These shoals of customers, who were to fee him well for his advice, as we may suppose, now he stood in need of raising a fresh stock, were unquestionably as welcome and acceptable to him as they appeared too troublesome to him before, when he was in a state of more wealth and plenty.
Fortune, that does nothing moderately, seemed now resolved, as she had been extremely cruel before, to be extremely kind to him. He had nothing to do from early in the morning till late at night, but to read questions, and resolve them as fast as much-frequented doctors write their prescriptions and recipes, and like them also to receive fees as fast. Fortune was indeed mightily indulgent to the wants she had so suddenly reduced him to, and relieved him as suddenly by these knots of curiosos, who brought him a glut of money. But one single fair lady, that was one of his very first consulters after his return, and who had received satisfactory answers from him in other points, before he went abroad, proved, so good fortune would have it, worth all the rest of his customers together, as numerous as they were, and as I have accordingly represented them.
This lady was the relict or widow of a gentleman of a good estate, and of a very good family, whose name was Digby, and a handsome jointure she had out of the estate. This lady, it seems, having been with him in former days, and seen him in a more shining way of life, (for he had taken a humour to appear before all his company in that coarse odd dress made out of the friar's habit, and would not be persuaded by the people of the house to put on a nightgown till he could provide himself with a new suit,) was so curious, among other questions, as to ask him whether he had met with any misfortunes, and how he came to be in so slovenly and wretched a habit? Here Mr. Campbell related the whole story of his travels to her, and the crosses and disappointments he had met with abroad. The tears, he observed, would start every now and then into her eyes when she came to any doleful passage, and she appeared to have a mighty compassionate kind of feeling, when she read of any hardship more than ordinarily melancholy that had befallen him. Mr. Campbell, it is certain, had then a very good presence, and was a handsome and portly young man; and as a great many young gentlemen derive the seeming agreeableness of their persons from the tailor and peruke-maker, the shoemaker and hosier, so Mr. Campbell's person, on the other hand, gave a good air and a good look to the awkward garb he had on; and I believe it was from seeing him in this odd trim, as they called it, the ladies first took up the humour of calling him 'the handsome sloven:' add to this that he looked his misfortune in the face with a jolly countenance, and smiled even while he was penning the relation of his calamities; all which are certainly circumstances that first sooth a generous mind into a state of compassion, and afterwards heighten it in the breast wherein it is conceived. Hence it came that this pretty and good natured widow, Mrs. Digby, when she had expressed her commiseration of him by her looks, began to take the pen and express it in very tender terms. Neither did she think that expression in words a sufficient testimony of the compassion she bore to him; the generosity of her mind did lead her to express it in a more substantial manner still, and that was to show it plainly by a very benevolous action. She laid a purse of twenty guineas before the table, and at the same time smiling, pointed to the table, as signifying her desire that he would accept it, and running to the door, dropped a curtsy, and skuttled away; and by the same civil act as she obliged him, she put it out of his power to refuse being so obliged; so that, though the present was very handsome, the manner of giving it was still handsomer. If being a handsome young man of merit in distress, and bearing his misfortunes with an equal mind, are powerful motives to excite compassion in the mind of a generous lady, so the generosity of a young agreeable widow, expressed in so kind and so benevolous a way, to a young gentleman, when he had been tasting nothing but the bitter draughts of fortune before, must stir up an affection in a mind that had any sense of gratitude; and truly just such was the effect that this lady's civility had upon Mr. Duncan Campbell. He conceived from that moment a very great affection for her; and resolved to try whether he could gain her, which he had no small grounds to hope, from the esteem which she appeared to bear towards him already. I remember Mr. Dryden makes a very beautiful observation of the near alliance there is between the two passions of pity and love in a woman's breast, in one of his plays. His words are these; For pity still foreruns approaching love, as lightning does the thunder. Mr. Bruyere, a most ingenious member of the French Academy, has made another remark, which comes home to our present purpose. He says, That many women love their money better than their friends; but yet value their lovers more than their money. According to the two reflections of these fine writers upon the tempers of the fair, Mr. Campbell had hopes enough to ground his courtship upon; and it appeared so in the end, by his proving successful; she from being a very liberal and friendly client, became at last a most affectionate wife. He then began to be a housekeeper, and accordingly took a little neat one, and very commodious for his profession, in Monmouth-court. Here I must take leave to make this observation; that if Mr. Campbell inherited the talents of his second-sighted mother, he seemed likewise to be an heir to his father, Mr. Archibald Campbell, both in his strange and accidental sufferings by sea, and likewise in his being relieved from them after as accidental and strange a manner, by an unexpected marriage, just like his father's. And here we return again to take a new survey of him in the course of his public practice as a predictor. The accounts I shall give of his actions here, will be very various in their nature from any I have yet presented to the reader; they are more mysterious in themselves, and yet I shall endeavour to make the manner of his operating in this kind as plain as I think I have the foregoing ones, and then I flatter myself they must afford a fresh entertainment for every reader that has any curiosity and a good taste for things of so extraordinary a kind. For what I have all along propounded to myself from the beginning and in the progress to the end of this history, is to interweave entertaining and surprising narratives of what Mr. Campbell has done, with curious and instructive inquiries into the nature of those actions, for which he has rendered himself so singularly famous. It was not, therefore, suitable to my purpose, to clog the reader with numerous adventures, almost all of the same kind, but out of a vast number of them to single some few of those that were most remarkable, and that were mysteries, but mysteries of very different sorts. I leave that method of swelling distorted and commented trifles into volumes, to the writers of fable and romance; if I was to tell his adventures, with regard, for example, to women, that came to consult him, I might perhaps have not only written the stories of eleven thousand virgins that died maids, but have had relations to give of as many married women and widows, and the work would have been endless. All that I shall do therefore is to pick out one particular, each of a different kind, that there may be variety in the entertainment. Upon application to this dumb man, one is told in the middle of her health, that she shall die at such a time; another, that she shall sicken, and upon the moment of her recovery, have a suitor and a husband; a third, who is a celebrated beauty with a multitude of admirers round about her, that she shall never become a wife; a fourth, that is married, when she shall get rid of an uneasy husband; a fifth, that hath lost her goods, who stole them, where and when they shall be restored; a sixth, that is a merchant, when he shall be undone, and how and when he shall recover his losses, and be as great on the Exchange as ever; a seventh, that is a gamester, which will be his winning, and which his losing hour; an eighth, how he shall be involved in a law-suit, and whether the suit will have an adverse or a prosperous issue; a ninth, that is a woman, with choice of lovers, which she shall be most happy with for life; and so on to many others, where every prediction is perfectly new and surprising, and differs from the other in almost every circumstance. When a man has so extensive a genius as this at foretelling the future occurrences of life, one narrative of a sort is enough in conscience to present the reader with, and several of each kind would not methinks be entertaining, but tiresome; for he that can do one thing in these kinds by the power of prediction, can do ten thousand; and those who are obstinate in extenuating his talents, and calling his capacity in question, and that will not be convinced by one instance of his judgment, would not own the conviction if ten thousand instances were given them. The best passages I can recommend to their perusal are those where persons who came purposely to banter him under the colour of consulting him, and covered over their sly intentions with borrowed disguises, and came in masquerades, found all the jest turned upon themselves in the end, which they meant to our famous predictor, and had the discouragement of seeing their most concealed and deepest laid plots discovered, and all their most witty fetches and wily contrivances defeated, till they were compelled universally to acknowledge, that endeavouring to impose upon the judgment of our seer by any hidden artifice and cunning whatsoever, was effectually imposing upon their own. His unusual talent in this kind was so openly known, and so generally confessed, that his knowledge was celebrated in some of the most witty weekly papers that ever appeared in public. Isaac Bickerstaff, who diverted all the beau monde, for a long space of time with his lucubrations, takes occasion in several of his papers to applaud the speculations of this dumb gentleman in an admirable vein of pleasantry and humour, peculiar to the writer, and to the subject he writ upon. And when that bright author, who joined the uttermost facetiousness with the most solid improvements of morality and learning in his works, laid aside the title of a Tatler, and assumed the name of a Spectator and censor of men's actions, he still, every now and then, thought our Duncan Campbell a subject worthy enough to employ his farther considerations upon. I must take notice of one letter sent concerning him to the Spectator, in the year 1712, which was at a time when a lady wanted him, after he had removed from Monmouth-street to Drury-lane.
Mr. Spectator,—
About two years ago I was called upon by the younger part of a country family, by my mother's side related to me, to visit Mr. Campbell, the dumb man; for they told me that was chiefly what brought them to town, having heard wonders of him in Essex. I, who always wanted faith in such matters, was not easily prevailed on to go; but lest they should take it ill, I went with them, when, to my own surprise, Mr. Campbell related all their past life; in short, had he not been prevented, such a discovery would have come out, as would have ruined their next design of coming to town, viz., buying wedding clothes. Our names, though he had never heard of us before, and we endeavoured to conceal, were as familiar to him as to ourselves. To be sure, Mr. Spectator, he is a very learned and wise man. Being impatient to know my fortune, having paid my respects in a family Jacobus, he told me, after his manner, among several other things, that in a year and nine months I should fall ill of a new fever, be given over by my physicians, but should with much difficulty recover; that the first time I took the air afterwards, I should be addressed to by a young gentleman of a plentiful fortune, good sense, and a generous spirit. Mr. Spectator, he is the purest man in the world, for all he said is come to pass, and I am the happiest she in Kent. I have been in quest of Mr. Campbell these three months, and cannot find him out; now hearing you are a dumb man too, I thought you might correspond and be able to tell me something; for I think myself highly obliged to make his fortune, as he has mine. It is very possible your worship, who has spies all over this town, can inform me how to send to him; if you can, I beseech you be as speedy as possible, and you will highly oblige your constant reader and admirer,
Dulcibella Thankley.
The Spectator's Answer.
Ordered, that the inspector I employ about wonders, inquire at the Golden-lion opposite to the Half-moon tavern, in Drury-lane, into the merit of this silent sage, and report accordingly. Vide the 7th volume of Spectators, No. 474, being on Wednesday, September the 3rd, 1712.
But now let us come to those passages of his life the most surprising of all, during the time that he enjoyed this reputation, and when he proved that he deserved the fame he enjoyed. Let us take a survey of him while he is wonderfully curing persons labouring under the misfortune of witchcraft, of which the following story will be an eminent instance, and likewise clear up how he came by his reputation in Essex, as mentioned in the above-mentioned letter to the Spectator.
In the year 1709, Susanna Johnson, daughter to one Captain Johnson, who lived at a place adjacent to Rumford, in Essex, going one morning to that town to buy butter at the market, was met there by an old miserable looking woman, just as she had taken some of her change of the marketwoman, in copper, and this old woman rather demanded than begged the gentlewoman to give her a penny. Miss Johnson reputing her to be one of those hateful people that are called sturdy beggars, refused it her, as thinking it to be no act of charity, and that it would be rather gratifying and indulging her impudence, than supplying or satisfying her indigence. Upon the refusal, the old hag, with a face more wrinkled still, if possible, by anger, than it was by age, took upon her to storm at young Miss Johnson very loudly, and to threaten and menace her; but when she found her common threats and menaces were of no avail, she swore she would be revenged of the young creature in so signal a manner, that she should repent the denial of that penny from her heart before she got home, and that it should cost her many pounds to get rid of the consequences of that denial and her anger. The poor innocent girl despised these last words likewise, and, getting up on horseback, returned homewards; but just as she got about half way, her horse stopped, and no means that she could use would make him advance one single step; but she stayed awhile, to see if that would humour him to go on. At last the beast began to grow unruly, and snorted and trembled as if he had seen or smelt something that frightened him, and so fell a kicking desperately, till he threw the girl from the saddle, not being able to cling to it any longer, though a pretty good horsewoman of her years; so much were the horse's motions and plungings more than ordinarily violent.
As Providence would have it, she got not much harm by the fall, receiving only a little bruise in the right shoulder; but she was dreadfully frightened. This fear added wings to her feet, and brought her home as speedily of herself as she usually came on horseback. She immediately, without any other sign of illness than the palid colour with which fear had disordered the complexion of her face, alarmed all the family at home with the story, took her bed upon it, complained of inward rackings of the belly, and was never at ease unless she lay doubled up together, her head to her knees, and her heels to her rump, just like a figure of 8. She could not be a single moment out of that posture without shrieking out with the violence of anxious torments and racking pains.
In this condition of misery, amidst this agony of suffering, and in this double posture, was the poor wretched young gentlewoman brought to town; physicians were consulted about her, but in vain; she was carried to different hospitals for assistance, but their endeavours likewise proved ineffectual; at last she was conducted to the College of Physicians; and even the collective wisdom of the greatest sages and adepts in the science of physic was posed to give her any prescription that would do her service, and relieve her from the inexplicable malady she laboured under. The poor incurable creature was one constant subject of her complaining mother's discourse in every company she came into. It happened at last, and very providentially truly, that the mother was thus condoling the misfortune of her child among five or six ladies, and telling them, among other things, that by the most skilful persons she was looked upon to be bewitched, and that it was not within the power of physic to compass her recovery. They all having been acquainted with our Mr. Duncan Campbell, unanimously advised her to carry her daughter to his house, and consult with him about her. The mother was overjoyed at these tidings, and purposed to let no time slip where her child's health was so deeply concerned. She got the ladies to go with her and her child, to be eye-witnesses of so extraordinary a piece of practice, and so eminent a trial of skill.
As soon as this dismal object was brought into his room, Mr. Duncan Campbell lifted up her head and looked earnestly in her face, and in less than a minute's time signified to the company, that she was not only bewitched, but in as dreadful a condition almost as the man that had a legion of fiends within him.