The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete
the people, whom no other person would take the trouble to attend. So
that our hero got little else than experience and trouble, excepting a
few guineas which he made shift to glean among sojourners, with whom he
became occasionally acquainted, or young people, who had been
unfortunate in their amours.
In the midst of these endeavours, he did not omit his duty to the old
gentlewoman, whose daughter he had cured at Tunbridge; and was always
received with particular complacency, which, perhaps, he, in some
measure, owed to his genteel equipage, that gave credit to every door
before which it was seen; yet, Miss Biddy was as inaccessible as ever,
while the mother became more and more warm in her civilities, till at
length, after having prepared him with some extraordinary compliments,
she gave him to understand, that Biddy was no better than a
giddy-headed girl, far from being unexceptionable in her moral
character, and particularly deficient in duty and gratitude to her, who
had been always a tender and indulgent parent; she was therefore
determined to punish the young minx for her levity and want of natural
affection, by altering her own condition, could she find a worthy and
agreeable man, on whom she could bestow her hand and fortune without a
blush.
The film was instantly removed from Fathom’s eyes by this declaration,
which she uttered with such a significancy of look, as thrilled to his
soul with joyful presage, while he replied, it would, indeed, be a
difficult task to find a man who merited such happiness and honour;
but, surely, some there were, who would task their faculties to the
uttermost, in manifesting their gratitude, and desire of rendering
themselves worthy of such distinction. Though this answer was
pronounced in such a manner as gave her to understand he had taken the
hint, she would not cheapen her condescension so much as to explain
herself further at that juncture, and he was very well contented to woo
her on her own terms; accordingly he began to season his behaviour with
a spice of gallantry, when he had opportunities of being particular
with this new inamorata, and, in proportion to the returns she made, he
gradually detached himself from Miss Biddy, by intermitting, and, at
last, discontinuing those ardent expressions of love and admiration,
which he had made shift to convey in private looks and stolen whispers,
during the rancorous inspection of her mother.
Such alteration could not long escape the jealous eyes of the young
lady, no more than the cause of this alienation, which, in a moment,
converted all her love into irreconcilable hate, and filled her whole
soul with the most eager desire of vengeance. For she now not only
considered him as a mercenary wretch, who had slighted her attractions
for the sordid gratifications of avarice, but also as an interloper,
who wanted to intercept her fortune, in the odious character of a
father-in-law. But, before she could bring her aim to any ripeness of
contrivance, her mother, having caught cold at church, was seized with
a rheumatic fever, became delirious in less than three days, and,
notwithstanding all the prescriptions and care of her admirer, gave up
the ghost, without having retrieved the use of her senses, or been able
to manifest, by will, the sentiments she entertained in favour of her
physician, who, as the reader will easily perceive, had more reasons
than one to be mortally chagrined at this event.
Miss Biddy being thus put in possession of the whole inheritance, not
only renounced all correspondence with Doctor Fathom, by forbidding him
the house, but likewise took all opportunities of prejudicing his
character, by hinting, that her dear mamma had fallen a sacrifice to
his ignorance and presumption.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
ACQUIRES EMPLOYMENT IN CONSEQUENCE OF A LUCKY MISCARRIAGE.
These ill offices, however, far from answering her purpose, had a quite
contrary effect. For, in consequence of her invectives, he was, in a
few days, called to the wife of a merchant, who piously hoped, that his
practice would not give Miss Biddy the lie. The patient had long
lingered under a complication of distempers, and being in no immediate
danger of her life, Doctor Fathom was in no hurry to strike a decisive
stroke; till the husband growing impatient of delay, and so explicit in
his hints, that it was impossible to misapprehend his meaning, our
adventurer resolved to do something effectual for his satisfaction, and
prescribed a medicine of such rough operation, as he thought must
either oblige his employer, or produce a change in the lady’s
constitution, that would make a noise in the world, and bring a new
accession to his fame.
Proceeding upon these maxims, he could not be disappointed. The remedy
played its part with such violence, as reduced the patient to
extremity, and the merchant had actually bespoke an undertaker; when,
after a series of swoonings and convulsions, nature so far prevailed,
as to expel, at once, the prescription and the disease; yet the
good-natured husband was so much affected with the agonies to which he
saw the wife of his bosom exposed by this specific, that, although the
effect of it was her perfect recovery, he could never bear the sight of
Fathom for the future, nor even hear his name mentioned, without giving
signs of horror and indignation. Nay, he did not scruple to affirm,
that, had our adventurer been endowed with the least tincture of
humanity, he would have suffered the poor woman to depart in peace,
rather than restore her to health, at the expense of such anxiety and
torture.
On the other hand, this extraordinary cure was blazoned abroad by the
good lady and her gossips, with such exaggerations as roused the
astonishment of the public, and concurred with the report of his last
miscarriage to bring him upon the carpet, as the universal subject of
discourse. When a physician becomes the town talk, he generally
concludes his business more than half done, even though his fame should
wholly turn upon his malpractice; insomuch that some members of the
faculty have been heard to complain, that they never had the good
fortune to be publicly accused of homicide; and it is well known, that
a certain famous empiric, of our day, never flourished to any degree of
wealth and reputation till after he had been attacked in print, and
fairly convicted of having destroyed a good number of the human
species. Success raised upon such a foundation would, by a disciple of
Plato, and some modern moralists, be ascribed to the innate virtue and
generosity of the human heart, which naturally espouses the cause that
needs protection. But I, whose notions of human excellence are not
quite so sublime, am apt to believe it is owing to that spirit of
self-conceit and contradiction, which is, at least, as universal, if
not as natural, as the moral sense so warmly contended for by those
ideal philosophers.
The most infamous wretch often finds his account in these principles of
malevolence and self-love. For wheresoever his character falls under
discussion there is generally some person present, who, either from an
affectation of singularity, or envy to the accusers, undertakes his
defence, and endeavours to invalidate the articles of his impeachment,
until he is heated by altercation, and hurried into more effectual
measures for his advantage. If such benefits accrue to those who have
no real merit to depend upon, surely our hero could not but reap
something extraordinary from the debates to which he now gave rise; as,
by the miraculous cure he had affected, all his patient’s friends, all
the enemies of her husband, all those who envied his other adversary,
were interested in his behalf, exclusive of such admirers as surprise
and curiosity might engage in his cause.
Thus wafted upon the wings of applause, his fame soon diffused itself
into all the corners of this great capital. The newspapers teemed with
his praise; and in order to keep up the attention of the public, his
emissaries, male and female, separated into different coffee-houses,
companies, and clubs, where they did not fail to comment upon these
articles of intelligence. Such a favourable incident is, of itself,
sufficient to float the bark of a man’s fortune. He was, in a few days,
called to another lady, labouring under the same disorder he had so
successfully dispelled, and she thought herself benefited by his
advice. His acquaintance naturally extended itself among the visitants
and allies of his patients; he was recommended from family to family;
the fees began to multiply; a variety of footmen appeared every day at
his door; he discontinued his sham circuit, and looking upon the
present conjuncture, as that tide in his affairs, which, according to
Shakespeare, when taken at the full, leads on to fortune, he resolved
that the opportunity should not be lost, and applied himself with such
assiduity to his practice, that, in all likelihood, he would have
carried the palm from all his contemporaries, had he not split upon the
same rock which had shipwrecked his hopes before.
We have formerly descanted upon that venereal appetite which glowed in
the constitution of our adventurer, and with all his philosophy and
caution could hardly keep within bounds. The reader, therefore, will
not be much surprised to learn, that, in the exercise of his
profession, he contracted an intimacy with a clergyman’s wife, whom he
attended as a physician, and whose conjugal virtue he subdued by a long
and diligent exertion of his delusive arts, while her mind was
enervated by sickness, and her husband abroad upon his necessary
occasions. This unhappy patient, who was a woman of an agreeable person
and lively conversation, fell a sacrifice to her own security and
self-conceit; her want of health had confined her to a sedentary life,
and her imagination being active and restless, she had spent those
hours in reading which other young women devote to company and
diversion, but, as her studies were not superintended by any person of
taste, she had indulged her own fancy without method or propriety. The
Spectator taught her to be a critic and philosopher; from plays she
learned poetry and wit, and derived her knowledge of life from books of
history and adventures. Fraught with these acquisitions, and furnished
by nature with uncommon vivacity, she despised her own sex, and courted
the society of men, among whom she thought her talents might be more
honourably displayed, fully confident of her own virtue and sagacity,
which enabled her to set all their arts at defiance.
Thus qualified, she, in an evil hour, had recourse to the advice of our
adventurer, for some ailment under which she had long laboured, and
found such relief from his skill as very much prepossessed her in his
favour. She was no less pleased with his obliging manners than with his
physic, and found much entertainment in his conversation, so that the
acquaintance proceeded to a degree of intimacy, during which he
perceived her weak side, and being enamoured of her person, flattered
her out of all her caution. The privilege of his character furnished
him with opportunities to lay snares for her virtue, and, taking
advantage of that listlessness, languor, and indolence of the spirits,
by which all the vigilance of the soul is relaxed, he, after a long
course of attention and perseverance, found means to make shipwreck of
her peace.
Though he mastered her chastity, he could not quiet her conscience,
which incessantly upbraided her with breach of the marriage vow; nor
did her undoer escape without a share of the reproaches suggested by
her penitence and remorse. This internal anxiety co-operating with her
disease, and perhaps with the medicines he prescribed, reduced her to