“The Accomplishment of the first of Mr. Bickerstaff’s Predictions, being an Account of the Death of Mr. Partridge, the Almanack-Maker, upon the 29th instant in a Letter to a Person of Honour, written in the year 1708,” continues the jocularity. “My Lord: In obedience to your Lordship’s commands, as well as to satisfy my own curiosity, I have some days past inquired constantly after Partridge the Almanack-maker, of whom it was foretold in Mr. Bickerstaff’s Predictions, published about a month ago, that he should die the 29th instant, about eleven at night, of a raging fever.... I saw him accidentally once or twice, about ten days before he died, and observed he began very much to droop and languish, though I hear his friends did not seem to apprehend him in any danger. About two or three days ago he grew ill, ... but when I saw him he had his understanding as well as ever I knew, and spoke strong and hearty, without any seeming uneasiness or constraint [saying].... ‘I am a poor ignorant fellow, bred to a mean trade, yet I have sense enough to know that all pretences of foretelling by astrology are deceits for this manifest reason: because the wise and the learned, who can only judge whether there be any truth in this science, do all unanimously agree to laugh at and despise it; and none but the poor, ignorant vulgar give it any credit, and that only upon the word of such silly wretches as I and my fellows, who can hardly write or read.’... “After half an hour’s conversation I took my leave, being almost stifled with the closeness of the room. I imagined he could not hold out long, and therefore withdrew to a little coffee-house hard by, leaving a servant at the house with orders to come immediately and tell me, as near as he could, the minute when Partridge should expire, which was not above two hours after.” The burlesque next before the public, “Squire Bickerstaff detected; or, the Astrological Impostor convicted, by John Partridge, student of physic and astrology, a True and Impartial account of the Proceedings of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., against me,” was doubtless drawn up by Addison’s friend Yalden, whom Scott speaks of as “Partridge’s near neighbor.”