Solomon's Secret Arts

by Paul Kléber Monod

  To be sure, Partridge gave some ground on heliocentrism, admitting that it helped in weather predictions. He also conceded that the reason for holding to geocentric aspects in astrology was not because the sun went around the earth, but because the movements of the heavens were perceived from the earth. Partridge may not have realized how significant an admission this was, as it suggested that astrology rested on the way movements of the stars were seen, rather than their real movements. Partridge did not dwell on it. Instead, he quickly moved back to his principal fixation: that the Hileg could only be calculated by using the old Ptolemaic methods. John Gadbury replied to this assertion in his almanac for 1698. He labelled Partridge's approach “Placidian,” from Placidus de Titus, a sixteenth-century Italian monk and mathematician. The epithet was loaded with implications, as Placidus's writings had been used by the Catholic Church to counter the Copernican theory.69 Hence, Gadbury was linking his virulently anti-Catholic foe with the scientific teachings of the Church of Rome. Gadbury found Placidus's theory of the Hileg as a specific predictor of the end of life to be “crazie and infirm.” He agreed that astrology needed reform, but not in this way.70

  Meanwhile, Partridge had widened his attacks to include other astrologers. He answered a challenge from the almanac writer George Parker with a withering reply, calling him both “a broken Jacobite Cutler” and a “Mountebank Conjurer” who relied on the methods of the German astronomer Johannes Kepler. According to Partridge, Kepler's heliocentric theories were devised “to puzzle and confound” astrologers. He further held Parker to be guilty of relying on the work of the astronomer Edmond Halley and of plagiarizing articles from the Philosophical Transactions.71 Once again, Partridge's fundamental hostility to recent scientific writings is evident. For his part, Parker threw back plenty of invective at “that silly and ill-bred Buffoon John Partridge,” although he acknowledged that some of his tables were derived from John Flamsteed.72

  Partridge made a more telling personal attack in his 1698 almanac, where he accused the almanac writer Henry Coley of selling sigils or charms. He even reproduced one of them: a round charm drawn on pasteboard with a complex diagram and the names of two angels, Sachiel and Raphael, on one side, while on the other side were astrological signs, a five-pointed star and the name of Raphael repeated. It sold for two guineas. Partridge then issued a bitingly sarcastic advertisement:

  Ladies and Gentlemen, you that are desirous of these ingenious deceipts and Delusions, pray repair to Baldwin's Gardens [Coley's residence], and there you may be furnish'd. One to keep your Gallants true to you is six Guineas. One to keep you from being yet with Child, four Guineas. One to make you fortunate in Play any one day, half a Crown. According to your Pocket, so your Price.73

  Partridge recommended that the sellers of charms be prosecuted as “Notorious Cheats.” Coley, a quiet man who was doubtless guilty of the charge, could only feebly protest against those who tell “A Thousand Lies of me.”74

  Partridge continued his criticism of the sellers of magical charms and sigils into the first decade of the eighteenth century. After the deaths of his rivals Gadbury and Coley, the magic-vendors became his main targets, along with Tories, Jacobites and the French. He took delight in the story of a conjuror near Aldgate church who had “a B—h of a Wife himself,” but did not hesitate to sell a charm to cure a gentleman's wife of her “Violence and Ill Nature.”75 At the same time, Partridge began to give ground on spirits. He did not deny the existence of “the Aerial Spirits and Angels, that can see the Clock-work of Nature in its original Motion, and are either sent or permitted sometimes to inform Mankind of their approaching Mischiefs.” While spirits were not able to know “the Secrets of Almighty God,” they might have “Prescience from the Order of things appointed, or else sent by a higher Power.” He admitted that “there is such a thing as a Second Sight, and that they do see such dreadful Appearances which prove too true afterward.”76 He was opposed, in short, to the commercialization of magic, not to the existence of supernatural forces. This anti-commercial scruple seems to have extended to medicines as well. Unlike most other almanac writers, Partridge did not include advertisements for proprietary medicines in his publication.

  Did John Partridge damage the reputation of astrology? It seems likely that he did, simply because he entered into so many angry confrontations with his brethren, denouncing them as cheats, mountebanks, etc. Partridge was nonetheless a popular writer, and he may have been gaining an audience for his own reformed version of astrology. The evidence of his astrological consultations suggests, surprisingly, that he was extremely well connected in elite social circles. They present an interesting contrast with a surviving casebook of John Gadbury, which covers the 1690s.

  The two casebooks record primarily nativities, the most difficult and expensive figures drawn up by astrologers, and they are limited to a few dozen examples. The absence of horary questions (specific queries about a decision or event) in Gadbury's casebook is striking, although it may be misleading; perhaps they were recorded elsewhere. Partridge thought they had nothing to do with true astrology. Compared to earlier periods, the impression remains that both astrologers were providing more detailed services to fewer clients, presumably for a higher price. Although the types of questions posed by their clients were similar, the approaches to astrological practice of these two professionals were very different.

  Gadbury's casebook is filled with mundane information about less famous people, including members of his own family. He was nonetheless conscious of status, and was proud to record that Dr Henry Brickhead or Bricket, Doctor of Civil Law, whose nativity was apparently cast after his death in 1696, had been “one of the best Grecians [i.e. scholars of Greek] in England,” as well as a poet and philosopher. More typical of his clients was “A Gentile Quaker woman, born in Rotterdam,” or “Mrs. Buster, Mrs. Wallis the Clockmakers friend.” Gadbury was consulted by numerous female clients, among them a Mrs Edwards of whom he noted “No Children yet in her 37y. of Age … Great differences wth her Husband … She never had her Mensural Reliefs.” Clearly, this was a worried woman, and it can be hoped that astrology allayed some of her anxiety. No personal issue was too weighty or too irrelevant for Gadbury; he drew up elections to determine the best timing for a marriage, and to find the most propitious moment for letting a house.77 In addressing the physical and psychological problems of his patients, Gadbury might be compared to a modern doctor or therapist, although we cannot be sure what sort of advice he gave.

  He seems to have made a speciality of cases involving suspicions of witchcraft. This is shown by the notes attached to the nativity of William Hoare of Great Tew, Oxfordshire, who “is swell'd in's Ankles & stung wth humours running abt. Him, as wth Bees, Restles, &c. So tht he thinks himselfe bewitch'd.”78 Some years earlier, Gadbury had published in his almanac the story of Elizabeth Holbron, a widow “who pretended to be haunted by an evil Spirit, which none but herself could see.” Gadbury visited her at her home near Westminster Abbey and drew up a geniture, showing her to be “Popular,” probably meaning gregarious, melancholy and “flagitiously hypocritical.” Noting her bad relationship with her late husband, by whose ghost she believed herself to have been impregnated, Gadbury opined “that she might be haunted by the terrors of Conscience, as well as with the Spirit of lying and deceit; whence, what she feign'd her self possessed of at first, turn'd to a disease at last.” When her deception was discovered, she moved to the other end of town and died within a month. Gadbury did not deny the reality of witches, but he denounced astrologers “who, (with great impudence, and greater fraud) have pretended to discover and cure witchcraft by the Stars … Astrology teacheth no such thing.”79

  John Partridge's casebook is peppered with caustic remarks. Partridge drew up numerous nativities of famous people, including King Frederick Augustus of Poland (“A damn'd Knave”) and King Charles XII of Sweden, of whom he commentes “it was this Horrid fellow that supported ffrance and kept up the War.�
� Frederick IV of Denmark is described as “one of the Northern Tyrants,” which reflects Partridge's strong Whig opinions.80 In spite of his partisan affiliations, Partridge's customers were a mixture of Whigs and Tories, and of higher social standing than Gadbury's. Among them, surprisingly enough, were the leading Tory politicians Robert Harley and Henry St John, “Called Bullinbrook.” Partridge was cutting in his assessment of Tories, writing of the earl of Salisbury that he had “an ill Nativity his wife and he will differ, and he will prove an odd Man.” He added that, in 1707, the earl “went to the University of Oxford in the spring to be poisoned in his principles by that Horrid breed of— [Jacobites].”81 Without doubt, this casebook was for Partridge's personal use, and was not intended to be seen by clients. It displays a remarkable self-confidence, as well as an insistence on accuracy. Of the duke of Marlborough's nativity, which he derived from another astrologer, Partridge wrote that it had been altered “by a direction not true; for I am sure it was not given to 52 minutes … This Can not be this Mans true lines of Birth, because by this he had the Ascendant directed to the body of Saturn just before the victory at Hochsted or Blenheim.”82

  Only ten of the forty-one nativities in this notebook are of women, and several of them are the female children of male clients. This may reflect the expense as well as the exclusiveness of Partridge's consultations. He seems to have appealed mainly to wealthy, well-established men and their families, rather than to young people, women or those of the middling sort. With his sarcastic sense of humour, Partridge may not have been very good at giving the kind of personal advice that seems to have been valued by ordinary clients. Like his rival Gadbury, however, he did a good deal of business interpreting medical ailments. William Aldersey “was taken with a disorder in his head and a kind of Loss of sense & Reason.” General Charles Churchill “began to drivel about Christmas, at which time or a little before, A fitt of the palsy in his tongue & one side.”83 Partridge carefully recorded the past illnesses of his clients, which might affect his reading of a nativity or give him clues to future health. In the case of viscount Bolingbroke, bouts of childhood sickness were written down, probably by a secretary who then transferred the information to Partridge. It seems unlikely that the Tory politician visited the Whig astrologer in person. Partridge also drew up the nativities of people who were already dead, apparently in order to determine the astrological circumstances connected with their demise. This may have been in order to prove his theories about the Hileg.

  In 1708, Partridge finally met his nemesis in the form of “Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire,” alias Jonathan Swift. This was not the first time Partridge had been attacked by a Tory wit. For twenty years, he had been a target for the satirists Tom Brown and Ned Ward.84 Swift added a series of twists to the satirical knife-thrust, however, by parodying Partridge's own attitude to astrology. He lamented “the gross Abuse of Astrology in this Kingdom,” which had led learned men to contend “that the whole is a Cheat.” Bickerstaff ascribed the low state of the celestial art to “a few mean illiterate Traders between us and the Stars; who import a yearly Stock of Nonsense, Lies, Follies and Impertinence.” So far, Partridge himself could have written the pamphlet. Abruptly, however, the tone changes, as Bickerstaff wonders at the gullibility of country gentlemen who plan their hunting matches according to the weather predictions of Gadbury (who was long dead) or Partridge. Both were “not only Astrologers, but Conjurors too” (this was a particularly low blow at Partridge, who hated conjurors); they were poor writers; and their vague predictions “will equally suit any Age, or Country in the World.”85

  The remainder of the pamphlet consisted of Bickerstaff's own ludicrously precise predictions. The most outrageous was one the author described as “but a Trifle”: namely, that John Partridge “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.”86 This was obviously a joke about Partridge's own obsession with the Hileg or predictor of death. The irascible Partridge replied with a pamphlet vilifying his antagonist as a cheat and a “rare Conjurer,” who by predicting his death was making a threat on his life.87

  On 30 March 1708, Swift published a now very rare pamphlet, declaring that the prediction had come true and that Partridge had indeed died on the previous night. Some months later, as he was preparing his almanac for 1709, the abused astrologer saw fit to insert a brief paragraph asserting that he was actually still alive and in good health. He called the satirist, whose identity he did not know, “an Impudent Lying Fellow.” In response, “Bickerstaff” appealed to “the learned World” against the “ungentlemanly Manner” in which Partridge had treated him—and proposed to demonstrate that the astrologer was, in fact, dead. That he continued to write an almanac was no proof that he was alive, he said, since the names of many dead astrologers still appeared on their former works. In this hilarious riposte, Swift claimed that Partridge “pretends to tell Fortunes, and recover stolen Goods; which all the Parish says he must do by conversing with the Devil, and other evil Spirits.”88 Partridge must have been livid.

  How damaging was Swift's scuffle with Partridge to contemporary astrology? Nobody could have been more critical of the celestial art as it was then practised than Partridge himself. Swift's satire implied, however, that educated people should not put their confidence in any predictions that rested on such shaky premises, and were issued from such uneducated sources. His emphasis was on the social vulgarity of astrology. Bickerstaff refrained from reviling Partridge as a Whig or Dissenter. Instead, what disgusted him, not just about Partridge but about all astrologers, was their low birth, poor education, bad writing and general lack of genteel manners. Partridge had noticed this condescending tone, which is why he called his antagonist “Mr. Esquire” and wrote of himself in mock disparagement as “a Poor Cobling Almanack-maker.” Bickerstaff maintained that he was actually standing up for “the Republick of Letters,” meaning men of polite manners, refined knowledge and good taste. The same values informed Richard Steele's weekly magazine The Tatler, where the comments of Bickerstaff, the magazine's fictional editor, on Partridge's death became a running joke.89

  Like alchemy, then, astrology was cast further into the cultural depths after 1700 by men of wit and fashion. Its fall was more noticeable because it enjoyed so much publicity. The wits, however, did not give it the initial shove out of the heavens. The astrologers themselves had done that, by failing to reconcile their art with intellectual change. While John Partridge bears a lot of the blame for astrology's loss of prestige, on account of his constant attacks on the methods of other astrologers and his dogged refusal to assimilate Newtonian science, it would be a mistake to see him simply as a wrecking ball. He genuinely wanted to set astrology on firmer foundations. Unfortunately, these were derived from mid-seventeenth-century models. Like so many alchemists, Partridge was a relic of puritanism, which had sought to wipe out all traces of Popery and superstition. He had little in common with moderate, sophisticated and polite Whigs like Steele or his collaborator Joseph Addison, latitudinarians who rejected extreme views and venerated rational order in Church and State—even if one of them was not beyond a little dabbling in alchemy.

  Partridge certainly had a popular audience, as his almanac sold better than any of its competitors. This became obvious in 1709–12, when he entered into the last fight of his career, with the Stationers’ Company itself. Claiming control over his own writings, he sold the publication rights for his almanac directly, instead of accepting the Company's annual stipend. As a result, the Stationers brought out their own edition of Partridge's almanac, which appeared for three years without his participation or consent. Partridge protested that this was an unlawful extension of the crown's prerogative over the press, and sued. “Having resisted the tyranny of James II,” he wrote, “I could not be so inconsistent with my self, as supinely to submit to the Tyranny of my Fellow-Subjects.”90 In the end, the Company agreed to
pay him £100 a year, far more than any other almanac writer had ever received. He died two years later, in 1715, just after the accession of George I. His will includes over £2,000 in legacies, showing that Partridge was a relatively wealthy man.91 Typically, he had quarrelled with his chief pupil, Francis Moore, after Moore had founded his own almanac in 1706. Moore was not mentioned in the will, but he had learned much from his erstwhile master, including the importance of appealing directly to the less educated.

  The audience for astrology still included amateurs, such as Norris Purslow, a clothier of Wapping who may have been a Quaker. He composed an astrological record of his entire life, including “My First Perriwig I ever wore” in 1698, his arrests for debt, his authorship of astrological treatises and his second wife running off with another man in 1723. He knew Partridge and became a member of an “Astrological Club” at Tower Hill in 1703. Purslow's annual account, which runs to the late 1740s, gives no indication of a decline in the appeal of astrology.92 Another dedicated amateur was Samuel Hieron, who drew up a collection of nativities between about 1690 and 1723. Hieron was the son of an ejected Presbyterian minister of the same name.93 His origins lay in the West Country, but he lived close to London. Like other astrologers, Hieron enjoyed making nativities of famous people from the past, including Pico and Agrippa, and of current celebrities, but he also made them for his family, friends and neighbours. They included a merchant, a clerk in the customs house and other people of small importance. One of them was a soldier who “was soe addicted to lying that scarce any encouragement whatsoever woulde make him speake truth: he loved lying as an ambitious man doth honour.”94 Many women appear in Hieron's collection, including Mrs M. Brigham, who died in 1710 at the age of sixty-one. She “was a smart ingenious person & the most accurate in astrolgye that I ever did converse [with] … her husband had another wife if no more,” and she lived with him only a year before they separated.95 Women never appear in the ranks of professional astrologers in this period, but Mrs Brigham raises the possibility that some of them knew more about the heavens than printed sources would lead us to believe. The ordinary folk who populate Hieron's notebook also remind us of astrology's continuing popularity in the early eighteenth century. In spite of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, the celestial art was not quite dead and buried.