John Partridge (astrologer) - Swift Hoax

Swift Hoax

In the 1708 edition of the Merlinus Almanac, Partridge sarcastically referred to the Church of England as the "infallible Church". This drew the attention of satirist and Irish cleric Jonathan Swift. Playing on Partridge's own (generally inaccurate) yearly predictions of deaths of notable individuals, Swift, writing under the pseudonym Isaac Bickerstaff, predicted in a letter published in January 1708 that Partridge himself would die an "infallible death" on March 29 of that year. On that date, Swift published another letter (purportedly by a "man employed in the Revenue") confirming Partridge's death. The letter was reprinted by other writers and publishers along with its accompanying eulogy:

Here five foot deep lyes 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.

When Partridge published a letter proclaiming that he had not in fact died, Swift announced that his letter was false, as "they were sure no man alive ever to writ such damned stuff as this." Partridge's intense unpopularity among Church supporters, those whose deaths he had falsely predicted, anti-Whigs, and those who felt his "astrology" was in reality quackery kept the hoax going long after Swift finally dispensed with it. Partridge reportedly suffered from the effects of the hoax for the rest of his life.