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 the
brink of the grave; when her husband returned from a neighbouring
kingdom, in consequence of her earnest request, joined to the information
of her friends, who had written to him an account of the extremity in
which she was. The good man was afflicted beyond measure when he saw
himself upon the verge of losing a wife whom he had always tenderly
loved; but what were his emotions, when she, taking the first opportunity
of his being alone with her, accosted him to this effect:
"I am now hastening towards that dissolution from which no mortal is
exempted, and though the prospect of futurity is altogether clouded and
uncertain, my conscience will not allow me to plunge into eternity
without unburdening my mind, and, by an ingenuous confession, making all
the atonement in my power for the ingratitude I have been guilty of, and
the wrongs I have committed against a virtuous husband, who never gave me
cause of complaint. You stand amazed at this preamble, but alas! how
will you be shocked when I own that I have betrayed you in your absence,
that I have trespassed against God and my marriage vow, and fallen from
the pride and confidence of virtue to the most abject state of vice; yes,
I have been unfaithful to your bed, having fallen a victim to the
infernal insinuations of a villain, who took advantage of my weak and
unguarded moments. Fathom is the wretch who hath thus injured your
honour, and ruined my unsuspecting innocence. I have nothing to plead in
alleviation of my crime but the most sincere contrition of heart, and
though, at any other juncture, I could not expect your forgiveness, yet,
as I now touch the goal of life, I trust in your humanity and benevolence
for that pardon which will lighten the sorrows of my soul, and those
prayers which I hope will entitle me to favour at the throne of grace."
The poor husband was so much overwhelmed with grief and confusion at this
unexpected address that he could not recollect himself till after a pause
of several minutes, when uttering a hollow groan, "I will not," said he,
"aggravate your sufferings, by reproaching you with my wrongs, though
your conduct hath been but an ill return for all my tenderness and
esteem. I look upon it as a trial of my Christian patience, and bear my
misfortune with resignation; meanwhile, I forgive you from my heart, and
fervently pray that your repentance may be acceptable to the Father of
Mercy." So saying, he approached her bedside, and embraced her in token
of his sincerity. Whether this generous condescension diffused such a
composure upon her spirits as tended to the ease and refreshment of
nature, which had been almost exhausted by disease and vexation, certain
it is, that from this day she began to struggle with her malady in
surprising efforts, and hourly gained ground, until her health was pretty
well re-established.
This recovery was so far beyond the husband's expectation, that he began
to make very serious reflections on the event, and even to wish he had
not been quite so precipitate in pardoning the backslidings of his wife;
for, though he could not withhold his compassion from a dying penitent,
he did not at all relish the thoughts of cohabiting, as usual, with a
wife self-convicted of the violation of the matrimonial contract; he
therefore considered his declaration as no more than a provisional
pardon, to take place on condition of her immediate death, and, in a
little time, not only communicated to her his sentiments on this subject,
but also separated himself from her company, secured the evidence of
her maid, who had been confidant in her amour with Fathom, and
immediately set on foot a prosecution against our adventurer, whose
behaviour to his wife he did not fail to promulgate, with all its
aggravating circumstances. By these means the doctor's name became so
notorious that every man was afraid of admitting him into his house, and
every woman ashamed of soliciting his advice.