t
he foresaw it would be impracticable to accomplish his aim without the
connivance of that ecclesiastic. This he was obliged to purchase with
another purse, which he offered, and was accepted, as a charitable
atonement for his criminal behaviour during the interview which the
friar had procured for the good of his soul. The benefaction was no
sooner made, than the mendicant edged off by little and little, till
he joined the rest of the company, leaving his generous patron at full
liberty to prosecute his purpose.

It is not to be doubted that our adventurer made a good use of this
occasion: he practised a thousand flowers of rhetoric, and actually
exhausted his whole address, in persuading her to have compassion upon
his misery, and indulge him with another private audience, without which
he should run distracted, and be guilty of extravagancies which, in
the humanity of her disposition, she would weep to see. But, instead of
complying with his request, she chid him severely for his presumption
in persecuting her with his vicious addresses: she assured him, that
although she had secured a chamber for herself in this place, because
she had no ambition to be better acquainted with the other lady, he
would be in the wrong to disturb her with another nocturnal visit, for
she was determined to deny him admittance. The lover was comforted by
this hint, which he understood in the true acceptation; and his passion
being inflamed by the obstacles he had met with, his heart beat high
with the prospect of possession. These raptures of expectation produced
an inquietude, which disabled him from bearing that share of the
conversation for which he used to be distinguished. His behaviour
at supper was a vicissitude of startings and reveries. The Capuchin,
imputing the disorder to a second repulse from his charge, began to
be invaded with the apprehension of being obliged to refund, and in a
whisper forbade our hero to despair.

CHAPTER LVI.

The French Coquette entraps the Heart of the Jew, against whom Pallet
enters into a Conspiracy, by which Peregrine is again disappointed, and
the Hebrew's Incontinence exposed.

Meanwhile the French siren, balked in her design upon her English
cully, who was so easily disheartened, and hung his ears in manifest
despondence, rather than rather than run the risk of making a voyage
that should be altogether unprofitable, resolved to practise her charms
upon the Dutch merchant. She had