John Partridge, whose real name is said to have been Hewson, was born on
the 18th of January 1644. He began life, it appears, as a shoemaker; but
being a youth of some abilities and ambition, had acquired a fair
knowledge of Latin and a smattering of Greek and Hebrew. He had then
betaken himself to the study of astrology and of the occult sciences.
After publishing the _Nativity of Lewis XIV._ and an astrological essay
entitled _Prodromus_, he set up in 1680 a regular prophetic almanac,
under the title of _Merlinus Liberatus_. A Protestant alarmist, for such
he affected to be, was not likely to find favour under the government of
James II., and Partridge accordingly made his way to Holland. On his
return he resumed his Almanac, the character of which is exactly
described in the introduction to the _Predictions_, and it appears to
have had a wide sale. Partridge, however, was not the only impostor of
his kind, but had, as we gather from notices in his Almanac and from his
other pamphlets, many rivals. He was accordingly obliged to resort to
every method of bringing himself and his Almanac into prominence, which
he did by extensive and impudent advertisements in the newspapers and
elsewhere. In his Almanac for 1707 he issues a notice warning the public
against impostors usurping his name. It was this which probably attracted
Swift's attention and suggested his mischievous hoax.

The pamphlets tell their own tale, and it is not necessary to tell it
here. The name, Isaac Bickerstaff, which has in sound the curious
propriety so characteristic of Dickens's names, was, like so many of the
names in Dickens, suggested by a name on a sign-board, the name of a
locksmith in Long Acre. The second tract, purporting to be written by a
revenue officer, and giving an account of Partridge's death, was, of
course, from the pen of Swift. The verses on Partridge's death appeared
anonymously on a separate sheet as a broadside. It is amusing to learn
that the tract announcing Partridge's death, and the approaching death of