Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom

London

Printed for T. Johnson

1753

One may "contemplate the catastrophe of such a wicked life, that the moral might be the more deeply engraved on his remembrance"

"Alas! dear lady, cried the other, with all the emphasis of woe, an unhappy gentleman now breathes his last, within this inhospitable hovel, amidst such excess of misery, as would melt the most flinty bosom: what then must I feel, who am connected with him by the strongest ties of love and conjugal affection!" "Who is the unfortunate object? said the physician." "He was once well known in the gay world (replied the young woman); his name is Fathom." Every individual of the company started at mention of that detested name. Serafina began to tremble with emotion; and Renaldo, after a short pause, declared he would go in, not with a view to exult over his misery, but in order to contemplate the catastrophe of such a wicked life, that the moral might be the more deeply engraved on his remembrance. The young countess, whose tender heart could not bear the shock of such a spectacle, retired to the coach with madame Clement and the Jew, while Renaldo, accompanied by the rest, entered a dismal apartment, altogether void of furniture and convenience, where they beheld the wretched hero of these memoirs, stretched almost naked upon straw, insensible, convulsed, and seemingly in the grasp of death. He was wore to the bone either by famine or distemper; his face was overshadowed with hair and filth; his eyes were sunk, glazed and distorted; his nostrils dilated; his lips covered with a black slough, and his complexion faded into a pale clay-colour, tending to a yellow hue: in a word, the extremity of indigence, squalor and distress, could not be more feelingly represented.
(pp. 302-3)

Writing::Engraving

Searching "heart" and "engrav" in HDIS (Prose)

14 entries in ESTC (1753, 1760, 1771, 1772, 1780, 1782, 1784, 1786, 1789, 1792, 1795, 1796).

Smollett, Tobias. The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom. By the Author of Roderick Random. (London: printed for T. Johnson, 1753).

03/10/2005