record.[19] However, on 15 November of 1709, when the suit against Partridge was in full stride and the injunction in operation, the Courant had an advertisement of a Merlinus Liberatus for 1710 by J. Patridge, "Printed for the Author, and Sold by most Booksellers," etc. with no reference to Harris at all. Shortly a notice was published in the Post-Man that the Merlinus Liberatus by Patridge (again so spelled) had been published on the

24th "with an ALMANACK for the said Year, Printed by Allowance, and Conformable to an Injunction in Chancery," price bound 6 d.[20]

On the 5th of December at a Court of the Company "A ffalse Almanack of Partridges was produced wherein is a Kallendr. and suspected to be Printed and Published by Benja. Harris." The Stationers apparently knew Harris well, so the Master and Wardens were directed to investigate. Three days later the Court ordered that an advertisement concerning this publication by Harris of Partridge's almanac with the Company's Calendar "be put into the Gazett and several other publick News Papers," and also that advice be taken as to whether this action by Harris constituted a breach of the injunction against him. The proposed advertisement appeared in the Courant the next day to say that the Merlinus Liberatus was "pretended to be made by J. Partridge, but in Truth was patched together by Benjamin Harris (famous for Practices of this Nature)" and that there would be no almanac for 1710 by Partridge because of the injunction by the Lord Chancellor. This notice got wide distribution.[21] Later in the same month of December Robert Mawson, codefendant with Partridge and Darby in the Stationers' suit of 1709, bought copies of a sheet almanac from the Company's warehouse keeper and of the 1710 Merlinus Liberatus from Harris; he said in his formal answer to the charges of the Company that he had never to his knowledge disposed of any almanac "which had not been printed according to the said priviledge and having only bought a different Title containing noe part of a Calendar and therefore noe essentiall part of an Almanack, and for which hee humbly hopes if any person is Answerable it ought to be the said Benjamin Harris."[22]

The method used by Harris is best described in a Chancery record of 28 November 1710. The counsel for the Stationers alleged:

At this time in 1710 the Stationers prayed that the injunction formerly granted be extended to enjoin Harris from publishing the Merlinus Liberatus by J. Patridge, and the Court of Chancery so ordered.[24] The clerk of the Stationers refused to register in the Hall Book the copy of the 1711 Merlinus Liberatus by Harris, and this refusal was publicly recorded.[25] The Company promptly disclaimed in print the new Merlinus Liberatus as published by Harris "with an Almanack printed by Allowance" and pretended to be written by Partridge; the Company further denied that Harris's almanac had been registered at Stationers' Hall, announced that the High Court of Chancery had granted an injunction prohibiting the printing and sale of the said book, and stated that there would be no almanac by Partridge for 1711.[26] A year later the Company again requested an extension of the injunction against Harris, this time to prohibit his printing three certain almanacs for 1712, and again Chancery so ordered (P.R.O., C. 33/ 318/ 49-49v; 10 December 1711). And when Partridge prepared a 1714 almanac for the Stationers entitled Merlinus Redivivus, he said he could not doubt "that those beggarly Villains that have scarce Bread to eat without being Rogues, two or three poor Printers and a Bookbinder, with honest Ben, will be at their old Trade again, of Prophesying in my name," and gave a similar warning in his almanac for 1715 without naming the offender.

Such is the incomplete and varied evidence about Harris from the documents of Chancery, the records of the Stationers, and the advertisements in the periodic press. An additional archive of his piratical activity is the almanac itself that he succeeded in publishing, the

Merlinus Liberatus for 1710 and 1711, copies of which have quite recently become known and now confirm what may be surmised from the official records. The title page of each of these two almanacs is a close imitation of that of the legitimate Merlinus, but the subtitle has been altered from "Being an ALMANACK" to "(With an ALMANACK Printed by Allowance.)" The compiler's name is spelled Patridge. Each almanac was "Printed for the Author," not for the Company of Stationers, and the 1711 pamphlet contradicted the statement of the Stationers about registry at the Hall with the claim that it had been "Register'd in the HALL-BOOK of the Company of Stationers, pursuant to Act of Parliament." The first three leaves and the last five contain matter, in verse and prose, of a sort common to almanacs of the time or to Partridge's anti-French diatribes. Between the miscellaneous features are six leaves in which one page is devoted to each month and filled with a few lines of verse, some "Monthly Observations," and for 1710 "Remarkable Occurrences this Month" chosen from previous years and for 1711 "An Astrological Judgment."

The distinctive component is the Calendar. The year's quarters were cut from a folio sheet almanac, verso blank, of the kind that bore the name of Vincent Wing, and each section, measuring about 5 by 6½ inches, was folded down the middle and pasted at the folded edge to the inner margin of one of the three appropriate pages, i.e. in these copies the pages for the months of March, June, September, and November. The scissors and paste were clumsily applied, and the tipped-in portions are smaller than the book, so these factitious enterprises have a rather shoddy appearance. Obviously, Harris argued that by using a Calendar actually printed by allowance he might evade the injunction against his publication of the almanac.

At the end of the 1710 Merlinus there appears this particularly interesting sentence, signed J. P.: "Whereas it has been industriously given out by Bickerstaff Esq. and others, to prevent the Sale of this Years Almanac that John Partridge is Dead: This may inform all his Loving Countrymen that (blessed be God) he is still Living, in Health and they are Knaves that Reported otherwise." Such an advice in this place provides of course no sign of participation by Partridge himself. Harris permitted only one use of his own name in the two pamphlets — in the 1711 almanac advertisements were entered for four items sold by him, one devotional publication and three nostrums.

The manifest conclusion from these almanacs and from the official records is that Harris was certainly a nuisance to the Stationers. It is possible that his unauthorized work in 1708 or earlier somehow gave

Partridge and Darby the idea, or strengthened the notion, of establishing the Merlinus Liberatus as their own property despite the Stationers' monopoly, but it is not likely that his work in 1709 came in time to influence such a decision. During the closing months of 1709, when Partridge was restrained by Chancery and the conditions in the almanac business were somewhat confused, Harris, who was already an experienced pirate, captured this special opportunity to use Partridge's name and the title of his almanac, and he repeated the performance the following year. Under legal restriction himself, he bought legally published sheet almanacs, from which he extracted the essential Calendar and attached it to other pertinent matter, gave the almanac the popular title of Merlinus Liberatus, and signed it with the name of J. Patridge, a name close enough to that of the eminent astrologer to cheat the careless or unlettered eye. Thus honest Ben employed a real title and a near-name to escape the court and turn a bad penny. We may be reasonably certain that no almanac prepared by Partridge and sponsored by the Company was issued for 1710 or 1711, and without further testimony we must suppose that Partridge had no hand in the juggleries of Benjamin Harris, a knave of all trades.

Partridge Redivivus

During the months when the Chancery suit against Partridge was most active, when Mr. Bickerstaff was thriving as an editorial astrologer in the Tatler with Partridge still serving as an occasional target, and when Harris was contriving an illegal substitute for the proscribed ephemeris, the Stationers themselves elected to sponsor a new almanac which would perhaps take the place of the one stopped by the action of their suit. On 15 August 1709 the Warden spent several shillings "at ye Queens head with the Master &c about ye Tatlers Almanack." Quite probably the high officers realized that the profit from Partridge's almanac was lost to them indefinitely and an anti-Partridge almanac might subtract from that loss.

The plan was to produce not a tract mocking the almanac maker but an almanac itself, written under the name of Bickerstaff and continuing to ridicule the astrologer. This plot, or at least the title of the prospective pamphlet,[27] came to the notice of the Tatler's alert distaff rival, the Female Tatler, written by "Mrs. Crackenthorp, a Lady that

knows every thing," who thus began her fiftieth issue on the last day of October 1709: The all-knowledgeable lady then offers a preface she has somehow acquired; here Bickerstaff gives his reasons for considering Partridge dead and advances his own claims to see into all secret follies. A mediocre piece not worthy the signature of the male Tatler, or the female.

A good fortnight later the proper Mr. Bickerstaff announced at the end of Tatler No. 94 that his almanac would appear on the 22nd of November and "from that Instant, all Lovers, in Raptures or Epistles, are to forbear the Comparison of their Mistresses eyes to Stars, I having made Use of that Simile in my Dedication for the last Time it shall ever pass."[28] After such an announcement, specific in date and content, we are prepared for the publication of Bickerstaff's Almanack. It did appear — and on schedule, we may presume, with the other seasonal booklets — and Steele's own prediction was fulfilled in its dedication to Urania, which obviously held no resemblance to the preface devised by Mrs. Crackenthorpe.

Have we here a new bit of frolicsome prose by Richard Steele? The allusion in the Wardens' Accounts to the "Tatlers Almanack," the warning in the Tatler against the forthcoming conceit of a mistress's eyes, and the style itself are consistent with an attribution of this dedication to the editor of the Tatler papers.

This almanac was so unPartridgean that it had no prognostications at all but monthly observations of a horticultural character. It purported to be a vindication of the stars against the false assertions of the late Partridge and other mistaken astrologers, and it contained a sizable, sensible essay on almanacs proving "That the Art of Telling Fortunes, is an Imposture upon Innocent Persons by Mock-Astrologers and Gypsies" and twice naming Partridge. In a letter of testimonial about Partridge's death a Jeremy Wagstaff accused the astrologer (wrongly) of making a mistake in his prediction of a certain phase of the moon and then resorted to Swift's quibble that "No Man alive" could commit such an error.[29] The quality of the wit in the body of Bickerstaff's Almanack scarcely competes with that of the essays by the reigning Bickerstaff.[30] But this diversion in the controversy between Partridge and the Stationers raises questions. Did the Company design the almanac merely as a financial venture or as an experimental publication or only as a gesture against their forbidden writer? Did the Company contract with Steele to introduce and puff an almanac compiled by some hack astrologer? And who wrote the rational essay on prognostications?

Among the early and inevitable imitations of the Tatler there appeared Titt for Tatt in March 1710, closely imitative in format, devices, and contents. Its writer was "Jo. Patridge, Esq.," who had not died after all but instead had "only made a Tour for Conversation

amongst the Stars." His heavenly connections enabled him to find "a dreadful Fate hang over the Principal of the Family of the Staffs." Report discovers Bickerstaff in a vault in Lincoln's Inn, and on a visit to the tomb 'Squire Patridge is told: Titt for Tatt was an amiable and able follower of the Tatler, here worth remark as making a neat turn of the tables by a fictive Partridge against his "Ingenious Brother Bickerstaff."

Meanwhile Partridge's name had also appeared over several pamphlets. In 1709 there was Mr. Patridge's Judgment and Opinion of this Frost, comparing the current visitation with the great frost of 1683. And during his rustication two twelve-page tracts for the times also exploited the fame of this prophetical Doctor with the syncopated name. The Right and True Predictions of Dr. Patridge's Prophecy For the Year 1712 gave monthly observations on affairs in general, heavenly data, and forecasts of weather, as well as facts on the quarters, eclipses, and terms, and contained two handy lists: a "Speculum" by Mrs. Dorothy Patridge "foretelling the Good and Bad Days" for love or marriage or travel or removing or business by assigning a single descriptive phrase, as "indifferent good" or "very good" or "lucky" or "dangerous," and so on, and a final section setting down the rates for hackney coaches and chairs to all parts of London. For the next year Dr. Patridge's Most Strange and Wonderful Prophecy provided similar astrological judgments, but concluded with a list of the market towns in England and the day of the week "on which each of them are kept." The shade of Partridge was becoming a help to history.

No almanac by Partridge appeared for the years 1710 to 1713, but late in 1712 the officials of the Stationers began holding conferences about him and early in 1713 about the peril of counterfeit almanacs.[31] In May the Court of the Company ordered a committee to meet with Partridge and Darby "in order to accomodate the matters in Difference." The astrologer, through a representative, insisted on £150 for a licensed almanac that year, with the allowance in succeeding years to be negotiated. The Stationers agreed to give £100 "for this yeare for his Almanack in Expectacon there will be a Considerable Sale thereof,"

and thereafter to consent to a reasonable settlement, with an umpire if necessary. Partridge accepted this compromise and thus quite probably got a larger sum than he had ever obtained before (Stationers' Court Book G: 14 May, 1 June, 7 September 1713). In the regular announcement by the Stationers of the publication of all the almanacs for 1714, Partridge's work received special note, "not having been printed these four Years last past" (Post Boy, No. 2873, 8 October 1713). The injunction was of course still in force, but if the Stationers were ready to exploit their victory and found Partridge willing to reenter the ranks of their almanac makers, no one had cause to complain or demur.

For his resumed work Partridge revived one of his old titles, Merlinus Redivivus, and again called himself "A Lover of Truth." The portion worthy of remark is a letter to Bickerstaff on the verso of the title page. This was the injured astrologer's first chance in five years to answer his adversary in an almanac, and it must be said that he responded with temperance. Perhaps his sobriety here came from a sincere forgiveness or the weakness of age, perhaps from a desire to squeeze the last bit out of popular remembrance of the affair. In his final words on the matter, nearly three years after the end of Steele's Tatler, Partridge addresses Steele through Bickerstaff and condemns Swift by name.

For the next two years Partridge's ephemeris was called merely an Almanack with no distinguishing title, and bore the motto "Melius semel quam semper." Partridge died in 1715, but his almanacs for 1716 and 1717 carried the assurance that they had been "written with the Doctor's own hand." All of these almanacs were printed for the Stationers.

The 1717 almanac took its title from Partridge's greatest success — the Merlinus Liberatus, now a completely appropriate phrase — and it held the perfect motto, "Etiam mortuus loquitur." This actually dead Partridge continued to speak for more than a century and a half, with timely alterations of method as well as material, and thus became the nearest rival to Old Moore in posthumous longevity.[32] For frequency of publication Partridge had outlived many of his more worthy critics, at least in the use of a name.[33]

Notes