Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/351

 1579. 4. ‘A right comfortable Treatise conteining sundrye pointes of consolation for them that labour & are laden. Written by D. Martin Luther to Prince Friderik, Duke of Saxonie; being sore sicke. … Englished by W. Gace,’ 8vo, London, 1580.

[Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 22–3; Brit. Mus. Cat.] 

GADBURY, JOHN (1627–1704), astrologer, born at Wheatley in Oxfordshire on 31 Dec. 1627, was son of William Gadbury, farmer, by ‘his stolen wife’ (, Bliss, iv. 9), a Roman catholic, the daughter of Sir John Curson of Waterperry, knt. Curson seems to have disinherited his daughter, and the boy was apprenticed to Thomas Nicholls, an Oxford tailor, but left him in 1644. A partial reconciliation with his grandfather, Sir John Curson, enabled John Gadbury to be educated at Oxford. He joined a merchant adventurer named Thorn, living near Strand bridge, London, and married about 1648. He joined successively the presbyterians, the independents, and the ‘family of love,’ then under Abiezer Coppe [q. v.] Gadbury appears to have left him in 1651, by which time he was intimate with William Lilly [q. v.], Butler's ‘Sidrophel.’ In 1652 he returned to Oxfordshire to visit his grandfather, Sir John, and settled to study astrology under Dr. N. Fiske. He answered William Brommerton's ‘Confidence Dismantled,’ &c., 1652, in ‘Philastrogus' Knavery Epitomized, with a Vindication of Mr. Culpepper, Mr. Lilly, and the rest of the Students in that noble Art,’ &c., ‘written by J. G[adbury], a lover of all ingenious arts and artists, Aprill the 5, 1651.’ In 1654 he published ‘Animal Cornutum, or the Horn'd Beast, wherein is contained a brief method of the grounds of Astrology.’ In 1655 he presented to Sir John Curson the first of a long series of annual ‘Ephemerides.’ In 1656 he published his ‘Emendation’ of Hartgil's ‘Astronomical Tables,’ and also his own ‘Cœlestis Legatus, or the Celestial Ambassadour, astronomically predicting the grand Catastrophe that is probable to befall the most of the kingdoms and countries of Europe,’ two parts, 1656, 4to. In 1658 he published ‘Genethlialogia, or the Doctrine of Nativities,’ and ‘The Doctrine of Horary Questions, Astrologically handled’ (with his portrait engraved by T. Cross). In ‘Nebulo Anglicanus’ Partridge asserts that he meant to dedicate the ‘Doctrine of Nativities’ to Cromwell, and accuses him of becoming a royalist upon the Restoration. In August 1659 he published ‘The Nativity of the late King Charls [sic], Astrologically and Faithfully performed, with Reasons in Art of the various success and mis-fortune of His whole Life. Being (occasionally) a brief History of our late unhappy Wars,’ still worth study. In 1659 he also published ‘The King of Sweden's Nativity,’ and probably ‘Nuncius Astrologicus’ and ‘Britain's Royal Star.’ In 1660 appeared his treatise on the ‘Nature of Prodigies,’ praising Fiske and mocking Lilly for having been indicted as a cheat before a Hicks's Hall jury in 1654. By 22 Nov. 1661 had appeared ‘Britain's Royal Star, or An Astrological Demonstration of England's future Felicity,’ founded on the position of the stars at the date of Charles II's proclamation as king.

In 1665 he published ‘De Cometis, or A Discourse of the Natures and Effects of Comets, with an account of the three late Comets in 1664 and 1665,’ ‘London's Deliverance from the Plague of 1665,’ and ‘Vox Solis; or A Discourse of the Sun's Eclipse, 22 June 1666’ (dedicated to Elias Ashmole). Previous to 1667 he published his ‘Collection of Nativities’ and ‘Dies Novissimus; or Dooms-Day not so near as dreaded.’ According to John Partridge [q. v.] Gadbury in 1666 had removed from Jewin Street to Westminster, where he attended the abbey each Sunday. Partridge maliciously accuses him of debauchery in 1667, and of complicity in the murder of one Godden, who had recently indicted him at the sessions. He published little except ‘A brief Relation of the Life and Death of Mr. V. Wing,’ 1669, 1670, his annual ‘Ephemerides,’ and his West India or ‘Jamaica Almanack’ for 1674, until 1675, when appeared his ‘Obsequium Rationabile; or A Reasonable Service performed for the Cœlestial sign Scorpio, in 20 remarkable genitures of that glorious but stigmatized Horoscope, against the malitious and false attempts of that grand (but fortunate) IMPOSTOR, Mr. William Lilly.’ In 1677 appeared ‘The Just and Pious Scorpionist; or the Nativity of that thrice excellent man, Sir Matthew Hales, born under the Cœlestial Scorpion.’ By 1678 he had possibly been received into the church of Rome, but this is extremely doubtful, and he was suspected of participation in some ‘popish plots.’ He was the accredited author of the clever narrative ballad, in four parts, 1679, ‘A Ballad upon the Popish Plot’ (Bagford Ballads). Thomas Dangerfield [q. v.] professed to have had eight meetings with Gadbury in September 1679, at the house of Mrs. Elizabeth Cellier [q. v.] Gadbury was summoned as a witness against Cellier at her trial in June 1680, and testified in her favour, having known her ten or twelve years (Case of Thomas Dangerfield, &c, together with John