hich her short trial of matrimony had not served to cool.
Our adventurer was instructed to call at the tradesman's house, as if
by accident, at an appointed time, when the widow was drinking tea with
her landlady. On these occasions he always behaved to admiration. She
liked his person, and praised his politeness, good-humour, and good
sense; his confederates extolled him as a prodigy of learning, taste,
and good-nature; they likewise represented him as a person on the eve of
eclipsing all his competitors in physic. An acquaintance and intimacy
soon ensued, nor was he restricted in point of opportunity. In a word,
he succeeded in his endeavours, and, one evening, on pretence of
attending her to the play, he accompanied her to the Fleet, where they
were married, in presence of the tradesman and his wife, who were of the
party.

This grand affair being accomplished to his satisfaction, he, next day,
visited her brother, who was a counsellor of the Temple, to make him
acquainted with the step his sister had taken; and though the lawyer was
not a little mortified to find that she had made such a clandestine
match, he behaved civilly to his new brother-in-law, and gave him to
understand, that his wife's fortune consisted of a jointure of one
hundred and fifty pounds a year, and fifteen hundred pounds bequeathed to
her during her widowhood, by her own father, who had taken the precaution
of settling it in the hands of trustees, in such a manner as that any
husband she might afterwards espouse should be restricted from
encroaching upon the capital, which was reserved for the benefit of her
heirs. This intimation was far from being agreeable to our hero, who had
been informed, that this sum was absolutely at the lady's disposal, and
had actually destined the greatest part of it for the payment of his
debts, for defraying the expense of furnishing an elegant house, and
setting up a new equipage.

Notwithstanding this disappointment, he resolved to carry on his plan
upon the credit of his marriage, which was published in a very pompous
article of the newspapers; a chariot was bespoke, a ready furnished house
immediately taken, and Doctor Fathom began to reappear in all his former
splendour.

His good friend the empiric, alarmed at this event, which not only raised
our adventurer into the sphere of a dangerous rival, but also furnished
him with means to revenge the ill office he had sustained at his hands on
the adventure