diately extolled as a miracle; and what appeals to the admiration is
not the wit, the elegance, or poetry of the work, but the uncultivated
talent and humble station of the author. A reader does not exclaim,
"What a delicate sentiment! what a beautiful simile! what easy and
musical versification!"--but cries in rapture, "Heavens! what a prodigy a
poet from the scullery! a muse in livery! or, Apollo with a trowel!"--The
public is astonished into liberality--the scullion eats from those
trenchers he scoured before--the footman is admitted into the coach
behind which he was wont to stand--and the bricklayer, instead of
plastering walls, bedaubs his illustrious partner with the mortar of his
praise. Thus, lifted into a higher sphere, their talents receive
cultivation; they become professed bards, and though their subsequent
works bear evident marks of improvement, they are neglected among the
rest of their brethren, because that novelty, which recommended them in
the beginning, no longer remains.

So it fared with our adventurer in his new occupation. There was
something so extraordinary in a nobleman's understanding medicine, and so
uncommon in a physician's prescribing gratis, that the curiosity and
admiration of the company at Bristol were engaged, and they followed his
advice, as the direction of some supernatural intelligence. But, now
that he professed himself one of the faculty, and might be supposed to
have refreshed his memory, and reinforced his knowledge for the occasion,
he was as much overlooked as any other physician unsupported by interest
or cabal; or, at least, the notice he attracted was not at all to the
advantage of his character, because it wholly regarded the decline of his
fortune, which is a never-failing fund of disgrace.

These mortifications did not overcome the patience and perseverance of
Fathom, who foresaw, that the soothing hand of time would cast a veil of
oblivion over those scenes which were remembered to his prejudice; and
that, in the meantime, though he was excluded from the private parties of
the fair sex, in which his main hope of success was placed, he should be
able to insinuate himself into some degree of favour and practice among
the male patients; and some lucky cure, properly displayed, might be the
means of propagating his fame, and banishing that reserve which at
present interfered with his purpose. Accordingly, it was not long before
he found means to break that spell of