Merlinus Verax, T. N. Philomath, and the Merlin Tradition: Print Contexts for Swift’s A Famous Prediction of Merlin (1709)

Swift’s A Famous Prediction of Merlin (1709), a coda to his attack on the Whig astrologer John Partridge in the Bickerstaff hoax of the previous year, features a woodcut which can be shown to have been taken from a block adapted from one twice used by Partridge in publications issued by Richard Baldwin in the 1690s to caricature the Tory astrologer John Gadbury. A reexamination of A Famous Prediction in this light shows that this sham prophecy made available to informed readers a potential network of links to previous publications, suggesting that Swift, whether relying on his own existing knowledge or on information relayed through his contacts, was in this hoax deploying significant references not only to the print history of the late seventeenth century but also to the origins of printing in England.