, one of those impostors who amused the public in the seventeenth
, one of those impostors who amused
the public in the seventeenth century, was born at Manchester in 1601, and was bred a haberdasher in Lawrencelane, London, but quitted this employment and followed
that of a writing-master at Hadley in Middlesex, and was
afterwards for some time clerk to the sitting aldermen at
Guildhall. He in a few years rendered himself so eminent,
that he was appointed licenser of mathematical books, under
which were included all those that related to the celestial
sciences. Lilly tells us, that he once thought him the
greatest astrologer in the world; but it appears that he
afterwards sunk in his esteem, and that he thought himself
a much greater man. We are told by the same author,
that “he had a curious fancy in judging of thefts, and
was as successful in resolving love questions,
” which was
a capital branch of his trade. George Wharton, who was
formerly one of his astrological friends, had a great quarrel
with him, which occasioned his publishing “MercurioCrelico Mastix; or an Anti-caveat to all such as have heretofore had the misfortune to be cheated and deluded by
that great and treacherous impostor John Booker; in an
answer to his frivolous pamphlet, entitled Mercurius Coelicus, or a Caveat to all the people of England;
” Oxon.
Bloody Irish Almanac,
” which contains some memorable particulars relative to the war in Ireland. He
died April 1667, and his books were sold to Elias Ashmole,
who, as Lilly informs us, and we may readily believe, gave
more for them than they were worth.