CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE. Our Adventurer is made acquainted with a new Scene of Life
CHAPTER FORTY. He contemplates Majesty and its Satellites in Eclipse
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE. One Quarrel is compromised, and another decided by unusual Arms
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO. An unexpected Rencontre, and a happy Revolution in the Affairs of our Adventurer
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE. Fathom justifies the Proverb, “What’s bred in the Bone will never come out of the Flesh”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR. Fathom justifies the Proverb, “What’s bred in the Bone will never come out of the Flesh”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE. Renaldo’s Distress deepens, and Fathom’s Plot thickens
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX. Our Adventurer becomes absolute in his Power over the Passions of his Friend, and effects one half of his Aim
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN. The Art of Borrowing further explained, and an Account of a Strange Phenomenon
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT. Count Fathom unmasks his Battery; is repulsed; and varies his Operations without effect
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE. Monimia’s Honour is protected by the Interposition of Heaven
CHAPTER FIFTY. Fathom shifts the Scene, and appears in a new Character
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE. Triumphs over a Medical Rival
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO. Repairs to the Metropolis, and enrols himself among the Sons of Paean
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE. Acquires Employment in consequence of a lucky Miscarriage
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR. His Eclipse, and gradual Declination
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE. After divers unsuccessful Efforts, he has recourse to the Matrimonial Noose
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX. In which his Fortune is effectually strangled
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN. Fathom being safely housed, the Reader is entertained with a Retrospect
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT. Renaldo abridges the Proceedings at Law, and approves himself the Son of his Father
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE. He is the Messenger of Happiness to his Sister, who removes the film which had long obstructed his Penetration, with regard to Count Fathom
CHAPTER SIXTY. He recompenses the Attachment of his Friend; and receives a Letter that reduces him to the Verge of Death and Distraction
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE. Renaldo meets with a living Monument of Justice, and encounters a Personage of some Note in these Memoirs
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO. His Return to England, and Midnight Pilgrimage to Monimia’s Tomb
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE. He renews the Rites of Sorrow, and is entranced
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR. The Mystery unfolded—Another Recognition, which, it is to be hoped, the Reader could not foresee
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE. A retrospective Link, necessary for the Concatenation of these Memoirs
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX. The History draws near a Period
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN. The Longest and the Last
ILLUSTRATIONS
Titlepage of Part One
Frontispiece of Part One
He Opened the Repository
Titlepage of Part Two
Frontispiece of Part Two
You Are the Count de Melvil
INTRODUCTION
The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Smollett’s third novel, was
given to the world in 1753. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, writing to her
daughter, the Countess of Bute, over a year later [January 1st, 1755],
remarked that “my friend Smollett . . . has certainly a talent for
invention, though I think it flags a little in his last work.” Lady
Mary was both right and wrong. The inventive power which we commonly
think of as Smollett’s was the ability to work over his own experience
into realistic fiction. Of this, Ferdinand Count Fathom shows
comparatively little. It shows relatively little, too, of Smollett’s
vigorous personality, which in his earlier works was present to give
life and interest to almost every chapter, were it to describe a street
brawl, a ludicrous situation, a whimsical character, or with venomous
prejudice to gibbet some enemy. This individuality—the peculiar spirit
of the author which can be felt rather than described—is present in the
dedication of Fathom to Doctor ———, who is no other than Smollett
himself, and a candid revelation of his character, by the way, this
dedication contains. It is present, too, in the opening chapters, which
show, likewise, in the picture of Fathom’s mother, something of the
author’s peculiar “talent for invention.” Subsequently, however, there
is no denying that the Smollett invention and the Smollett spirit both
flag. And yet, in a way, Fathom displays more invention than any of the
author’s novels; it is based far less than any other on personal
experience. Unfortunately such thorough-going invention was not suited
to Smollett’s genius. The result is, that while uninteresting as a
novel of contemporary manners, Fathom has an interest of its own in
that it reveals a new side of its author. We think of Smollett,
generally, as a rambling storyteller, a rational, unromantic man of the
world, who fills his pages with his own oddly-metamorphosed
acquaintances and experiences. The Smollett of Count Fathom, on the
contrary, is rather a forerunner of the romantic school, who has
created a tolerably organic tale of adventure out of his own brain.
Though this is notably less readable than the author’s earlier works,
still the wonder is that when the man is so far “off his beat,” he
should yet know so well how to meet the strange conditions which
confront him. To one whose idea of Smollett’s genius is formed entirely
by Random and Pickle and Humphry Clinker, Ferdinand Count Fathom will
offer many surprises.
The first of these is the comparative lifelessness of the book. True,
here again are action and incident galore, but generally unaccompanied
by that rough Georgian hurly-burly, common in Smollett, which is so
interesting to contemplate from a comfortable distance, and which goes
so far towards making his fiction seem real. Nor are the characters,
for the most part, life-like enough to be interesting. There is an
apparent exception, to be sure, in the hero’s mother, already
mentioned, the hardened camp-follower, whom we confidently expect to
become vitalised after the savage fashion of Smollett’s characters.
But, alas! we have no chance to learn the lady’s style of conversation,
for the few words that come from her lips are but partially
characteristic; we have only too little chance to learn her manners and
customs. In the fourth chapter, while she is making sure with her
dagger that all those on the field of battle whom she wishes to rifle
are really dead, an officer of the hussars, who has been watching her
lucrative progress, unfeelingly puts a brace of bullets into the lady’s
brain, just as she raises her hand to smite him to the heart. Perhaps
it is as well that she is thus removed before our disappointment at the
non-fulfilment of her promise becomes poignant. So far as we may judge
from the other personages of Count Fathom, even this interesting Amazon
would sooner or later have turned into a wooden figure, with a label
giving the necessary information as to her character.
Such certainly is her son, Fathom, the hero of the book. Because he is
placarded, “Shrewd villain of monstrous inhumanity,” we are fain to
accept him for what his creator intended; but seldom in word or deed is
he a convincingly real villain. His friend and foil, the noble young
Count de Melvil, is no more alive than he; and equally wooden are
Joshua, the high-minded, saint-like Jew, and that tedious, foolish Don
Diego. Neither is the heroine alive, the peerless Monimia, but then, in
her case, want of vitality is not surprising; the presence of it would
amaze us. If she were a woman throbbing with life, she would be
different from Smollett’s other heroines. The “second lady” of the
melodrama, Mademoiselle de Melvil, though by no means vivified, is yet
more real than her sister-in-law.
The fact that they are mostly inanimate figures is not the only
surprise given us by the personages of Count Fathom. It is a surprise
to find few of them strikingly whimsical; it is a surprise to find them
in some cases far more distinctly conceived than any of the people in
Roderick Random or Peregrine Pickle. In the second of these, we saw
Smollett beginning to understand the use of incident to indicate
consistent development of character. In Count Fathom, he seems fully to
understand this principle of art, though he has not learned to apply it
successfully. And so, in spite of an excellent conception, Fathom, as I
have said, is unreal. After all his villainies, which he perpetrates
without any apparent qualms of conscience, it is incredible that he
should honestly repent of his crimes. We are much inclined to doubt
when we read that “his vice and ambition was now quite mortified within
him,” the subsequent testimony of Matthew Bramble, Esq., in Humphry
Clinker, to the contrary, notwithstanding. Yet Fathom up to this point
is consistently drawn, and drawn for a purpose:—to show that
cold-blooded roguery, though successful for a while, will come to grief
in the end. To heighten the effect of his scoundrel, Smollett develops
parallel with him the virtuous Count de Melvil. The author’s scheme of
thus using one character as the foil of another, though not conspicuous
for its originality, shows a decided advance in the theory of
constructive technique. Only, as I have said, Smollett’s execution is
now defective.
“But,” one will naturally ask, “if Fathom lacks the amusing, and not
infrequently stimulating, hurly-burly of Smollett’s former novels; if
its characters, though well-conceived, are seldom divertingly fantastic
and never thoroughly animate; what makes the book interesting?” The
surprise will be greater than ever when the answer is given that, to a
large extent, the plot makes Fathom interesting. Yes, Smollett,
hitherto indifferent to structure, has here written a story in which
the plot itself, often clumsy though it may be, engages a reader’s
attention. One actually wants to know whether the young Count is ever
going to receive consolation for his sorrows and inflict justice on his
basely ungrateful pensioner. And when, finally, all turns out as it
should, one is amazed to find how many of the people in the book have
helped towards the designed conclusion. Not all of them, indeed, nor
all of the adventures, are indispensable, but it is manifest at the end
that much, which, for the time, most readers think irrelevant—such as
Don Diego’s history—is, after all, essential.
It has already been said that in Count Fathom Smollett appears to some
extent as a romanticist, and this is another fact which lends interest
to the book. That he had a powerful imagination is not a surprise. Any
one versed in Smollett has already seen it in the remarkable situations
which he has put before us in his earlier works. These do not indicate,
however, that Smollett possessed the imagination which could excite
romantic interest; for in Roderick Random and in Peregrine Pickle, the
wonderful situations serve chiefly to amuse. In Fathom, however, there
are some designed to excite horror; and one, at least, is eminently
successful. The hero’s night in the wood between Bar-le-duc and Chalons
was no doubt more blood-curdling to our eighteenth-century ancestors
than it is to us, who have become acquainted with scores of similar
situations in the small number of exciting romances which belong to
literature, and in the greater number which do not. Still, even to-day,
a reader, with his taste jaded by trashy novels, will be conscious of
Smollett’s power, and of several thrills, likewise, as he reads about
Fathom’s experience in the loft in which the beldame locks him to pass
the night.
This situation is melodramatic rather than romantic, as the word is
used technically in application to eighteenth and nineteenth-century
literature. There is no little in Fathom, however, which is genuinely
romantic in the latter sense. Such is the imprisonment of the Countess
in the castle-tower, whence she waves her handkerchief to the young
Count, her son and would-be rescuer. And especially so is the scene in
the church, when Renaldo (the very name is romantic) visits at midnight
the supposed grave of his lady-love. While he was waiting for the
sexton to open the door, his “soul . . . was wound up to the highest
pitch of enthusiastic sorrow. The uncommon darkness, . . . the solemn
silence, and lonely situation of the place, conspired with the occasion
of his coming, and the dismal images of his fancy, to produce a real
rapture of gloomy expectation, which the whole world could not have
persuaded him to disappoint. The clock struck twelve, the owl screeched
from the ruined battlement, the door was opened by the sexton, who, by
the light of a glimmering taper, conducted the despairing lover to a
dreary aisle, and stamped upon the ground with his foot, saying, ‘Here
the young lady lies interred.’”
We have here such an amount of the usual romantic machinery of the
“grave-yard” school of poets—that school of which Professor W. L.
Phelps calls Young, in his Night Thoughts, the most “conspicuous
exemplar”—that one is at first inclined to think Smollett poking fun at
it. The context, however, seems to prove that he was perfectly serious.
It is interesting, then, as well as surprising, to find traces of the
romantic spirit in his fiction over ten years before Walpole’s Castle
of Otranto. It is also interesting to find so much melodramatic feeling
in him, because it makes stronger the connection between him and his
nineteenth-century disciple, Dickens.
From all that I have said, it must not be thought that the usual
Smollett is always, or almost always, absent from Count Fathom. I have
spoken of the dedication and of the opening chapters as what we might
expect from his pen. There are, besides, true Smollett strokes in the
scenes in the prison from which Melvil rescues Fathom, and there is a
good deal of the satirical Smollett fun in the description of Fathom’s
ups and downs, first as the petted beau, and then as the fashionable
doctor. In chronicling the latter meteoric career, Smollett had already
observed the peculiarity of his countrymen which Thackeray was fond of
harping on in the next century—“the maxim which universally prevails
among the English people . . . to overlook, . . . on their return to
the metropolis, all the connexions they may have chanced to acquire
during their residence at any of the medical wells. And this social
disposition is so scrupulously maintained, that two persons who live in
the most intimate correspondence at Bath or Tunbridge, shall, in
four-and-twenty hours . . . meet in St. James’s Park, without betraying
the least token of recognition.” And good, too, is the way in which, as
Dr. Fathom goes rapidly down the social hill, he makes excuses for his
declining splendour. His chariot was overturned “with a hideous crash”
at such danger to himself, “that he did not believe he should ever
hazard himself again in any sort of wheel carriage.” He turned off his
men for maids, because “men servants are generally impudent, lazy,
debauched, or dishonest.” To avoid the din of the street, he shifted
his lodgings into a quiet, obscure court. And so forth and so on, in
the true Smollett vein.
But, after all, such of the old sparks are struck only occasionally.
Apart from its plot, which not a few nineteenth-century writers of
detective-stories might have improved, The Adventures of Ferdinand
Count Fathom is less interesting for itself than any other piece of
fiction from Smollett’s pen. For a student of Smollett, however, it is
highly interesting as showing the author’s romantic, melodramatic
tendencies, and the growth of his constructive technique.
G. H. MAYNADIER
THE ADVENTURES OF FERDINAND COUNT FATHOM
TO DOCTOR ———
You and I, my good friend, have often deliberated on the difficulty of
writing such a dedication as might gratify the self-complacency of a
patron, without exposing the author to the ridicule or censure of the
public; and I think we generally agreed that the task was altogether
impracticable.—Indeed, this was one of the few subjects on which we
have always thought in the same manner. For, notwithstanding that
deference and regard which we mutually pay to each other, certain it
is, we have often differed, according to the predominancy of those
different passions, which frequently warp the opinion, and perplex the
understanding of the most judicious.
In dedication, as in poetry, there is no medium; for, if any one of the
human virtues be omitted in the enumeration of the patron’s good
qualities, the whole address is construed into an affront, and the
writer has the mortification to find his praise prostituted to very
little purpose.
On the other hand, should he yield to the transports of gratitude or
affection, which is always apt to exaggerate, and produce no more than
the genuine effusions of his heart, the world will make no allowance
for the warmth of his passion, but ascribe the praise he bestows to
interested views and sordid adulation.
Sometimes too, dazzled by the tinsel of a character which he has no
opportunity to investigate, he pours forth the homage of his admiration
upon some false Maecenas, whose future conduct gives the lie to his
eulogium, and involves him in shame and confusion of face. Such was the
fate of a late ingenious author [the Author of the “Seasons”], who was
so often put to the blush for the undeserved incense he had offered in
the heat of an enthusiastic disposition, misled by popular applause,
that he had resolved to retract, in his last will, all the encomiums
which he had thus prematurely bestowed, and stigmatise the unworthy by
name—a laudable scheme of poetical justice, the execution of which was
fatally prevented by untimely death.
Whatever may have been the fate of other dedicators, I, for my own
part, sit down to write this address, without any apprehension of
disgrace or disappointment; because I know you are too well convinced
of my affection and sincerity to repine at what I shall say touching
your character and conduct. And you will do me the justice to believe,
that this public distinction is a testimony of my particular friendship
and esteem.
Not that I am either insensible of your infirmities, or disposed to
conceal them from the notice of mankind. There are certain foibles
which can only be cured by shame and mortification; and whether or not
yours be of that species, I shall have the comfort to think my best
endeavours were used for your reformation.
Know then, I can despise your pride, while I honour your integrity, and
applaud your taste, while I am shocked at your ostentation.—I have
known you trifling, superficial, and obstinate in dispute; meanly
jealous and awkwardly reserved; rash and haughty in your resentments;
and coarse and lowly in your connexions. I have blushed at the weakness
of your conversation, and trembled at the errors of your conduct—yet,
as I own you possess certain good qualities, which overbalance these
defects, and distinguish you on this occasion as a person for whom I
have the most perfect attachment and esteem, you have no cause to
complain of the indelicacy with which your faults are reprehended. And
as they are chiefly the excesses of a sanguine disposition and
looseness of thought, impatient of caution or control, you may, thus
stimulated, watch over your own intemperance and infirmity with
redoubled vigilance and consideration, and for the future profit by the
severity of my reproof.
These, however, are not the only motives that induce me to trouble you
with this public application. I must not only perform my duty to my
friends, but also discharge the debt I owe to my own interest. We live
in a censorious age; and an author cannot take too much precaution to
anticipate the prejudice, misapprehension, and temerity of malice,
ignorance, and presumption.
I therefore think it incumbent upon me to give some previous intimation
of the plan which I have executed in the subsequent performance, that I
may not be condemned upon partial evidence; and to whom can I with more
propriety appeal in my explanation than to you, who are so well
acquainted with all the sentiments and emotions of my breast?
A novel is a large diffused picture, comprehending the characters of
life, disposed in different groups, and exhibited in various attitudes,
for the purposes of an uniform plan, and general occurrence, to which
every individual figure is subservient. But this plan cannot be
executed with propriety, probability, or success, without a principal
personage to attract the attention, unite the incidents, unwind the
clue of the labyrinth, and at last close the scene, by virtue of his
own importance.
Almost all the heroes of this kind, who have hitherto succeeded on the
English stage, are characters of transcendent worth, conducted through
the vicissitudes of fortune, to that goal of happiness, which ever
ought to be the repose of extraordinary desert.—Yet the same principle
by which we rejoice at the remuneration of merit, will teach us to
relish the disgrace and discomfiture of vice, which is always an
example of extensive use and influence, because it leaves a deep
impression of terror upon the minds of those who were not confirmed in
the pursuit of morality and virtue, and, while the balance wavers,
enables the right scale to preponderate.
In the drama, which is a more limited field of invention, the chief
personage is often the object of our detestation and abhorrence; and we
are as well pleased to see the wicked schemes of a Richard blasted, and
the perfidy of a Maskwell exposed, as to behold a Bevil happy, and an
Edward victorious.
The impulses of fear, which is the most violent and interesting of all
the passions, remain longer than any other upon the memory; and for one
that is allured to virtue, by the contemplation of that peace and
happiness which it bestows, a hundred are deterred from the practice of
vice, by that infamy and punishment to which it is liable, from the
laws and regulations of mankind.
Let me not, therefore, be condemned for having chosen my principal
character from the purlieus of treachery and fraud, when I declare my
purpose is to set him up as a beacon for the benefit of the
unexperienced and unwary, who, from the perusal of these memoirs, may
learn to avoid the manifold snares with which they are continually
surrounded in the paths of life; while those who hesitate on the brink
of iniquity may be terrified from plunging into that irremediable gulf,
by surveying the deplorable fate of Ferdinand Count Fathom.
That the mind might not be fatigued, nor the imagination disgusted, by
a succession of vicious objects, I have endeavoured to refresh the
attention with occasional incidents of a different nature; and raised
up a virtuous character, in opposition to the adventurer, with a view
to amuse the fancy, engage the affection, and form a striking contrast
which might heighten the expression, and give a relief to the moral of
the whole.
If I have not succeeded in my endeavours to unfold the mysteries of
fraud, to instruct the ignorant, and entertain the vacant; if I have
failed in my attempts to subject folly to ridicule, and vice to
indignation; to rouse the spirit of mirth, wake the soul of compassion,
and touch the secret springs that move the heart; I have, at least,
adorned virtue with honour and applause, branded iniquity with reproach
and shame, and carefully avoided every hint or expression which could
give umbrage to the most delicate reader—circumstances which (whatever
may be my fate with the public) will with you always operate in favour
of,
Dear sir, your very affectionate friend and servant,
THE AUTHOR.
CHAPTER ONE
SOME SAGE OBSERVATIONS THAT NATURALLY INTRODUCE OUR IMPORTANT HISTORY.
Cardinal de Retz very judiciously observes, that all historians must of
necessity be subject to mistakes, in explaining the motives of those
actions they record, unless they derive their intelligence from the
candid confession of the person whose character they represent; and
that, of consequence, every man of importance ought to write his own
memoirs, provided he has honesty enough to tell the truth, without
suppressing any circumstance that may tend to the information of the
reader. This, however, is a requisite that, I am afraid, would be very
rarely found among the number of those who exhibit their own portraits
to the public. Indeed, I will venture to say, that, how upright soever
a man’s intentions may be, he will, in the performance of such a task,
be sometimes misled by his own phantasy, and represent objects, as they
appeared to him, through the mists of prejudice and passion.
An unconcerned reader, when he peruses the history of two competitors,
who lived two thousand years ago, or who perhaps never had existence,
except in the imagination of the author, cannot help interesting
himself in the dispute, and espousing one side of the contest, with all
the zeal of a warm adherent. What wonder, then, that we should be
heated in our own concerns, review our actions with the same
self-approbation that they had formerly acquired, and recommend them to
the world with all the enthusiasm of paternal affection?
Supposing this to be the case, it was lucky for the cause of historical
truth, that so many pens have been drawn by writers, who could not be
suspected of such partiality; and that many great personages, among the
ancients as well as moderns, either would not or could not entertain
the public with their own memoirs. From this want of inclination or
capacity to write, in our hero himself, the undertaking is now left to
me, of transmitting to posterity the remarkable adventures of FERDINAND
COUNT FATHOM; and by the time the reader shall have glanced over the
subsequent sheets, I doubt not but he will bless God that the
adventurer was not his own historian.
This mirror of modern chivalry was none of those who owe their dignity
to the circumstances of their birth, and are consecrated from the
cradle for the purposes of greatness, merely because they are the
accidental children of wealth. He was heir to no visible patrimony,
unless we reckon a robust constitution, a tolerable appearance, and an
uncommon capacity, as the advantages of inheritance. If the comparison
obtains in this point of consideration, he was as much as any man
indebted to his parent; and pity it was, that, in the sequel of his
fortune, he never had an opportunity of manifesting his filial
gratitude and regard. From this agreeable act of duty to his sire, and
all those tendernesses that are reciprocally enjoyed betwixt the father
and the son, he was unhappily excluded by a small circumstance; at
which, however, he was never heard to repine. In short, had he been
brought forth in the fabulous ages of the world, the nature of his
origin might have turned to his account; he might, like other heroes of
antiquity, have laid claim to divine extraction, without running the
risk of being claimed by an earthly father. Not that his parents had
any reason to disown or renounce their offspring, or that there was
anything preternatural in the circumstances of his generation and
birth; on the contrary, he was, from the beginning, a child of
promising parts, and in due course of nature ushered into the world
amidst a whole cloud of witnesses. But, that he was acknowledged by no
mortal sire, solely proceeded from the uncertainty of his mother, whose
affections were so dissipated among a number of admirers, that she
could never pitch upon the person from whose loins our hero sprung.
Over and above this important doubt under which he was begotten, other
particularities attended his birth, and seemed to mark him out as
something uncommon among the sons of men. He was brought forth in a
waggon, and might be said to be literally a native of two different
countries; for, though he first saw the light in Holland, he was not
born till after the carriage arrived in Flanders; so that, all these
extraordinary circumstances considered, the task of determining to what
government he naturally owed allegiance, would be at least as difficult
as that of ascertaining the so much contested birthplace of Homer.
Certain it is, the Count’s mother was an Englishwoman, who, after
having been five times a widow in one campaign, was, in the last year
of the renowned Marlborough’s command, numbered among the baggage of
the allied army, which she still accompanied, through pure benevolence
of spirit, supplying the ranks with the refreshing streams of choice
Geneva, and accommodating individuals with clean linen, as the
emergency of their occasions required. Nor was her philanthropy
altogether confined to such ministration; she abounded with “the milk
of human kindness,” which flowed plentifully among her
fellow-creatures; and to every son of Mars who cultivated her favour,
she liberally dispensed her smiles, in order to sweeten the toils and
dangers of the field.
And here it will not be amiss to anticipate the remarks of the reader,
who, in the chastity and excellency of his conception, may possibly
exclaim, “Good Heaven! will these authors never reform their
imaginations, and lift their ideas from the obscene objects of low
life? Must the public be again disgusted with the grovelling adventures
of a waggon? Will no writer of genius draw his pen in the vindication
of taste, and entertain us with the agreeable characters, the dignified
conversation, the poignant repartee, in short, the genteel comedy of
the polite world?”
Have a little patience, gentle, delicate, sublime critic; you, I doubt
not, are one of those consummate connoisseurs, who, in their
purifications, let humour evaporate, while they endeavour to preserve
decorum, and polish wit, until the edge of it is quite worn off. Or,
perhaps, of that class, who, in the sapience of taste, are disgusted
with those very flavours in the productions of their own country which
have yielded infinite delectation to their faculties, when imported
from another clime; and d—n an author in despite of all precedent and
prescription;—who extol the writings of Petronius Arbiter, read with
rapture the amorous sallies of Ovid’s pen, and chuckle over the story
of Lucian’s ass; yet, if a modern author presumes to relate the
progress of a simple intrigue, are shocked at the indecency and
immorality of the scene;—who delight in following Guzman d’Alfarache,
through all the mazes of squalid beggary; who with pleasure accompany
Don Quixote and his squire, in the lowest paths of fortune; who are
diverted with the adventures of Scarron’s ragged troop of strollers,
and highly entertained with the servile situations of Gil Blas; yet,
when a character in humble life occasionally occurs in a performance of
our own growth, exclaim, with an air of disgust, “Was ever anything so
mean! sure, this writer must have been very conversant with the lowest
scenes of life;”—who, when Swift or Pope represents a coxcomb in the
act of swearing, scruple not to laugh at the ridiculous execrations;
but, in a less reputed author, condemn the use of such profane
expletives;—who eagerly explore the jakes of Rabelais, for amusement,
and even extract humour from the dean’s description of a lady’s
dressing-room; yet in a production of these days, unstamped with such
venerable names, will stop their noses, with all the signs of loathing
and abhorrence, at a bare mention of the china chamber-pot;—who
applauded Catullus, Juvenal, Persius, and Lucan, for their spirit in
lashing the greatest names of antiquity; yet, when a British satirist,
of this generation, has courage enough to call in question the talents
of a pseudo-patron in power, accuse him of insolence, rancour, and
scurrility.
If such you be, courteous reader, I say again, have a little patience;
for your entertainment we are about to write. Our hero shall, with all
convenient despatch, be gradually sublimed into those splendid
connexions of which you are enamoured; and God forbid, that, in the
meantime, the nature of his extraction should turn to his prejudice in
a land of freedom like this, where individuals are every day ennobled
in consequence of their own qualifications, without the least
retrospective regard to the rank or merit of their ancestors. Yes,
refined reader, we are hastening to that goal of perfection, where
satire dares not show her face; where nature is castigated, almost even
to still life; where humour turns changeling, and slavers in an insipid
grin; where wit is volatilised into a mere vapour; where decency,
divested of all substance, hovers about like a fantastic shadow; where
the salt of genius, escaping, leaves nothing but pure and simple
phlegm; and the inoffensive pen for ever drops the mild manna of
soul-sweetening praise.
CHAPTER TWO
A SUPERFICIAL VIEW OF OUR HERO’S INFANCY.
Having thus bespoken the indulgence of our guests, let us now produce
the particulars of our entertainment, and speedily conduct our
adventurer through the stage of infancy, which seldom teems with
interesting incidents.
As the occupations of his mother would not conveniently permit her to
suckle this her firstborn at her own breast, and those happy ages were
now no more, in which the charge of nursing a child might be left to
the next goat or she-wolf, she resolved to improve upon the ordinances
of nature, and foster him with a juice much more energetic than the
milk of goat, wolf, or woman; this was no other than that delicious
nectar, which, as we have already hinted, she so cordially distributed
from a small cask that hung before her, depending from her shoulders by
a leathern zone. Thus determined, ere he was yet twelve days old, she
enclosed him in a canvas knapsack, which being adjusted to her neck,
fell down upon her back, and balanced the cargo that rested on her
bosom.
There are not wanting those who affirm, that, while her double charge
was carried about in this situation, her keg was furnished with a long
and slender flexible tube, which, when the child began to be clamorous,
she conveyed into his mouth, and straight he stilled himself with
sucking; but this we consider as an extravagant assertion of those who
mix the marvellous in all their narrations, because we cannot conceive
how the tender organs of an infant could digest such a fiery beverage,
which never fails to discompose the constitutions of the most hardy and
robust. We therefore conclude that the use of this potation was more
restrained, and that it was with simple element diluted into a
composition adapted to his taste and years. Be this as it will, he
certainly was indulged in the use of it to such a degree as would have
effectually obstructed his future fortune, had not he been happily
cloyed with the repetition of the same fare, for which he conceived the
utmost detestation and abhorrence, rejecting it with loathing and
disgust, like those choice spirits, who, having been crammed with
religion in their childhood, renounce it in their youth, among other
absurd prejudices of education.
While he was thus dangled in a state of suspension, a German trooper
was transiently smit with the charms of his mother, who listened to his
honourable addresses, and once more received the silken bonds of
matrimony; the ceremony having been performed as usual at the
drum-head. The lady had no sooner taken possession of her new name,
than she bestowed it upon her son, who was thenceforward distinguished
by the appellation of Ferdinand de Fadom; nor was the husband offended
at this presumption in his wife, which he not only considered as a
proof of her affection and esteem, but also as a compliment, by which
he might in time acquire the credit of being the real father of such a
hopeful child.
Notwithstanding this new engagement with a foreigner, our hero’s mother
still exercised the virtues of her calling among the English troops, so
much was she biassed by that laudable partiality, which, as Horace
observes, the natale solum generally inspires. Indeed this inclination
was enforced by another reason, that did not fail to influence her
conduct in this particular; all her knowledge of the High Dutch
language consisted in some words of traffic absolutely necessary for
the practice of her vocation, together with sundry oaths and terms of
reproach, that kept her customers in awe; so that, except among her own
countrymen, she could not indulge that propensity to conversation, for
which she had been remarkable from her earliest years. Nor did this
instance of her affection fail of turning to her account in the sequel.
She was promoted to the office of cook to a regimental mess of
officers; and, before the peace of Utrecht, was actually in possession
of a suttling-tent, pitched for the accommodation of the gentlemen in
the army.
Meanwhile, Ferdinand improved apace in the accomplishments of infancy;
his beauty was conspicuous, and his vigour so uncommon, that he was
with justice likened unto Hercules in the cradle. The friends of his
father-in-law dandled him on their knees, while he played with their
whiskers, and, before he was thirteen months old, taught him to suck
brandy impregnated with gunpowder, through the touch-hole of a pistol.
At the same time, he was caressed by divers serjeants of the British
army, who severally and in secret contemplated his qualifications with
a father’s pride, excited by the artful declaration with which the
mother had flattered each apart.
Soon as the war was (for her unhappily) concluded, she, as in duty
bound, followed her husband into Bohemia; and his regiment being sent
into garrison at Prague, she opened a cabaret in that city, which was
frequented by a good many guests of the Scotch and Irish nations, who
were devoted to the exercise of arms in the service of the Emperor. It
was by this communication that the English tongue became vernacular to
young Ferdinand, who, without such opportunity, would have been a
stranger to the language of his forefathers, in spite of all his
mother’s loquacity and elocution; though it must be owned, for the
credit of her maternal care, that she let slip no occasion of making it
familiar to his ear and conception; for, even at those intervals in
which she could find no person to carry on the altercation, she used to
hold forth in earnest soliloquies upon the subject of her own
situation, giving vent to many opprobrious invectives against her
husband’s country, between which and Old England she drew many odious
comparisons; and prayed, without ceasing, that Europe might speedily be
involved in a general war, so as that she might have some chance of
re-enjoying the pleasures and emoluments of a Flanders campaign.
CHAPTER THREE
HE IS INITIATED IN A MILITARY LIFE, AND HAS THE GOOD FORTUNE TO ACQUIRE
A GENEROUS PATRON.
While she wearied Heaven with these petitions, the flame of war broke
out betwixt the houses of Ottoman and Austria, and the Emperor sent
forth an army into Hungary, under the auspices of the renowned Prince
Eugene. On account of this expedition, the mother of our hero gave up
housekeeping, and cheerfully followed her customers and husband into
the field; having first provided herself with store of those
commodities in which she had formerly merchandised. Although the hope
of profit might in some measure affect her determination, one of the
chief motives for her visiting the frontiers of Turkey, was the desire
of initiating her son in the rudiments of his education, which she now
thought high time to inculcate, he being, at this period, in the sixth
year of his age; he was accordingly conducted to the camp, which she
considered as the most consummate school of life, and proposed for the
scene of his instruction; and in this academy he had not continued many
weeks, when he was an eye-witness of that famous victory, which, with
sixty thousand men, the Imperial general obtained over an army of one
hundred and fifty thousand Turks.
His father-in-law was engaged, and his mother would not be idle on this
occasion. She was a perfect mistress of all the camp qualifications,
and thought it a duty incumbent on her to contribute all that lay in
her power towards distressing the enemy. With these sentiments she
hovered about the skirts of the army, and the troops were no sooner
employed in the pursuit, than she began to traverse the field of battle
with a poignard and a bag, in order to consult her own interest, annoy
the foe, and exercise her humanity at the same time. In short, she had,
with amazing prowess, delivered some fifty or threescore disabled
Mussulmen of the pain under which they groaned, and made a comfortable
booty of the spoils of the slain, when her eyes were attracted by the
rich attire of an Imperial officer, who lay bleeding on the plain, to
all appearance in the agonies of death.
She could not in her heart refuse that favour to a friend and Christian
she had so compassionately bestowed upon so many enemies and infidels,
and therefore drew near with the sovereign remedy, which she had
already administered with such success. As she approached this
deplorable object of pity, her ears were surprised with an ejaculation
in the English tongue, which he fervently pronounced, though with a
weak and languid voice, recommending his soul to God, and his family to
the protection of Heaven. Our Amazon’s purpose was staggered by this
providential incident; the sound of her native language, so
unexpectedly heard, and so pathetically delivered, had a surprising
effect upon her imagination; and the faculty of reflection did not
forsake her in such emergency. Though she could not recollect the
features of this unhappy officer, she concluded, from his appearance,
that he was some person of distinction in the service, and foresaw
greater advantage to herself in attempting to preserve his life, than
she could possibly reap from the execution of her first resolve. “If,”
said she to herself, “I can find means of conveying him to his tent
alive, he cannot but in conscience acknowledge my humanity with some
considerable recompense; and, should he chance to survive his wounds, I
have everything to expect from his gratitude and power.”
Fraught with these prudential suggestions, she drew near the
unfortunate stranger, and, in a softened accent of pity and condolence,
questioned him concerning his name, condition, and the nature of his
mischance, at the same time making a gentle tender of her service.
Agreeably surprised to hear himself accosted in such a manner, by a
person whose equipage seemed to promise far other designs, he thanked
her in the most grateful terms for her humanity, with the appellation
of kind countrywoman; gave her to understand that he was colonel of a
regiment of horse; that he had fallen in consequence of a shot he
received in his breast at the beginning of the action; and, finally,
entreated her to procure some carriage on which he might be removed to
his tent. Perceiving him faint and exhausted with loss of blood, she
raised up his head, and treated him with that cordial which was her
constant companion. At that instant, espying a small body of hussars
returning to the camp with the plunder they had taken, she invoked
their assistance, and they forthwith carried the officer to his own
quarters, where his wound was dressed, and his preserver carefully
tended him until his recovery was completed.
In return for these good offices, this gentleman, who was originally of
Scotland, rewarded her for the present with great liberality, assured
her of his influence in promoting her husband, and took upon himself
the charge of young Ferdinand’s education; the boy was immediately
taken into his protection, and entered as a trooper in his own
regiment; but his good intentions towards his father-in-law were
frustrated by the death of the German, who, in a few days after this
disposition, was shot in the trenches before Temiswaer.
This event, over and above the conjugal affliction with which it
invaded the lady’s quiet, would have involved her in infinite
difficulty and distress, with regard to her temporal concerns, by
leaving her unprotected in the midst of strangers, had not she been
thus providentially supplied with an effectual patron in the colonel,
who was known by the appellation of Count Melvil. He no sooner saw her,
by the death of her husband, detached from all personal connexions with
a military life, than he proposed that she should quit her occupation
in the camp, and retire to his habitation in the city of Presburg,
where she would be entertained in ease and plenty during the remaining
part of her natural life. With all due acknowledgments of his
generosity, she begged to be excused from embracing his proposal,
alleging she was so much accustomed to her present way of life, and so
much devoted to the service of the soldiery, that she should never be
happy in retirement, while the troops of any prince in Christendom kept
the field.
The Count, finding her determined to prosecute her scheme, repeated his
promise of befriending her upon all occasions; and in the meantime
admitted Ferdinand into the number of his domestics, resolving that he
should be brought up in attendance upon his own son, who was a boy of
the same age. He kept him, however, in his tent, until he should have
an opportunity of revisiting his family in person; and, before that
occasion offered, two whole years elapsed, during which the illustrious
Prince Eugene gained the celebrated battle of Belgrade, and afterwards
made himself master of that important frontier.
CHAPTER FOUR
HIS MOTHER’S PROWESS AND DEATH; TOGETHER WITH SOME INSTANCES OF HIS OWN
SAGACITY.
It would have been impossible for the mother of our adventurer, such as
she hath been described, to sit quietly in her tent, while such an
heroic scene was acting. She was no sooner apprised of the general’s
intention to attack the enemy, than she, as usual, packed up her
moveables in a waggon, which she committed to the care of a peasant in
the neighbourhood, and put herself in motion with the troops; big with
the expectation of re-acting that part in which she had formerly
acquitted herself so much to her advantage.—Nay, she by this time
looked upon her own presence as a certain omen of success to the cause
which she espoused; and, in their march to battle, actually encouraged
the ranks with repeated declarations, importing, that she had been
eye-witness of ten decisive engagements, in all of which her friends
had been victorious, and imputing such uncommon good fortune to some
supernatural quality inherent in her person.
Whether or not this confidence contributed to the fortune of the day,
by inspiring the soldiers to an uncommon pitch of courage and
resolution, I shall not pretend to determine. But, certain it is, the
victory began from that quarter in which she had posted herself; and no
corps in the army behaved with such intrepidity as that which was
manifested by those who were favoured with her admonitions and example;
for she not only exposed her person to the enemy’s fire, with the
indifference and deliberation of a veteran, but she is said to have
achieved a very conspicuous exploit by the prowess of her single arm.
The extremity of the line to which she had attached herself, being
assaulted in flank by a body of the spahis, wheeled about, in order to
sustain the charge, and received them with such a seasonable fire, as
brought a great number of turbans to the ground; among those who fell,
was one of the chiefs or agas, who had advanced before the rest, with a
view to signalise his valour.
Our English Penthesilea no sooner saw this Turkish leader drop, than,
struck with the magnificence of his own and horse’s trappings, she
sprung forward to seize them as her prize, and found the aga not dead,
though in a good measure disabled by his misfortune, which was entirely
owing to the weight of his horse, that, having been killed by a
musket-ball, lay upon his leg, so that he could not disengage himself.
Nevertheless, perceiving the virago approach with fell intent, he
brandished his symitar, and tried to intimidate his assailant with a
most horrible exclamation; but it was not the dismal yell of a
dismounted cavalier, though enforced with a hideous ferocity of
countenance, and the menacing gestures with which he waited her
approach, that could intimidate such an undaunted she-campaigner; she
saw him writhing in the agonies of a situation from which he could not
move; and, running towards him with the nimbleness and intrepidity of a
Camilla, described a semicircle in the progress of her assault, and
attacking him on one side, plunged her well-tried dagger in his throat.
The shades of death encompassed him, his life-blood issued at the
wound, he fell prone upon the earth, he bit the dust, and having thrice
invoked the name of Allah! straight expired.
While his destiny was thus fulfilled, his followers began to reel; they
seemed dismayed at the fate of their chief, beheld their companions
drop like the leaves in autumn, and suddenly halted in the midst of
their career. The Imperialists, observing the confusion of the enemy,
redoubled their fire; and, raising a dreadful shout, advanced in order
to improve the advantage they had gained. The spahis durst not wait the
shock of such an encounter; they wheeled to the right-about, and
clapping spurs to their horses, fled in the utmost disorder. This was
actually the circumstance that turned the scale of battle. The
Austrians pursued their good fortune with uncommon impetuosity, and in
a few minutes left the field clear for the mother of our hero, who was
such an adept in the art of stripping, that in the twinkling of an eye
the bodies of the aga and his Arabian lay naked to the skin. It would
have been happy for her, had she been contented with these
first-fruits, reaped from the fortune of the day, and retired with her
spoils, which were not inconsiderable; but, intoxicated with the glory
she had won, enticed by the glittering caparisons that lay scattered on
the plain, and without doubt prompted by the secret instinct of her
fate, she resolved to seize opportunity by the forelock, and once for
all indemnify herself for the many fatigues, hazards, and sorrows she
had undergone.
Thus determined, she reconnoitred the field, and practised her address
so successfully, that in less than half an hour she was loaded with
ermine and embroidery, and disposed to retreat with her burden, when
her regards were solicited by a splendid bundle, which she descried at
some distance lying on the ground. This was no other than an unhappy
officer of hussars; who, after having the good fortune to take a
Turkish standard, was desperately wounded in the thigh, and obliged to
quit his horse; finding himself in such a helpless condition, he had
wrapped his acquisition round his body, that whatever might happen, he
and his glory should not be parted; and thus shrouded, among the dying
and the dead, he had observed the progress of our heroine, who stalked
about the field, like another Atropos, finishing, wherever she came,
the work of death. He did not at all doubt, that he himself would be
visited in the course of her peregrinations, and therefore provided for
her reception, with a pistol ready cocked in his hand, while he lay
perdue beneath his covert, in all appearance bereft of life. He was not
deceived in his prognostic; she no sooner eyed the golden crescent
than, inflamed with curiosity or cupidity, she directed thitherward her
steps, and discerning the carcase of a man, from which, she thought,
there would be a necessity for disengaging it, she lifted up her
weapon, in order to make sure of her purchase; and in the very instant
of discharging her blow, received a brace of bullets in her brain.
Thus ended the mortal pilgrimage of this modern Amazon; who, in point
of courage, was not inferior to Semiramis, Tomyris, Zenobia,
Thalestris, or any boasted heroine of ancient times. It cannot be
supposed that this catastrophe made a very deep impression upon the
mind of young Ferdinand, who had just then attained the ninth year of
his age, and been for a considerable time weaned from her maternal
caresses; especially as he felt no wants nor grievances in the family
of the Count, who favoured him with a particular share of indulgence,
because he perceived in him a spirit of docility, insinuation, and
sagacity, far above his years. He did not, however, fail to lament the
untimely fate of his mother, with such filial expressions of sorrow, as
still more intimately recommended him to his patron; who, being himself
a man of extraordinary benevolence, looked upon the boy as a prodigy of
natural affection, and foresaw in his future services a fund of
gratitude and attachment, that could not fail to render him a valuable
acquisition to his family.
In his own country, he had often seen connexions of that sort, which
having been planted in the infancy of the adherent, had grown up to a
surprising pitch of fidelity and friendship, that no temptation could
bias, and no danger dissolve. He therefore rejoiced in the hope of
seeing his own son accommodated with such a faithful attendant, in the
person of young Fathom, on whom he resolved to bestow the same
education he had planned for the other, though conveyed in such a
manner as should be suitable to the sphere in which he was ordained to
move. In consequence of these determinations, our young adventurer led
a very easy life, in quality of page to the Count, in whose tent he lay
upon a pallet, close to his field-bed, and often diverted him with his
childish prattle in the English tongue, which the more seldom his
master had occasion to speak, he the more delighted to hear. In the
exercise of his function, the boy was incredibly assiduous and alert;
far from neglecting the little particulars of his duty, and embarking
in the mischievous amusements of the children belonging to the camp, he
was always diligent, sedate, agreeably officious and anticipating; and
in the whole of his behaviour seemed to express the most vigilant sense
of his patron’s goodness and generosity; nay, to such a degree had
these sentiments, in all appearance, operated upon his reflection, that
one morning, while he supposed the Count asleep, he crept softly to his
bedside, and gently kissing his hand, which happened to be uncovered,
pronounced, in a low voice, a most fervent prayer in his behalf,
beseeching Heaven to shower down blessings upon him, as the widow’s
friend and the orphan’s father. This benediction was not lost upon the
Count, who chanced to be awake, and heard it with admiration; but what
riveted Ferdinand in his good graces, was a discovery that our youth
made, while his master was upon duty in the trenches before Belgrade.
Two foot soldiers, standing sentry near the door of the tent, were
captivated with the sight of some valuable moveables belonging to it;
and supposing, in their great wisdom, that the city of Belgrade was too
well fortified to be taken during that campaign, they came to a
resolution of withdrawing themselves from the severe service of the
trenches, by deserting to the enemy, after they should have rifled
Count Melvil’s tent of the furniture by which they were so powerfully
allured. The particulars of this plan were concerted in the French
language, which, they imagined, would screen them from all risk of
being detected, in case they should be overheard, though, as there was
no living creature in sight, they had no reason to believe that any
person was privy to their conversation. Nevertheless, they were
mistaken in both these conjectures. The conference reached the ears of
Fathom, who was at the other end of the tent, and had perceived the
eager looks with which they considered some parts of the furniture. He
had penetration enough to suspect their desire, and, alarmed by that
suspicion, listened attentively to their discourse; which, from a
slender knowledge in the French tongue, he had the good fortune partly
to understand.
This important piece of intelligence he communicated to the Count at
his return, and measures were immediately taken to defeat the design,
and make an example of the authors, who being permitted to load
themselves with the booty, were apprehended in their retreat, and
punished with death according to their demerits.
CHAPTER FIVE
A BRIEF DETAIL OF HIS EDUCATION.
Nothing could have more seasonably happened to confirm the good opinion
which the colonel entertained of Ferdinand’s principles. His intentions
towards the boy grew every day more and more warm; and, immediately
after the peace of Passarowitz, he retired to his own house at
Presburg, and presented young Fathom to his lady, not only as the son
of a person to whom he owed his life, but also as a lad who merited his
peculiar protection and regard by his own personal virtue. The
Countess, who was an Hungarian, received him with great kindness and
affability, and her son was ravished with the prospect of enjoying such
a companion. In short, fortune seemed to have provided for him an
asylum, in which he might be safely trained up, and suitably prepared
for more important scenes of life than any of his ancestors had ever
known.
He was not, in all respects, entertained on the footing of his young
master; yet he shared in all his education and amusements, as one whom
the old gentleman was fully determined to qualify for the station of an
officer in the service; and, if he did not eat with the Count, he was
every day regaled with choice bits from his table; holding, as it were,
a middle place between the rank of a relation and favourite domestic.
Although his patron maintained a tutor in the house, to superintend the
conduct of his heir, he committed the charge of his learning to the
instructions of a public school; where he imagined the boy would imbibe
a laudable spirit of emulation among his fellows, which could not fail
of turning out to the advantage of his education. Ferdinand was entered
in the same academy; and the two lads proceeded equally in the paths of
erudition; a mutual friendship and intimacy soon ensued, and,
notwithstanding the levity and caprice commonly discernible in the
behaviour of such boys, very few or rather no quarrels happened in the
course of their communication. Yet their dispositions were altogether
different, and their talents unlike. Nay, this dissimilarity was the
very bond of their union; because it prevented that jealousy and
rivalship which often interrupts the harmony of two warm
contemporaries.
The young Count made extraordinary progress in the exercises of the
school, though he seemed to take very little pains in the cultivation
of his studies; and became a perfect hero in all the athletic
diversions of his fellow-scholars; but, at the same time, exhibited
such a bashful appearance and uncouth address, that his mother
despaired of ever seeing him improved into any degree of polite
behaviour. On the other hand, Fathom, who was in point of learning a
mere dunce, became, even in his childhood, remarkable among the ladies
for his genteel deportment and vivacity; they admired the proficiency
he made under the directions of his dancing-master, the air with which
he performed his obeisance at his entrance and exit; and were charmed
with the agreeable assurance and lively sallies of his conversation;
while they expressed the utmost concern and disgust at the boorish
demeanour of his companion, whose extorted bows resembled the pawings
of a mule, who hung his head in silence like a detected sheep-stealer,
who sat in company under the most awkward expressions of constraint,
and whose discourse never exceeded the simple monosyllables of negation
and assent.
In vain did all the females of the family propose to him young Fathom,
as a pattern and reproach. He remained unaltered by all their efforts
and expostulations, and allowed our adventurer to enjoy the triumph of
his praise, while he himself was conscious of his own superiority in
those qualifications which seemed of more real importance than the mere
exteriors and forms of life. His present ambition was not to make a
figure at his father’s table, but to eclipse his rivals at school, and
to acquire an influence and authority among these confederates.
Nevertheless, Fathom might possibly have fallen under his displeasure
or contempt, had not that pliant genius found means to retain his
friendship by seasonable compliances and submission; for the sole
study, or at least the chief aim of Ferdinand, was to make himself
necessary and agreeable to those on whom his dependence was placed. His
talent was in this particular suited to his inclination; he seemed to
have inherited it from his mother’s womb; and, without all doubt, would
have raised upon it a most admirable superstructure of fortune and
applause, had not it been inseparably yoked with a most insidious
principle of self-love, that grew up with him from the cradle, and left
no room in his heart for the least particle of social virtue. This
last, however, he knew so well how to counterfeit, by means of a large
share of ductility and dissimulation, that, surely, he was calculated
by nature to dupe even the most cautious, and gratify his appetites, by
levying contributions on all mankind.
So little are the common instructors of youth qualified to judge the
capacities of those who are under their tutelage and care, that Fathom,
by dint of his insinuating arts, made shift to pass upon the
schoolmaster as a lad of quick parts, in despite of a natural
inaptitude to retain his lessons, which all his industry could never
overcome. In order to remedy, or rather to cloak this defect in his
understanding, he had always recourse to the friendship of the young
Count, who freely permitted him to transcribe his exercises, until a
small accident happened, which had well-nigh put a stop to these
instances of his generosity.—The adventure, inconsiderable as it is, we
shall record, as the first overt act of Ferdinand’s true character, as
well as an illustration of the opinion we have advanced touching the
blind and injudicious decisions of a right pedagogue.
Among other tasks imposed by the pedant upon the form to which our two
companions belonged, they were one evening ordered to translate a
chapter of Caesar’s Commentaries. Accordingly the young Count went to
work, and performed the undertaking with great elegance and despatch.
Fathom, having spent the night in more effeminate amusements, was next
morning so much hurried for want of time, that in his transcription he
neglected to insert a few variations from the text, these being the
terms on which he was allowed to use it; so that it was verbatim a copy
of the original. As those exercises were always delivered in a heap,
subscribed with the several names of the boys to whom they belonged,
the schoolmaster chanced to peruse the version of Ferdinand, before he
looked into any of the rest, and could not help bestowing upon it
particular marks of approbation. The next that fell under his
examination was that of the young Count, when he immediately perceived
the sameness, and, far from imputing it to the true cause, upbraided
him with having copied the exercise of our adventurer, and insisted
upon chastising him upon the spot for his want of application.
Had not the young gentleman thought his honour was concerned, he would
have submitted to the punishment without murmuring; but he inherited,
from his parents, the pride of two fierce nations, and, being
overwhelmed with reproaches for that which he imagined ought to have
redounded to his glory, he could not brook the indignity, and boldly
affirmed, that he himself was the original, to whom Ferdinand was
beholden for his performance. The schoolmaster, nettled to find himself
mistaken in his judgment, resolved that the Count should have no cause
to exult in the discovery he had made, and, like a true flogger,
actually whipped him for having allowed Fathom to copy his exercise.
Nay, in the hope of vindicating his own penetration, he took an
opportunity of questioning Ferdinand in private concerning the
circumstances of the translation, and our hero, perceiving his drift,
gave him such artful and ambiguous answers, as persuaded him that the
young Count had acted the part of a plagiary, and that the other had
been restrained from doing himself justice, by the consideration of his
own dependence.
This profound director did not fail, in honour of his own discernment,
to whisper about the misrepresentation, as an instance of the young
Count’s insolence, and Fathom’s humility and good sense. The story was
circulated among the servants, especially the maids belonging to the
family, whose favour our hero had acquired by his engaging behaviour;
and at length it reached the ears of his patron, who, incensed at his
son’s presumption and inhospitality, called him to a severe account,
when the young gentleman absolutely denied the truth of the allegation,
and appealed to the evidence of Fathom himself. Our adventurer was
accordingly summoned by the father, and encouraged to declare the
truth, with an assurance of his constant protection; upon which
Ferdinand very wisely fell upon his knees, and, while the tears gushed
from his eyes, acquitted the young Count of the imputation, and
expressed his apprehension, that the report had been spread by some of
his enemies, who wanted to prejudice him in the opinion of his patron.
The old gentleman was not satisfied of his son’s integrity by this
declaration; being naturally of a generous disposition, highly
prepossessed in favour of the poor orphan, and chagrined at the
unpromising appearance of his heir, he suspected that Fathom was
overawed by the fear of giving offence, and that, notwithstanding what
he had said, the case really stood as it had been represented. In this
persuasion, he earnestly exhorted his son to resist and combat with any
impulse he might feel within himself, tending to selfishness, fraud, or
imposition; to encourage every sentiment of candour and benevolence,
and to behave with moderation and affability to all his
fellow-creatures. He laid upon him strong injunctions, not without a
mixture of threats, to consider Fathom as the object of his peculiar
regard; to respect him as the son of the Count’s preserver, as a
Briton, a stranger, and, above all, an helpless orphan, to whom the
rights of hospitality were doubly due.
Such admonitions were not lost upon the youth, who, under the rough
husk of his personal exhibition, possessed a large share of generous
sensibility. Without any formal professions to his father, he resolved
to govern himself according to his remonstrances; and, far from
conceiving the least spark of animosity against Fathom, he looked upon
the poor boy as the innocent cause of his disgrace, and redoubled his
kindness towards him, that his honour might never again be called in
question, upon the same subject. Nothing is more liable to
misconstruction than an act of uncommon generosity; one half of the
world mistake the motive, from want of ideas to conceive an instance of
beneficence that soars so high above the level of their own sentiments;
and the rest suspect it of something sinister or selfish, from the
suggestions of their own sordid and vicious inclinations. The young
Count subjected himself to such misinterpretation, among those who
observed the increased warmth of civility and complaisance in his
behaviour to Ferdinand. They ascribed it to his desire of still
profiting by our adventurer’s superior talents, by which alone they
supposed him enabled to maintain any degree of reputation at school; or
to the fear of being convicted by him of some misdemeanour of which he
knew himself guilty. These suspicions were not effaced by the conduct
of Ferdinand, who, when examined on the subject, managed his answers in
such a manner, as confirmed their conjectures, while he pretended to
refute them, and at the same time acquired to himself credit for his
extraordinary discretion and self-denial.
If he exhibited such a proof of sagacity in the twelfth year of his
age, what might not be expected from his finesse in the maturity of his
faculties and experience? Thus secured in the good graces of the whole
family, he saw the days of his puerility glide along in the most
agreeable elapse of caresses and amusement. He never fairly plunged
into the stream of school-education, but, by floating on the surface,
imbibed a small tincture of those different sciences which his master
pretended to teach. In short, he resembled those vagrant swallows that
skim along the level of some pool or river, without venturing to wet
one feather in their wings, except in the accidental pursuit of an
inconsiderable fly. Yet, though his capacity or inclination was
unsuited for studies of this kind, he did not fail to manifest a
perfect genius in the acquisition of other more profitable arts. Over
and above the accomplishments of address, for which he hath been
already celebrated, he excelled all his fellows in his dexterity at
fives and billiards; was altogether unrivalled in his skill at draughts
and backgammon; began, even at these years, to understand the moves and
schemes of chess; and made himself a mere adept in the mystery of
cards, which he learned in the course of his assiduities and attention
to the females of the house.
CHAPTER SIX
HE MEDITATES SCHEMES OF IMPORTANCE.
It was in these parties that he attracted the notice and friendship of
his patron’s daughter, a girl by two years older than himself, who was
not insensible to his qualifications, and looked upon him with the most
favourable eyes of prepossession. Whether or not he at this period of
his life began to project plans for availing himself of her
susceptibility, is uncertain; but, without all doubt, he cultivated her
esteem with as obsequious and submissive attention as if he had already
formed the design, which, in his advanced age, he attempted to put in
execution.
Divers circumstances conspired to promote him in the favour of this
young lady; the greenness of his years secured him from any appearance
of fallacious aim; so that he was indulged in frequent opportunities of
conversing with his young mistress, whose parents encouraged this
communication, by which they hoped she would improve in speaking the
language of her father. Such connexions naturally produce intimacy and
friendship. Fathom’s person was agreeable, his talents calculated for
the meridian of those parties, and his manners so engaging, that there
would have been no just subject for wonder, had he made an impression
upon the tender unexperienced heart of Mademoiselle de Melvil, whose
beauty was not so attractive as to extinguish his hope, in raising up a
number of formidable rivals; though her expectations of fortune were
such as commonly lend additional lustre to personal merit.
All these considerations were so many steps towards the success of
Ferdinand’s pretensions; and though he cannot be supposed to have
perceived them at first, he in the sequel seemed perfectly well
apprised of his advantages, and used them to the full extent of his
faculties. Observing that she delighted in music, he betook himself to
the study of that art, and, by dint of application and a tolerable ear,
learned of himself to accompany her with a German flute, while she sung
and played upon the harpsichord. The Count, seeing his inclination, and
the progress he had made, resolved that his capacity should not be lost
for want of cultivation; and accordingly provided him with a master, by
whom he was instructed in the principles of the art, and soon became a
proficient in playing upon the violin.
In the practice of these improvements and avocations, and in attendance
upon his young master, whom he took care never to disoblige or neglect,
he attained to the age of sixteen, without feeling the least abatement
in the friendship and generosity of those upon whom he depended; but,
on the contrary, receiving every day fresh marks of their bounty and
regard. He had before this time been smit with the ambition of making a
conquest of the young lady’s heart, and foresaw manifold advantages to
himself in becoming son-in-law to Count Melvil, who, he never doubted,
would soon be reconciled to the match, if once it could be effectuated
without his knowledge. Although he thought he had great reason to
believe that Mademoiselle looked upon him with an eye of peculiar
favour, his disposition was happily tempered with an ingredient of
caution, that hindered him from acting with precipitation; and he had
discerned in the young lady’s deportment certain indications of
loftiness and pride, which kept him in the utmost vigilance and
circumspection; for he knew, that, by a premature declaration, he
should run the risk of forfeiting all the advantages he had gained, and
blasting those expectations that now blossomed so gaily in his heart.
Restricted by these reflections, he acted at a wary distance, and
determined to proceed by the method of sap, and, summoning all his
artifice and attractions to his aid, employed them under the insidious
cover of profound respect, in order to undermine those bulwarks of
haughtiness or discretion, which otherwise might have rendered his
approaches to her impracticable. With a view to enhance the value of
his company, and sound her sentiments at the same time, he became more
reserved than usual, and seldomer engaged in her parties of music and
cards; yet, in the midst of his reserve, he never failed in those
demonstrations of reverence and regard, which he knew perfectly well
how to express, but devised such excuses for his absence, as she could
not help admitting. In consequence of this affected shyness, she more
than once gently chid him for his neglect and indifference, observing,
with an ironical air, that he was now too much of a man to be
entertained with such effeminate diversions; but her reproofs were
pronounced with too much ease and good-humour to be agreeable to our
hero, who desired to see her ruffled and chagrined at his absence, and
to hear himself rebuked with an angry affectation of disdain. This
effort, therefore, he reinforced with the most captivating carriage he
could assume, in those hours which he now so sparingly bestowed upon
his mistress. He regaled her with all the entertaining stories he could
learn or invent, particularly such as he thought would justify and
recommend the levelling power of love, that knows no distinctions of
fortune. He sung nothing but tender airs and passionate complaints,
composed by desponding or despairing swains; and, to render his
performances of this kind the more pathetic, interlarded them with some
seasonable sighs, while the tears, which he had ever at command, stood
collected in either eye.
It was impossible for her to overlook such studied emotions; she in a
jocose manner taxed him with having lost his heart, rallied the excess
of his passion, and in a merry strain undertook to be an advocate for
his love. Her behaviour was still wide of his wish and expectation. He
thought she would, in consequence of her discovery, have betrayed some
interested symptom; that her face would have undergone some favourable
suffusion; that her tongue would have faltered, her breast heaved, and
her whole deportment betokened internal agitation and disorder, in
which case, he meant to profit by the happy impression, and declare
himself, before she could possibly recollect the dictates of her
pride.—Baffled however in his endeavours, by the serenity of the young
lady, which he still deemed equivocal, he had recourse to another
experiment, by which he believed he should make a discovery of her
sentiments beyond all possibility of doubt. One day, while he
accompanied Mademoiselle in her exercise of music, he pretended all of
a sudden to be taken ill, and counterfeited a swoon in her apartment.
Surprised at this accident, she screamed aloud, but far from running to
his assistance, with the transports and distraction of a lover, she
ordered her maid, who was present, to support his head, and went in
person to call for more help. He was accordingly removed to his own
chamber, where, willing to be still more certified of her inclinations,
he prolonged the farce, and lay groaning under the pretence of a severe
fever.
The whole family was alarmed upon this occasion; for, as we have
already observed, he was an universal favourite. He was immediately
visited by the old Count and his lady, who expressed the utmost concern
at his distemper, ordered him to be carefully attended, and sent for a
physician without loss of time. The young gentleman would scarce stir
from his bedside, where he ministered unto him with all the
demonstrations of brotherly affection; and Miss exhorted him to keep up
his spirits, with many expressions of unreserved sympathy and regard.
Nevertheless, he saw nothing in her behaviour but what might be
naturally expected from common friendship, and a compassionate
disposition, and was very much mortified at his disappointment.
Whether the miscarriage actually affected his constitution, or the
doctor happened to be mistaken in his diagnostics, we shall not pretend
to determine; but the patient was certainly treated secundum artem, and
all his complaints in a little time realised; for the physician, like a
true graduate, had an eye to the apothecary in his prescriptions; and
such was the concern and scrupulous care with which our hero was
attended, that the orders of the faculty were performed with the utmost
punctuality. He was blooded, vomited, purged, and blistered, in the
usual forms (for the physicians of Hungary are generally as well
skilled in the arts of their occupation as any other leeches under the
sun), and swallowed a whole dispensary of bolusses, draughts, and
apozems, by which means he became fairly delirious in three days, and
so untractable, that he could be no longer managed according to rule;
otherwise, in all likelihood, the world would never have enjoyed the
benefit of these adventures. In short, his constitution, though unable
to cope with two such formidable antagonists as the doctor and the
disease he had conjured up, was no sooner rid of the one, than it
easily got the better of the other; and though Ferdinand, after all,
found his grand aim unaccomplished, his malady was productive of a
consequence, which, though he had not foreseen it, he did not fail to
convert to his own use and advantage.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ENGAGES IN PARTNERSHIP WITH A FEMALE ASSOCIATE, IN ORDER TO PUT HIS
TALENTS IN ACTION.
While he displayed his qualifications in order to entrap the heart of
his young mistress, he had unwittingly enslaved the affections of her
maid. This attendant was also a favourite of the young lady, and,
though her senior by two or three good years at least, unquestionably
her superior in point of personal beauty; she moreover possessed a good
stock of cunning and discernment, and was furnished by nature with a
very amorous complexion. These circumstances being premised, the reader
will not be surprised to find her smitten by those uncommon
qualifications which we have celebrated in young Fathom. She had in
good sooth long sighed in secret, under the powerful influence of his
charms, and practised upon him all those little arts, by which a woman
strives to attract the admiration, and ensnare the heart of a man she
loves; but all his faculties were employed upon the plan which he had
already projected; that was the goal of his whole attention, to which
all his measures tended; and whether or not he perceived the impression
he had made upon Teresa, he never gave her the least reason to believe
he was conscious of his victory, until he found himself baffled in his
design upon the heart of her mistress.—She therefore persevered in her
distant attempts to allure him, with the usual coquetries of dress and
address, and, in the sweet hope of profiting by his susceptibility,
made shift to suppress her feelings, and keep her passion within
bounds, until his supposed danger alarmed her fears, and raised such a
tumult within her breast, that she could no longer conceal her love,
but gave a loose to her sorrow in the most immoderate expressions of
anguish and affliction, and, while his delirium lasted, behaved with
all the agitation of a despairing shepherdess.
Ferdinand was, or pretended to be, the last person in the family who
understood the situation of her thoughts; when he perceived her
passion, he entered into deliberation with himself, and tasked his
reflection and foresight, in order to discover how best he might
convert this conquest to his own advantage. Here, then, that we may
neglect no opportunity of doing justice to our hero, it will be proper
to observe, that, howsoever unapt his understanding might be to receive
and retain the usual culture of the schools, he was naturally a genius
self-taught, in point of sagacity and invention.—He dived into the
characters of mankind, with a penetration peculiar to himself, and, had
he been admitted as a pupil in any political academy, would have
certainly become one of the ablest statesmen in Europe.
Having revolved all the probable consequences of such a connexion, he
determined to prosecute an amour with the lady whose affection he had
subdued; because he hoped to interest her as an auxiliary in his grand
scheme upon Mademoiselle, which he did not as yet think proper to lay
aside; for he was not more ambitious in the plan, than indefatigable in
the prosecution of it. He knew it would be impossible to execute his
aims upon the Count’s daughter under the eye of Teresa, whose natural
discernment would be whetted with jealousy, and who would watch his
conduct, and thwart his progress with all the vigilance and spite of a
slighted maiden. On the other hand, he did not doubt of being able to
bring her over to his interest, by the influence he had already gained,
or might afterwards acquire over her passions; in which case, she would
effectually espouse his cause, and employ her good offices with her
mistress in his behalf; besides, he was induced by another motive,
which, though secondary, did not fail in this case to have an effect
upon his determination. He looked upon Teresa with the eyes of
appetite, which he longed to gratify; for he was not at all dead to the
instigations of the flesh, though he had philosophy enough to resist
them, when he thought they interfered with his interest. Here the case
was quite different. His desire happened to be upon the side of his
advantage, and therefore, resolving to indulge it, he no sooner found
himself in a condition to manage such an adventure, than he began to
make gradual advances in point of warmth and particular complacency to
the love-sick maid.
He first of all thanked her, in the most grateful terms, for the
concern she had manifested at his distemper, and the kind services he
had received from her during the course of it; he treated her upon all
occasions with unusual affability and regard, assiduously courted her
acquaintance and conversation, and contracted an intimacy that in a
little time produced a declaration of love. Although her heart was too
much intendered to hold out against all the forms of assault, far from
yielding at discretion, she stood upon honourable terms, with great
obstinacy of punctilio, and, while she owned he was master of her
inclinations, gave him to understand, with a peremptory and resolute
air, that he should never make a conquest of her virtue; observing,
that, if the passion he professed was genuine, he would not scruple to
give such a proof of it as would at once convince her of his sincerity;
and that he could have no just cause to refuse her that satisfaction,
she being his equal in point of birth and situation; for, if he was the
companion and favourite of the young Count, she was the friend and
confidant of Mademoiselle.
He acknowledged the strength of her argument, and that her
condescension was greater than his deserts, but objected against the
proposal, as infinitely prejudicial to the fortunes of them both. He
represented the state of dependence in which they mutually stood; their
utter incapacity to support one another under the consequences of a
precipitate match, clandestinely made, without the consent and
concurrence of their patrons. He displayed, with great eloquence, all
those gay expectations they had reason to entertain, from that eminent
degree of favour which they had already secured in the family; and set
forth, in the most alluring colours, those enchanting scenes of
pleasure they might enjoy in each other, without that disagreeable
consciousness of a nuptial chain, provided she would be his associate
in the execution of a plan which he had projected for their reciprocal
convenience.
Having thus inflamed her love of pleasure and curiosity, he, with great
caution, hinted his design upon the young lady’s fortune, and,
perceiving her listening with the most greedy attention, and perfectly
ripe for the conspiracy, he disclosed his intention at full length,
assuring her, with the most solemn protestations of love and
attachment, that, could he once make himself legal possessor of an
estate which Mademoiselle inherited by the will of a deceased aunt, his
dear Teresa should reap the happy fruits of his affluence, and wholly
engross his time and attention.
Such a base declaration our hero would not have ventured to make, had
he not implicitly believed the damsel was as great a latitudinarian as
himself, in point of morals and principle; and been well assured, that,
though he should be mistaken in her way of thinking, so far as to be
threatened with a detection of his purpose, he would always have it in
his power to refute her accusation as mere calumny, by the character he
had hitherto maintained, and the circumspection of his future conduct.
He seldom or never erred in his observations on the human heart.
Teresa, instead of disapproving, relished the plan in general, with
demonstrations of singular satisfaction. She at once conceived all the
advantageous consequences of such a scheme, and perceived in it only
one flaw, which, however, she did not think incurable. This defect was
no other than a sufficient bond of union, by which they might be
effectually tied down to their mutual interest. She foresaw, that, in
case Ferdinand should obtain possession of the prize, he might, with
great ease, deny their contract, and disavow her claim of
participation. She therefore demanded security, and proposed, as a
preliminary of the agreement, that he should privately take her to
wife, with a view to dispel all her apprehensions of his inconstancy or
deceit, as such a previous engagement would be a check upon his
behaviour, and keep him strictly to the letter of their contract.
He could not help subscribing to the righteousness of this proposal,
which, nevertheless, he would have willingly waived, on the supposition
that they could not possibly be joined in the bands of wedlock with
such secrecy as the nature of the case absolutely required. This would
have been a difficulty soon removed, had the scene of the transaction
been laid in the metropolis of England, where passengers are plied in
the streets by clergymen, who prostitute their characters and
consciences for hire, in defiance of all decency and law; but in the
kingdom of Hungary, ecclesiastics are more scrupulous in the exercise
of their function, and the objection was, or supposed to be, altogether
insurmountable; so that they were fain to have recourse to an
expedient, with which, after some hesitation, our she-adventurer was
satisfied. They joined hands in the sight of Heaven, which they called
to witness, and to judge the sincerity of their vows, and engaged, in a
voluntary oath, to confirm their union by the sanction of the church,
whenever a convenient opportunity for so doing should occur.
The scruples of Teresa being thus removed, she admitted Ferdinand to
the privileges of a husband, which he enjoyed in stolen interviews, and
readily undertook to exert her whole power in promoting his suit with
her young mistress, because she now considered his interest as
inseparably connected with her own. Surely nothing could be more absurd
or preposterous than the articles of this covenant, which she insisted
upon with such inflexibility. How could she suppose that her pretended
lover would be restrained by an oath, when the very occasion of
incurring it was an intention to act in violation of all laws human and
divine? and yet such ridiculous conjuration is commonly the cement of
every conspiracy, how dark, how treacherous, how impious soever it may
be: a certain sign that there are some remains of religion left in the
human mind, even after every moral sentiment hath abandoned it; and
that the most execrable ruffian finds means to quiet the suggestions of
his conscience, by some reversionary hope of Heaven’s forgiveness.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THEIR FIRST ATTEMPT; WITH A DIGRESSION WHICH SOME READERS MAY THINK
IMPERTINENT.
Be this as it will, our lovers, though real voluptuaries, amidst the
first transports of their enjoyment did not neglect the great political
aim of their conjunction. Teresa’s bedchamber, to which our hero
constantly repaired at midnight, was the scene of their deliberations,
and there it was determined that the damsel, in order to avoid
suspicion, should feign herself irritated at the indifference of
Ferdinand, her passion for whom was by this time no secret in the
family; and that, with a view to countenance this affectation, he
should upon all occasions treat her with an air of loftiness and
disdain.
So screened from all imputation of fraud, she was furnished by him with
artful instructions how to sound the inclinations of her young
mistress, how to recommend his person and qualifications by the sure
methods of contradiction, comparisons, revilings, and reproach; how to
watch the paroxysms of her disposition, inflame her passions, and
improve, for his advantage, those moments of frailty from which no
woman is exempted. In short, this consummate politician taught his
agent to poison the young lady’s mind with insidious conversation,
tending to inspire her with the love of guilty pleasure, to debauch her
sentiments, and confound her ideas of dignity and virtue. After all,
the task is not difficult to lead the unpractised heart astray, by dint
of those opportunities her seducer possessed. The seeds of insinuation
seasonably sown upon the warm luxuriant soil of youth, could hardly
fail of shooting up into such intemperate desires as he wanted to
produce, especially when cultured and cherished in her unguarded hours,
by that stimulating discourse which familiarity admits, and the looser
passions, ingrafted in every breast, are apt to relish and excuse.
Fathom had previously reconnoitred the ground, and discovered some
marks of inflammability in Mademoiselle’s constitution; her beauty was
not such as to engage her in those gaieties of amusement which could
flatter her vanity and dissipate her ideas; and she was of an age when
the little loves and young desires take possession of the fancy; he
therefore concluded, that she had the more leisure to indulge these
enticing images of pleasure that youth never fails to create,
particularly in those who, like her, were addicted to solitude and
study.
Teresa, full fraught with the wily injunctions of her confederate, took
the field, and opened the campaign with such remarkable sourness in her
aspect when Ferdinand appeared, that her young lady could not help
taking notice of her affected chagrin, and asked the reason of such
apparent alteration in her way of thinking. Prepared for this question,
the other replied, in a manner calculated for giving Mademoiselle to
understand, that, whatever impressions Ferdinand might have formerly
made on her heart, they were now altogether effaced by the pride and
insolence with which he had received her advances; and that her breast
now glowed with all the revenge of a slighted lover.
To evince the sincerity of this declaration, she bitterly inveighed
against him, and even affected to depreciate those talents, in which
she knew his chief merit to consist; hoping, by these means, to
interest Mademoiselle’s candour in his defence. So far the train
succeeded. That young lady’s love for truth was offended at the
calumnies that were vented against Ferdinand in his absence. She chid
her woman for the rancour of her remarks, and undertook to refute the
articles of his dispraise. Teresa supported her own assertions with
great obstinacy, and a dispute ensued, in which her mistress was heated
into some extravagant commendations of our adventurer.
His supposed enemy did not fail to make a report of her success, and to
magnify every advantage they had gained; believing, in good earnest,
that her lady’s warmth was the effect of a real passion for the
fortunate Mr. Fathom. But he himself viewed the adventure in a
different light, and rightly imputed the violence of Mademoiselle’s
behaviour to the contradiction she had sustained from her maid, or to
the fire of her natural generosity glowing in behalf of innocence
traduced. Nevertheless, he was perfectly well pleased with the nature
of the contest; because, in the course of such debates, he foresaw that
he should become habitually her hero, and that, in time, she would
actually believe those exaggerations of his merit, which she herself
had feigned, for the honour of her own arguments.
This presage, founded upon that principle of self-respect, without
which no individual exists, may certainly be justified by manifold
occurrences in life. We ourselves have known a very pregnant example,
which we shall relate, for the emolument of the reader. A certain needy
author having found means to present a manuscript to one of those sons
of fortune who are dignified with the appellation of patrons, instead
of reaping that applause and advantage with which he had regaled his
fancy, had the mortification to find his performance treated with
infinite irreverence and contempt, and, in high dudgeon and
disappointment, appealed to the judgment of another critic, who, he
knew, had no veneration for the first.
This common consolation, to which all baffled authors have recourse,
was productive of very happy consequences to our bard; for, though the
opinions of both judges concerning the piece were altogether the same,
the latter, either out of compassion to the appellant, or desire of
rendering his rival ridiculous in the eye of taste, undertook to repair
the misfortune, and in this manner executed the plan. In a meeting of
literati, to which both these wits belonged, he who had espoused the
poet’s cause, having previously desired another member to bring his
composition on the carpet, no sooner heard it mentioned, than he began
to censure it with flagrant marks of scorn, and, with an ironical air,
looking at its first condemner, observed, that he must be furiously
infected with the rage of patronising, who could take such a deplorable
performance into his protection. The sarcasm took effect.
The person against whom it was levelled, taking umbrage at his
presumption, assumed an aspect of disdain, and replied with great
animosity, that nothing was more easily supported than the character of
a Zoilus, because no production was altogether free from blemishes; and
any man might pronounce against any piece by the lump, without
interesting his own discernment; but to perceive the beauties of a
work, it was requisite to have learning, judgment, and taste; and
therefore he did not wonder that the gentleman had overlooked a great
many in the composition which he so contemptuously decried. A rejoinder
succeeded this reply, and produced a long train of altercation, in
which the gentleman, who had formerly treated the book with such
disrespect, now professed himself its passionate admirer, and held
forth in praise of it with great warmth and elocution.
Not contented with having exhibited this instance of regard, he next
morning sent a message to the owner, importing, that he had but
superficially glanced over the manuscript, and desiring the favour of
perusing it a second time. Being indulged in this request, he
recommended it in terms of rapture to all his friends and dependants,
and, by dint of unwearied solicitation, procured a very ample
subscription for the author.
But, to resume the thread of our story. Teresa’s practices were not
confined to simple defamation. Her reproaches were contrived so as to
imply some intelligence in favour of the person she reviled. In
exemplifying his pertness and arrogance, she repeated his witty
repartee; on pretence of blaming his ferocity, she recounted proofs of
his spirit and prowess; and, in explaining the source of his vanity,
gave her mistress to understand, that a certain young lady of fashion
was said to be enamoured of his person. Nor did this well-instructed
understrapper omit those other parts of her cue which the principal
judged necessary for the furtherance of his scheme. Her conversation
became less guarded, and took a freer turn than usual; she seized all
opportunities of introducing little amorous stories, the greatest part
of which were invented for the purposes of warming her passions, and
lowering the price of chastity in her esteem; for she represented all
the young lady’s contemporaries in point of age and situation, as so
many sensualists, who, without scruple, indulged themselves in the
stolen pleasures of youth.
Meanwhile, Ferdinand seconded these endeavours with his whole industry
and address. He redoubled, if possible, his deference and respect,
whetting his assiduity to the keenest edge of attention; and, in short,
regulated his dress, conversation, and deportment, according to the
fancy, turn, and prevailing humour of his young mistress. He, moreover,
attempted to profit by her curiosity, which he knew to be truly
feminine; and having culled from the library of his patron certain
dangerous books, calculated to debauch the minds of young people, left
them occasionally upon the table in his apartment, after having
directed Teresa to pick them up, as if by accident, in his absence, and
carry them off for the entertainment of Mademoiselle; nay, this crafty
projector found means to furnish his associate with some mischievous
preparations, which were mingled in her chocolate, tea, or coffee, as
provocations to warm her constitution; yet all these machinations,
ingenious as they were, failed, not only in fulfilling their aim, but
even in shaking the foundations of her virtue or pride, which stood
their assaults unmoved, like a strong tower built upon a rock,
impregnable to all the tempestuous blasts of heaven.
Not but that the conspirators were more than once mistaken in the
effects of their artifices, and disposed to applaud themselves on the
progress they had made. When at any time she expressed a desire to
examine those performances which were laid before her as snares to
entrap her chastity, they attributed that, which was no other than
curiosity, to a looseness of sentiment; and when she discovered no
aversion to hear those anecdotes concerning the frailty of her
neighbours, they imputed to abatement of chastity that satisfaction
which was the result of self-congratulation on her own superior virtue.
So far did the treacherous accomplice of Fathom presume upon these
misconstructions, that she at length divested her tongue of all
restraint, and behaved in such a manner, that the young lady,
confounded and incensed at her indecency and impudence, rebuked her
with great severity, and commanded her to reform her discourse, on pain
of being dismissed with disgrace from her service.
CHAPTER NINE
THE CONFEDERATES CHANGE THEIR BATTERY, AND ACHIEVE A REMARKABLE
ADVENTURE.
Thunderstruck at this disappointment, the confederates held a council,
in order to deliberate upon the next measures that should be taken; and
Ferdinand, for the present, despairing of accomplishing his grand aim,
resolved to profit in another manner, by the conveniency of his
situation. He represented to his helpmate, that it would be prudent for
them to make hay while the sun shone, as their connexion might be
sooner or later discovered, and an end put to all those opportunities
which they now so happily enjoyed. All principles of morality had been
already excluded from their former plan; consequently he found it an
easy task to interest Teresa in any other scheme tending to their
mutual advantage, howsoever wicked and perfidious it might be. He
therefore persuaded her to be his auxiliary in defrauding Mademoiselle
at play, and gave her suitable directions for that purpose; and even
tutored her how to abuse the trust reposed in her, by embezzling the
young lady’s effects, without incurring the suspicion of dishonesty.
On the supposition that every servant in the house was not able to
resist such temptation, the purse of her mistress, to which the maid
had always access, was dropped in a passage which the domestics had
occasion to frequent; and Fathom posted himself in a convenient place,
in order to observe the effect of his stratagem. Here he was not
disappointed in his conjecture. The first person who chanced to pass
that way, was one of the chambermaids, with whom Teresa had lived for
some time in a state of inveterate enmity, because the wench had failed
in that homage and respect which was paid to her by the rest of the
servants.
Ferdinand had, in his heart, espoused the quarrel of his associate, and
longed for an occasion to deliver her from the malicious observance of
such an antagonist. When he, therefore, saw her approach, his heart
throbbed with joyful expectations; but, when she snatched up the purse,
and thrust it in her bosom, with all the eagerness and confusion of one
determined to appropriate the windfall to her own use, his transports
were altogether unspeakable. He traced her to her own apartment,
whither she immediately retreated with great trepidation, and then
communicated the discovery to Teresa, together with instructions how to
behave in the sequel.
In conformity with these lessons, she took the first opportunity of
going to Mademoiselle, and demanding money for some necessary expense,
that the loss might be known before the finder could have leisure to
make any fresh conveyance of the prize; and, in the meantime, Ferdinand
kept a strict eye upon the motions of the chambermaid. The young lady,
having rummaged her pockets in vain, expressed some surprise at the
loss of her purse; upon which her attendant gave indications of extreme
amazement and concern. She said, it could not possibly be lost;
entreated her to search her escritoir, while she herself ran about the
room, prying into every corner, with all the symptoms of fear and
distraction. Having made this unsuccessful inquiry, she pretended to
shed a flood of tears, bewailing her own fate, in being near the person
of any lady who met with such a misfortune, by which, she observed, her
character might be called in question. She produced her own keys, and
begged upon her knees, that her chamber and boxes might be searched
without delay.
In a word, she demeaned herself so artfully upon this occasion, that
her mistress, who never entertained the least doubt of her integrity,
now looked upon her as a miracle of fidelity and attachment, and was at
infinite pains to console her for the accident which had happened;
protesting that, for her own part, the loss of the money should never
affect her with a moment’s uneasiness, if she could retrieve a certain
medal which she had long kept in her purse, as a remembrance of her
deceased aunt, from whom she received it in a present.
Fathom entered accidentally into the midst of this well-acted scene,
and, perceiving the agitation of the maid, and the concern of the
mistress, desired, in a respectful manner, to know the cause of their
disorder. Before the young lady had time to make him acquainted with
the circumstances of the case, his accomplice exclaimed, in an affected
passion, “Mr. Fathom, my lady has lost her purse; and, as no persons in
the family are so much about her as you and I, you must give me leave,
in my own justification, to insist upon Mademoiselle’s ordering the
apartments of us both to be searched without loss of time. Here are my
pockets and my keys, and you cannot scruple to give her the same
satisfaction; for innocence has nothing to fear.”
Miss Melvil reprimanded her sharply for her unmannerly zeal; and
Ferdinand eyeing her with a look of disdain, “Madam,” said he, “I
approve of your proposal; but, before I undergo such mortification, I
would advise Mademoiselle to subject the two chambermaids to such
inquiry; as they also have access to the apartments, and are, I
apprehend, as likely as you or I to behave in such a scandalous
manner.”
The young lady declared that she was too well satisfied of Teresa’s
honesty and Ferdinand’s honour, to harbour the least suspicion of
either, and that she would sooner die than disgrace them so far as to
comply with the proposal the former had made; but as she saw no reason
for exempting the inferior servants from that examination which Fathom
advised, she would forthwith put it in execution. The chambermaids
being accordingly summoned, she calmly asked if either of them had
accidentally found the purse she had dropped? and both replying in the
negative, she assumed an air of severity and determination, and
demanding their keys, threatened to examine their trunks on the
instant.
The guilty Abigail, who, though an Hungarian, was not inferior, in
point of effrontery, to any one of the sisterhood in England, no sooner
heard this menace, than she affected an air of affronted innocence,
thanked God she had lived in many reputable families, and been trusted
with untold gold, but was never before suspected of theft; that the
other maid might do as she should think proper, and be mean-spirited
enough to let her things be tumbled topsy-turvy and exposed; but, for
her own part, if she should be used in that inhuman and disgraceful
manner, she would not stay another hour in the house; and in conclusion
said, that Mademoiselle had more reason to look sharp after those who
enjoyed the greatest share of her favour, than believe their malicious
insinuations against innocent people whom they were well known to hate
and defame.
This declaration, implying an hint to the prejudice of Teresa, far from
diverting Miss Melvil from her purpose, served only to enhance the
character of the accused in her opinion, and to confirm her suspicion
of the accuser, of whom she again demanded her keys, protesting that,
should she prove refractory, the Count himself should take cognisance
of the affair, whereas, if she would deal ingenuously, she should have
no cause to repent of her confession. So saying, she desired our
adventurer to take the trouble of calling up some of the men-servants;
upon which the conscious criminal began to tremble, and, falling upon
her knees, acknowledged her guilt, and implored the forgiveness of her
young mistress.
Teresa, seizing this occasion to signalise her generosity, joined in
the request, and the offender was pardoned, after having restored the
purse, and promised in the sight of Heaven, that the devil should never
again entice her to the commission of such a crime. This adventure
fully answered all the purposes of our politician; it established the
opinion of his fellow-labourer’s virtue, beyond the power of accident
or information to shake, and set up a false beacon to mislead the
sentiments of Mademoiselle, in case she should for the future meet with
the like misfortune.
CHAPTER TEN
THEY PROCEED TO LEVY CONTRIBUTIONS WITH GREAT SUCCESS, UNTIL OUR HERO
SETS OUT WITH THE YOUNG COUNT FOR VIENNA, WHERE HE ENTERS INTO LEAGUE
WITH ANOTHER ADVENTURER.
Under this secure cover, Teresa levied contributions upon her mistress
with great success. Some trinket was missing every day; the young
lady’s patience began to fail; the faithful attendant was overwhelmed
with consternation, and, with the appearance of extreme chagrin,
demanded her dismission, affirming that these things were certainly
effected by some person in the family, with a view of murdering her
precious reputation. Miss Melvil, not without difficulty, quieted her
vexation with assurances of inviolable confidence and esteem, until a
pair of diamond earrings vanished, when Teresa could no longer keep her
affliction within bounds. Indeed, this was an event of more consequence
than all the rest which had happened, for the jewels were valued at
five hundred florins.
Mademoiselle was accordingly alarmed to such a degree, that she made
her mother acquainted with her loss, and that good lady, who was an
excellent economist, did not fail to give indications of extraordinary
concern. She asked, if her daughter had reason to suspect any
individual in the family, and if she was perfectly confident of her own
woman’s integrity? Upon which Mademoiselle, with many encomiums on the
fidelity and attachment of Teresa, recounted the adventure of the
chambermaid, who immediately underwent a strict inquiry, and was even
committed to prison, on the strength of her former misdemeanour. Our
adventurer’s mate insisted upon undergoing the same trial with the rest
of the domestics, and, as usual, comprehended Fathom in her
insinuations; while he seconded the proposal, and privately counselled
the old lady to introduce Teresa to the magistrate of the place. By
these preconcerted recriminations, they escaped all suspicion of
collusion. After a fruitless inquiry, the prisoner was discharged from
her confinement, and turned out of the service of the Count, in whose
private opinion the character of no person suffered so much, as that of
his own son, whom he suspected of having embezzled the jewels, for the
use of a certain inamorata, who, at that time, was said to have
captivated his affections.
The old gentleman felt upon this occasion all that internal anguish
which a man of honour may be supposed to suffer, on account of a son’s
degeneracy; and, without divulging his sentiments, or even hinting his
suspicions to the youth himself, determined to detach him at once from
such dangerous connexions, by sending him forthwith to Vienna, on
pretence of finishing his exercises at the academy, and ushering him
into acquaintance with the great world. Though he would not be thought
by the young gentleman himself to harbour the least doubt of his
morals, he did not scruple to unbosom himself on that subject to
Ferdinand, whose sagacity and virtue he held in great veneration. This
indulgent patron expressed himself in the most pathetic terms, on the
untoward disposition of his son; he told Fathom, that he should
accompany Renaldo (that was the youth’s name) not only as a companion,
but a preceptor and pattern; conjured him to assist his tutor in
superintending his conduct, and to reinforce the governor’s precepts by
his own example; to inculcate upon him the most delicate punctilios of
honour, and decoy him into extravagance, rather than leave the least
illiberal sentiment in his heart.
Our crafty adventurer, with demonstrations of the utmost sensibility,
acknowledged the great goodness of the Count in reposing such
confidence in his integrity; which, as he observed, none but the worst
of villains could abuse; and fervently wished that he might no longer
exist, than he should continue to remember and resent the obligations
he owed to his kind benefactor. While preparations were making for
their departure, our hero held a council with his associate, whom he
enriched with many sage instructions touching her future operations; he
at the same time disburdened her of all or the greatest part of the
spoils she had won, and after having received divers marks of bounty
from the Count and his lady, together with a purse from his young
mistress, he set out for Vienna, in the eighteenth year of his age,
with Renaldo and his governor, who were provided with letters of
recommendation to some of the Count’s friends belonging to the Imperial
court.
Such a favourable introduction could not fail of being advantageous to
a youth of Ferdinand’s specious accomplishments; for he was considered
as the young Count’s companion, admitted into his parties, and included
in all the entertainments to which Renaldo was invited. He soon
distinguished himself by his activity and address, in the course of
those exercises that were taught at the academy of which he was pupil;
his manners were so engaging as to attract the acquaintance of his
fellow-students, and his conversation being sprightly and inoffensive,
grew into very great request; in a word, he and the young Count formed
a remarkable contrast, which, in the eye of the world, redounded to his
advantage.
They were certainly, in all respects, the reverse of each other.
Renaldo, under a total defect of exterior cultivation, possessed a most
excellent understanding, with every virtue that dignifies the human
heart; while the other, beneath a most agreeable outside, with an
inaptitude and aversion to letters, concealed an amazing fund of
villany and ingratitude. Hitherto his observation had been confined to
a narrow sphere, and his reflections, though surprisingly just and
acute, had not attained to that maturity which age and experience give;
but now, his perceptions began to be more distinct, and extended to a
thousand objects which had never before come under his cognisance.
He had formerly imagined, but was now fully persuaded, that the sons of
men preyed upon one another, and such was the end and condition of
their being. Among the principal figures of life, he observed few or no
characters that did not bear a strong analogy to the savage tyrants of
the wood. One resembled a tiger in fury and rapaciousness; a second
prowled about like an hungry wolf, seeking whom he might devour; a
third acted the part of a jackal, in beating the bush for game to his
voracious employer; and the fourth imitated the wily fox, in practising
a thousand crafty ambuscades for the destruction of the ignorant and
unwary. This last was the department of life for which he found himself
best qualified by nature and inclination; and he accordingly resolved
that his talent should not rust in his possession. He was already
pretty well versed in all the sciences of play; but he had every day
occasion to see these arts carried to such a surprising pitch of
finesse and dexterity, as discouraged him from building his schemes on
that foundation.
He therefore determined to fascinate the judgment, rather than the eyes
of his fellow-creatures, by a continual exercise of that gift of
deceiving, with which he knew himself endued to an unrivalled degree;
and to acquire unbounded influence with those who might be subservient
to his interest, by an assiduous application to their prevailing
passions. Not that play was altogether left out in the projection of
his economy.— Though he engaged himself very little in the executive
part of gaming, he had not been long in Vienna, when he entered into
league with a genius of that kind, whom he distinguished among the
pupils of the academy, and who indeed had taken up his habitation in
that place with a view to pillage the provincials on their first
arrival in town, before they could be armed with proper circumspection
to preserve their money, or have time to dispose of it in any other
shape.
Similar characters naturally attract each other, and people of our
hero’s principles are, of all others, the most apt to distinguish their
own likeness wheresoever it occurs; because they always keep the
faculty of discerning in full exertion. It was in consequence of this
mutual alertness, that Ferdinand and the stranger, who was a native of
Tyrol, perceived themselves reflected in the dispositions of each
other, and immediately entered into an offensive and defensive
alliance; our adventurer undertaking for the articles of intelligence,
countenance, and counsel, and his associate charging himself with the
risk of execution.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FATHOM MAKES VARIOUS EFFORTS IN THE WORLD OF GALLANTRY.
Thus connected, they began to hunt in couples; and Fathom, in order to
profit by the alliance with a good grace, contrived a small scheme that
succeeded to his wish. Renaldo being one night intoxicated in the
course of a merry-making with his fellow-pupils, from which Fathom had
purposely absented himself, was by the Tyrolese so artfully provoked to
play, that he could not resist the temptation, but engaged at passdice
with that fell adversary, who, in less than an hour, stripped him of a
pretty round sum. Next day, when the young gentleman recovered the use
of his reflection, he was sensibly chagrined at the folly and
precipitation of his own conduct, an account of which he communicated
in confidence to our hero, with demonstrations of infinite shame and
concern.