a hard heart, who,
without an emotion of pity, can see the last offices performed to a young
creature cut off in the flower of youth and beauty, even though he knows
not her name, and is an utter stranger to her virtues. How callous then
must the soul of that wretch have been, who, without a symptom of remorse
or concern, saw the sable hearse adorned with white plumes, as emblems of
Monimia's purity, pass before him, while her incomparable merit stood
full in his remembrance, and he knew himself the wicked cause of her
untimely fate!

Perfidious wretch! thy crimes turn out so atrocious, that I half repent
me of having undertaken to record thy memoirs; yet such monsters ought to
be exhibited to public view, that mankind may be upon their guard against
imposture; that the world may see how fraud is apt to overshoot itself;
and that, as virtue, though it may suffer for a while, will triumph in
the end; so iniquity, though it may prosper for a season, will at last be
overtaken by that punishment and disgrace which are its due.

CHAPTER FIFTY

FATHOM SHIFTS THE SCENE, AND APPEARS IN A NEW CHARACTER.

Fathom's expectations with respect to the fair orphan having thus proved
abortive, he lost no time in bewailing his miscarriage, but had immediate
recourse to other means of improving his small fortune, which, at this
period, amounted to near two hundred pounds. Whatever inclination he had
to resume the character he had formerly borne in the polite world, he
durst not venture to launch out again into the expense necessary to
maintain that station, because his former resources were now stopped, and
all the people of fashion by this time convinced of his being a needy
adventurer. Nevertheless, he resolved to sound the sentiments of his old
friends at a distance, and judge, from the reception he should meet with,
how far he might presume upon their countenance and favour. For he
rightly supposed, that if he could in any shape contribute to their
interest or amusement, they would easily forgive his former pretensions
to quality, arrogant as they were, and still entertain him on the footing
of a necessary acquaintance.

With this view, he one day presented himself at court in a very gay suit
of clothes, and bowed, at a distance, to many of his old fashionable
friends of both sexes, not one of whom favoured him with any other
notice, than that of a quarter curtsey, or slight inclination of the
head. For, by this tim