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Isaac Bickerstaff Esq was a pseudonym used by Jonathan Swift as part of a hoax to predict the death of then famous Almanac - maker, astrologer, and quack John Partridge. “All Fools Day” (now known as April Fools Day which falls on the 1st of April) was Swift’s favorite of holidays and he often used this day to aim his satirically biting wit at non-believers in an attempt to “make sin and folly bleed.” Disgruntled by Partridge’s sarcastic attack about the “infallible Church” written in his 1708 issue of Merlinus Almanac, Swift projected carefully 3 letters and one Eulogy as an elaborate plan to “predict” Partridge’s “infallible death” to be revealed on April 1st, All Fools Day. The first of the three letters, Predictions for the Year 1708, published in January of 1708, predicts, among other things, the death of Partridge by a “raging fever.” The second letter, The Accomplishment of the First of Mr. Bickerstaff’s Predictions, published in March of 1708, Swift writes not as Bickerstaff but as a “man employed in the Revenue” where he “confirms” the imaginary Bickerstaff’s prediction. To accompany The Accomplishments Swift also publishes a Eulogy for Partridge in which, typical of Swift’s satire, he blames not only Partridge, but those who purchase the Almanacs as well:
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