14, and lies with Penn in the Quaker's
burying-ground at New Jordan, Chalfont St. Giles.

We have now arrived at the pamphlets in our Miscellany bearing on the
reign of Queen Anne. First come the Partridge tracts. The history of the
inimitable hoax of which they are the record is full of interest. In
November 1707 Swift, then Vicar of Laracor, came over to England on a
commission from Archbishop King. His two satires, the _Battle of the
Books_ and the _Tale of a Tub_, published anonymously three years before,
had given him a foremost place among the wits, for their authorship was an
open secret. Though he was at this time principally engaged in the cause
of the Established Church, in active opposition to what he considered the
lax latitudinarianism of the Whigs on the one hand and the attacks of the
Freethinkers on the other, he found leisure for doing society another
service. Nothing was more detestable to Swift than charlatanry and
imposture. From time immemorial the commonest form which quackery has
assumed has been associated with astrology and prophecy. It was the
frequent theme or satire in the New Comedy of the Greeks and in the
Comedy of Rome; it has fallen under the lash of Horace and Juvenal;
nowhere is Lucian more amusing than when dealing with this species of
roguery. Chaucer with exquisite humour exposed it and its kindred alchemy
in the fourteenth century, and Ben Jonson and the author of _Albumazar_ in
the seventeenth. Nothing in _Hudibras_ is more rich in wit and humour than
the exposure of Sidrophel, and one of the best of Dryden's comedies is the
_Mock Astrologer_. But it was reserved for Swift to produce the most
amusing satire which has ever gibbeted these mischievous mountebanks.

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 Alm