Joanidion Fielding’s Account of the Comet (1716)

Faithful Account of the Strange and MiraculousComet which was seen by the Mufti at Constantinople appeared in London as a folio of six pages around the end of 1716.It carries the imprint of the Catholic bookseller Edward Ber(r)ington, who published mostly Tory and High Church items. 1 Today we might suppose that this odd title would immediately alert potential readers to the fact that they were encountering a hoax rather than a serious account of a modern wonder.Besides, careful students of contemporary literature might have thought that the supposed author, named as "E.Parker, Philomath," looked a little fishyfor one thing, the label "philomath" had recently been used by Jonathan Swift as part of a joking pseudonym, as well as by the highly suspicious "Jeremy Thacker" in a satire on the quest for a way to find the longitude at sea (on the authorship see Lynall 4-6).However, this same descriptor was used by authentic mathematicians, while there was also a wellknown author of astrological almanacs named George Parker.How could a customer in Berington's shop rule out the possibility that this was one more dire warning, in the tradition of men like the celebrated astrologer John Partridge, whom Swift had consigned to a living death, just a few years before?The name "Joanidion" is admittedly bizarre, with a faint recollection of Jedidiah, but not much more outlandish than that of almanac-makers who had delighted in the names of Old Testament prophets such as Ezekiel Bretnor or Jeremiah Shakerley.In addition, the pamphlet came out at a time when considerable interest had been aroused in Britain by recent celestial phenomena, including a total eclipse of the sun and a nova in the previous year, followed by a bright display of aurora borealis a few months later.The last of these was thought by many to be a comet, though Edmond Halley was able to give a more accurate description (see Halley 1162-83).The everexcitable William Whiston, who had earlier suggested that the biblical Flood had been caused by the effects of a comet, was still promoting apocalyptic theories about cosmic events (Whiston 148).Moreover, considerable attention was given in the press to the military and diplomatic activities of the Ottoman empire in the Mediterranean and Balkan sphere.As a result, it was only if buyers were willing to fork out threepence to consult the text of the pamphlet that they could be sure that it was indeed entirely satiric in nature.The work falls into two sections.The first part, running to about 1,200 words of continuous prose, is written in the voice of Joanidion Fielding, and sets out his claims to eminence before giving a description of a comet recently seen in Constantinople, together with reactions and interpretations in its aftermath.The remaining 660 words consist of brief gnomic prophecies regarding the impact of the comet on individuals and events in London.These resemble the utterances of traditional almanacs, but the closest parallel for those who have cracked the code will be Swift's Predictions for the Year 1708, written in the guise of "Isaac Bickerstaff Esq."Little attention has been paid to the True and Faithful Account, as only three extant copies are known, and it has never been reprinted.Twentieth-century scholars briefly noted its possible association with the works of the so-called Scriblerian group

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