Jack Adams, the Astrologer
Among the celebrities of Clerkenwell Green was Jack Adams, whose nativity was calculated by Partridge, who affirmed that he was born on the 3rd of December, 1625, and that he was so great a natural, or simpleton, as to be obliged to wear long coats, besides other marks of stupidity; and that the parish not only maintained him, but allowed a nurse to attend him to preserve him from harm. Allusion is made to him in a satirical ballad of 1655:—
Jack Adams, sure, was pamet (poet) by the vein.
And in the Wits, or Sport upon Sport, 1682, we read of his visit to the Red Bull playhouse, where Simpleton, the smith, appearing on the stage with a large piece of bread-and-butter, Jack Adams, knowing him, cried out, “Cuz, Cuz, give me some,” to the great pleasure of the audience. Ward thus mentions his celebrity:—
What mortal that has sense or thought
Would strip Jack Adams of his coat;
Or who would be by friends decoyed
To wear a badge he would avoid?
Jack Adams was a conjurer and professor of the celestial sciences; he was (says Granger’s Supplement) “a blind buzzard, who pretended to have the eyes of an eagle. He was chiefly employed in horary questions, relative to love and marriage, and knew, upon proper occasions, how to soothe and flatter the expectations of those who consulted him, as a man might have much better fortune from him for five guineas than for the same number of shillings. He affected a singular dress, and cast horoscopes with great solemnity. When he failed in his predictions, he declared that the stars did not absolutely force, but powerfully incline, and threw the blame upon wayward and perverse fate. He assumed the character of a learned and cunning man; but was no otherwise cunning than as he knew how to overreach those credulous mortals who were as willing to be cheated as he was to cheat them, and who relied implicitly upon his art.” Mr. Warner says: “A short time after we removed into the house (No. 7, Clerkenwell Green), two young women applied to have their fortunes told; upon being informed they were under some mistake, one expressed great surprise, and stated that was the place she always came to, and she thought some of Mr. Adams’s family always resided there. This was the first time I ever heard anything of Jack Adams. Several similar applications were made by other persons, and we afterwards learnt that it had been occupied by persons of that profession for many years, and they generally went by the name of Adams.”15
In an old print we have Jack Adams in a fantastic dress, with a tobacco-pipe in his girdle, standing at a table on which lies a horn-book and Poor Robin’s Almanack. On one shelf is a row of books, and on another several boys’ playthings, particularly tops, marbles, and a small drum. Before him is a man genteelly dressed, presenting five pieces; from his mouth proceeds a label, inscribed, “Is she a princess?” This is meant for Carleton, who married the pretended German princess. Behind him is a ragged, slatternly woman, who has also a label in her mouth, with these words: “Sir, can you tell my fortune?” In Poor Robin’s Almanack for 1785 are these lines:
Now should I choose t’invoke a Muse—
Muses are fickle madams;
Else I could go my poem through
Ere you could say Jack Adams.
In the City of London Library is an original print of Jack Adams, and a copy by Caulfield.