The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete
affinity and short transition betwixt all the violent passions that
agitate the human mind. They are all false perspectives, which, though
they magnify, yet perplex and render indistinct every object which they
represent. And flattery is never so successfully administered, as to
those who know they stand in need of friendship, assent, and
approbation.
The cordial she swallowed, far from calming, increased the disturbance
of her thoughts, and produced an intoxication; during which, she talked
in an incoherent strain, laughed and wept by turns, and acted other
extravagances, which are known to be symptoms of the hysterical
affection. Fathom, though an utter stranger to the sentiments of
honour, pity, and remorse, would not perpetrate his vicious purpose,
though favoured by the delirium his villany had entailed upon this
unfortunate young maiden; because his appetite demanded a more perfect
sacrifice than that which she could yield in her present deplorable
situation, when her will must have been altogether unconcerned in his
success. Determined, therefore, to make a conquest of her virtue,
before he would take possession of her person, he mimicked that
compassion and benevolence which his heart had never felt, and, when
the coach arrived at London, not only discharged what she owed for her
place, but likewise procured for her an apartment in the house to which
he himself had been directed for lodgings, and even hired a nurse to
attend her during a severe fever, which was the consequence of her
disappointment and despondence. Indeed, she was supplied with all
necessaries by the generosity of this noble Count, who, for the
interest of his passion, and the honour of his name, was resolved to
extend his charity to the last farthing of her own money, which he had
been wise enough to secure for this purpose.
Her youth soon got the better of her distemper, and when she understood
her obligations to the Count, who did not fail to attend her in person
with great tenderness, her heart, which had been before prepossessed in
his favour, now glowed with all the warmth of gratitude, esteem, and
affection. She knew herself in a strange place, destitute of all
resource but in his generosity. She loved his person, she was dazzled
by his rank; and he knew so well how to improve the opportunities and
advantages he derived from her unhappy situation, that he gradually
proceeded in sapping from one degree of intimacy to another, until all
the bulwarks of her chastity were undermined, and she submitted to his
desire; not with the reluctance of a vanquished people, but with all
the transports of a joyful city, that opens its gates to receive a
darling prince returned from conquest. For by this time he had artfully
concentred and kindled up all the inflammable ingredients of her
constitution; and she now looked back upon the virtuous principles of
her education, as upon a disagreeable and tedious dream, from which she
had waked to the fruition of never-fading joy.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
HE BY ACCIDENT ENCOUNTERS HIS OLD FRIEND, WITH WHOM HE HOLDS A
CONFERENCE, AND RENEWS A TREATY.
Our hero, having thus provided himself with a proper subject for his
hours of dalliance, thought it was now high time to study the ground
which he had pitched upon for the scene of his exploits, and with that
view made several excursions to different parts of the town, where
there was aught of entertainment or instruction to be found. Yet he
always, on these occasions, appeared in an obscure ordinary dress, in
order to avoid singularity, and never went twice to the same
coffee-house, that his person might not be afterwards known, in case he
should shine forth to the public in a superior sphere. On his return
from one of those expeditions, while he was passing through Ludgate,
his eyes were suddenly encountered by the apparition of his old friend
the Tyrolese, who, perceiving himself fairly caught in the toil, made a
virtue of necessity, and, running up to our adventurer with an aspect
of eagerness and joy, clasped him in his arms, as some dear friend,
whom he had casually found after a most tedious and disagreeable
separation.
Fathom, whose genius never failed him in such emergencies, far from
receiving these advances with the threats and reproaches which the
other had deserved at his hands, returned the salute with equal warmth,
and was really overjoyed at meeting with a person who might one way or
other make amends for the perfidy of his former conduct. The Tyrolese,
whose name was Ratchcali, pleased with his reception, proposed they
should adjourn to the next tavern, in which they had no sooner taken
possession of an apartment, than he addressed himself to his old
companion in these words:—
“Mr. Fathom, by your frank and obliging manner of treating a man who
hath done you wrong, I am more and more confirmed in my opinion of your
sagacity, which I have often considered with admiration; I will not
therefore attempt to make an apology for my conduct at our last
parting; but only assure you that this meeting may turn out to our
mutual advantage, if we now re-enter into an unreserved union, the ties
of which we will soon find it our interest and inclination to preserve.
For my own part, as my judgment is ripened by experience, so are my
sentiments changed since our last association. I have seen many a rich
harvest lost, for want of a fellow-labourer in the vineyard; and I have
more than once fallen a sacrifice to a combination, which I could have
resisted with the help of one able auxiliary. Indeed, I might prove
what I allege by mathematical demonstration; and I believe nobody will
pretend to deny, that two heads are better than one, in all cases that
require discernment and deliberation.”
Ferdinand could not help owning the sanity of his observations, and
forthwith acquiesced in his proposal of the new alliance; desiring to
know the character in which he acted on the English stage, and the
scheme he would offer for their mutual emolument. At the same time he
resolved within himself to keep such a strict eye over his future
actions, as would frustrate any design he might hereafter harbour, of
repeating the prank he had so successfully played upon him, in their
journey from the banks of the Rhine.
“Having quitted you at Bar-le-duc,” resumed the Tyrolese, “I travelled
without ceasing, until I arrived at Frankfort upon the Maine, where I
assumed the character of a French chevalier, and struck some masterly
strokes, which you yourself would not have deemed unworthy of your
invention; and my success was the more agreeable, as my operations were
chiefly carried on against the enemies of our religion. But my
prosperity was not of long duration. Seeing they could not foil me at
my own weapons, they formed a damned conspiracy, by which I not only
lost all the fruits of my industry, but likewise ran the most imminent
hazard of my life. I had ordered some of those jewels which I had
borrowed of my good friend Fathom to be new set in a fashionable taste,
and soon after had an opportunity to sell one of these, at a great
advantage, to one of the fraternity, who offered an extraordinary price
for the stone, on purpose to effect my ruin. In less than
four-and-twenty hours after this bargain, I was arrested by the
officers of justice upon the oath of the purchaser, who undertook to
prove me guilty of a fraud, in selling a Saxon pebble for a real
diamond; and this accusation was actually true; for the change had been
artfully put upon me by the jeweller, who was himself engaged in the
conspiracy.
“Had my conscience been clear of any other impeachment, perhaps I
should have rested my cause upon the equity and protection of the law;
but I foresaw that the trial would introduce an inquiry, to which I was
not at all ambitious of submitting, and therefore was fain to
compromise the affair, at the price of almost my whole fortune. Yet
this accommodation was not made so secretly, but that my character was
blasted, and my credit overthrown; so that I was fain to relinquish my
occasional equipage, and hire myself as journeyman to a lapidary, an
employment which I had exercised in my youth. In this obscure station,
I laboured with great assiduity, until I made myself perfect in the
knowledge of stones, as well as in the different methods of setting
them off to the best advantage; and having, by dint of industry and
address, got possession of a small parcel, set out for this kingdom, in
which I happily arrived about four months ago; and surely England is
the paradise of artists of our profession.
“One would imagine that nature had created the inhabitants for the
support and enjoyment of adventurers like you and me. Not that these
islanders open the arms of hospitality to all foreigners without
distinction. On the contrary, they inherit from their fathers an
unreasonable prejudice against all nations under the sun; and when an
Englishman happens to quarrel with a stranger, the first term of
reproach he uses is the name of his antagonist’s country, characterised
by some opprobrious epithet, such as a chattering Frenchman, an Italian
ape, a German hog, and a beastly Dutchman; nay, their national
prepossession is maintained even against those people with whom they
are united under the same laws and government; for nothing is more
common than to hear them exclaim against their fellow-subjects, in the
expressions of a beggarly Scot, and an impudent Irish bog-trotter. Yet
this very prejudice will never fail to turn to the account of every
stranger possessed of ordinary talents; for he will always find
opportunities of conversing with them in coffee-houses and places of
public resort, in spite of their professed reserve, which, by the bye,
is so extraordinary, that I know some people who have lived twenty
years in the same house without exchanging one word with their
next-door neighbours; yet, provided he can talk sensibly, and preserve
the deportment of a sober gentleman, in those occasional conversations,
his behaviour will be the more remarkably pleasing, as it will
agreeably disappoint the expectation of the person who had entertained
notions to his prejudice. When a foreigner has once crossed this bar,
which perpetually occurs, he sails without further difficulty into the
harbour of an Englishman’s goodwill; for the pique is neither personal
nor rancorous, but rather contemptuous and national; so that, while he
despises a people in the lump, an individual of that very community may
be one of his chief favourites.
“The English are in general upright and honest, therefore unsuspecting
and credulous. They are too much engrossed with their own business to
pry into the conduct of their neighbours, and too indifferent, in point
of disposition, to interest themselves in what they conceive to be
foreign to their own concerns. They are wealthy and mercantile, of
consequence liberal and adventurous, and so well disposed to take a
man’s own word for his importance, that they suffer themselves to be
preyed upon by such a bungling set of impostors, as would starve for
lack of address in any other country under the sun. This being a true
sketch of the British character, so far as I have been able to observe
and learn, you will easily comprehend the profits that may be extracted
from it, by virtue of those arts by which you so eminently excel;—the
great, the unbounded prospect lies before me! Indeed, I look upon this
opulent kingdom as a wide and fertile common, on which we adventurers
may range for prey, without let or molestation. For so jealous are the
natives of their liberties, that they will not bear the restraint of
necessary police, and an able artist may enrich himself with their
spoils, without running any risk of attracting the magistrate, or