610
HISTORY OF PRINTING.
1715, April 18. Messrs. Watson and Mawson apprehended for printing a paper containing
reflections on the king's speech ; and Kel-
sey also taken up for dispersing the same.
1715. Barnard Lintot,* Jacob Tonson, and William Taylor, were appointed printers of the Totes to the house of commons, by the Hon. Spencer Compton, then speaker. They held this office till 1727.
1716. Eucwv M«po/3i/3Xoc4 j sive lam Lihel- lorum ; or, a History of Pamphlets,^ tracing out their rise, growth, and different views of all sorts of small tracts or writings, both collectively and singly, in a general and gradual representation of their respective authors, collections of their several editions, &c. 8vo. I By a Gentleman of the Inns of Court. Myles Davies.
Myles Davies and his works are imperfectly known to the most curious of our literary collec- tors. He was a Welch clergyman, of the most fervent loyalty to George I. and the Hanoverian succession ; a scholar, learned in Greek and Latin, and skilled in all the modern languages. Quitting hisnative country in disgust, he changed his character in the metropolis, for he subscribes himself " counsellor at law." In an evil hour he commenced author, not only surrounded by his books, but with the more urgent companions of a wife and family; and with the child-like rimplicity which sometimes marks the mind of a retired scholar, we perceive him imagining that his immense reading would prove a source, not easily exhausted, for their subsistence. By his account, "The avarice of booksellers, and the stinginess of hard-hearted patrons, had driven him into a cursed company of door-keeping herds, to meet the irrational brutality of tuose uneducated, mischievous animals called foot- men, house-porters, poetasters, mumpers, apothecaries, attorneys, and such like beasts of prey," who were, like himself, sometimes barred up for hours in the menagerie of a great man's anti- chamber. In his addresses to doctors Mead and Freind he declares, " My misfortunes drive me to publish my writings for a poor livelihood; and nothing but the utmost necessity could make any man in his senses to endeavour at it in a method so burthensome to the modesty and edu- cation of a scholar." For fmlher particulars of this extraordinary writer, and of his hard fate, see the Calamities of Authors, vol. i. pp. 67-80.
1715, June 24. Died, John Partridge (if that was indeed his real name,J had the fortune to procure a ludicrous immortality, by attracting the satire of dean Swift. He was the author of various astrological treatises; and the editor of an almanack, under the title of Martimu Libe- raius. Swift, in ridicule of the whole class of impostors, and of this man in particular, pub- lished his celebrated Predictions for the year
- Jmhitt Untot, Jacob Tonaon, Timothy Goodwin,
and Jtdin Boberta, held the tame appointment from 1708 to 1710, whllat sir Richard Onslow was speaker.
t For the meaning of the word pamphlet, see p. 188, ante.
t This nre book forms the first volume of the Alhtn» Brilannict.
1708, by Isaac Bickerstaff,* Esq.," whicfa j among other prognostications, annoonoed, with the most happy assumptions of the mixture of caution and precision affected by these »mniml soothsayers, an event of no less importance tiHU the death of John Partridge himself, whicb be fixed to the 29th of March, about eleven at night. The wrath of this astrologer was, of course, extreme ; and in his almanack for 1709, he was at great puns to inform his lormg countr3rmen that squire Bickerstaff was a alum name, assumed by a lying, impudent fellow, and that, " blessed be God, John Partridge w^s still living, and in health, and all were knaves ifho reported otherwise."
There were two incidental circnmstances wortliy of notice in this ludicrous debate, which had been carried on by both parties : First, The in- quisition of the kingdom of Portugal took the matter as seriously as John Partridge, and gravdy condemned to the flames the predictions of the imaginary Isaac Bickerstaff. 2ndly, By an odd coincidence, the company of stationers obtained in 1709, an injunction against any almanack published under the name of John Partridge, as if the poor man bad been dead in sad eameat. It is astonishing what a number of persons bailt their faith on the prediction, and actually be- lieved the accomplishment had taken place, in all respects accorung to the relation. The wits of the time too, among whom were Steele and Addison,supported Swift, and uniformly affirmed that Partridge had died on the day and hour predicted. But the most memorable consequence of the predictions of Isaac Bickerstaff, was the establishment of the same name by Steele, in the Tatler. The following is the epitaph which was written by dean Swift, upon John Partridge.
Here, five feet deep, lies on his h»A A cobler, star-monger, and quack ; Who to the stars in pure good-wUl, Does to his best looii npirard still. Weep all yon customeia that use His pills, bis Almanacks, or shoes : And yon that did your fortunes seek. Step to his grave but once a week : This earth which bears his body's print. You'll And has so much virtae int. That, I durst pawn my ears, twill tdl Whate'er concerns yoo, fall as well. In physic, stolen goods, or lore. As he himself conld, when above.
Little is known of Partridge's private history, except from an altercation betwixt him and one Parker, which, of course, involved much per- sonal abuse. According to his adversary. Par- tridge's real name was Hewsun, a shoemaker by trade, (which particular, at least, is undoubted^ but by choice a confederate and dependent of Old Gadbury, one of the greatest knaves who
- Swift wanting a lodicrons name to adorn his predic-
tions with, accidentally observed a sign over a locknnitib*8 house, with the name of Bicktnt^f underneath it. TUi struck him as adapted to his purpose, and adding the no very conunon name of Itaae, he imagined he had fbraied an unprecedented conjunction j in this, however, he mM mistaken, for some time afterwards a man was found in London, who owned both names.
Bicker$tq0^ unburied Dead; a melo drama, price one shilling. Published by Dodd. January, I7«3.
VjOOQ IC
