When Lilly died, the Company employed his pupil Gadbury; and when Gadbury died, his relative, Job Gadbury, prophesied through another generation of credulous dupes. Then came the infamous John Partridge, who was pilloried by Swift’s wicked wit in 1709. But at that time he had been prophesying for the Stationers’ Company forty years. After Swift’s attack, he refused to predict, and the Company, who did not like to be laughed out of the profits of his reputation, published an almanac which had Partridge’s name to it, but which Partridge never wrote. This almanac was still dragging on an existence in 1828, with the sins of a century and a half on its head. Francis Moore began his career of imposture in 1698, and _Poor Robin_, the ribald hoary jester of the Company, about the same time. A dozen years after the Restoration, it also published a _Yea and Nay Almanac for the People called by the men of the world, Quakers_. A more atrocious libel on their faith and morals it is impossible to imagine. In 1775, an enterprising bookseller called Carnan became possessed with the idea that this corporation had no legal right to its monopoly in almanacs, and he published one of his own. The Company sent him to prison as regularly as he sold his annual commodities; but Carnan was not a man to be put down. It is said he always kept a clean shirt in his pocket, ready for a decent appearance before the magistrates; and at length the Common Pleas decided in his favour. Then the Stationers’ Company appealed to Lord North; and as that minister wanted prophecies to make the war against the American colonies popular, he brought in a bill to the House of Commons re-investing the Company with the monopoly which had been declared illegal. The two universities also—which had an annuity from the Company—used all their influence against the solitary bookseller. But he had a good cause, and he had Erskine to plead it; and he triumphed. When the French Revolution came, Moore was more terrific in his prophecies and more awful in his hieroglyphics than ever. The people wondered and trembled, and the sale of this almanac reached a point without parallel in the annals of imposture. But the continent of Europe had a rival even to Moore in the famous almanac of Liége. A tradition ascribes it first to a canon who lived in 1590. Its early numbers are published ‘with the permission of the superior powers;’ the later ones are content with ‘the favour of His Highness.’ It is full of political predictions. In 1700, a French almanac called the _Almanach Royal_ started a new idea, the one which has since made the _Almanach de Gotha_ so famous—it gave the names and birthdays of all the princes and princesses in Europe, lists of clergy, bar, army, and diplomatic corps. The latter almanac has been brought to a high pitch of perfection, and contains a vast amount of valuable and well-assorted information.