What a chance for the lovers of scandal, and doubtless they readily availed themselves of it. Many a hearty laugh must Steele have had over the communications received, and many of them must have afforded him the groundwork for satires, which at the time must have struck home indeed. In the following year “Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire,” seems to have taken it into his head that John Partridge, the astrologer, ought to be dead, if he really was not, and so inserted a series of advertisements to the effect that that worthy had really departed this life, which, however amusing to the Tatler folk and the public, seem to have nearly driven the stargazer wild.1 One of the best of this series, which appears on August 10, 1710, runs thus:—
WHEREAS an ignorant Upstart in Astrology has publicly endeavoured to persuade the world that he is the late John Partridge, who died the 28 of March 1718, these are to certify all whom it may concern, that the true John Partridge was not only dead at that time but continues so to the