The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. Smollett (most read books of all time txt) 📕

the first opportunity: and, in the meantime, observed that what he had yet seen of it was very entertaining. I comforted myself with this declaration a few weeks longer, at the end of which I appeared again before his wicket, was let in, and found him laid up with the gout. I no sooner entered his chamber than, looking at me with a languishing eye, he said, “Mr. Melopoyn, I’m heartily sorry for an accident that has happened during my illness. You must know that my eldest boy, finding your manuscript upon the table in the dining-room, where I used to read it, carried it into the kitchen, and leaving it there, a negligent wench of a cook-maid, mistaking it for waste paper, has expended it but a few leaves in singing fowls upon the spit. But I hope the misfortune is not irreparable, since, no doubt, you have several copies.”

“I protest to you, my good friend, Mr. Random, I was extremely shocked at this information; but the good-natured gentleman seemed to be so much affected with my misfortune, that I suppressed my concern, and told him that, although I had not another copy, I should be able to retrieve the loss by writing another from my memory, which was very tenacious. You cannot imagine how well pleased Mr. Supple was at this assurance; he begged I would set about it immediately, and carefully revolve and recollect every circumstance before I pretended to commit it to paper, that it might be the same individual play that he had perused. Encouraged by this injunction, which plainly demonstrated how much he interested himself in the affair, I tasked my remembrance and industry, and in three weeks produced the exact image of the former, which was conveyed to him by my good friend Father O’Varnish, who told me next day, that Mr. Supple would revise it superficially, in order to judge of its sameness with the other, and then give his final answer. For this examination I allotted a week: and, in full confidence of seeing it acted in a little while, demanded an audience of the manager, when that term was expired. But, alas! the season had slipped away insensibly. He convinced me, that if my play had been put into rehearsal at the time, it could not have been ready for performing until the end of March, when the benefit nights came on; consequently, it would have interfered with the interest of the players, whom it was not my business to disoblige.

“I was fain to acquiesce in these reasons, which, to be sure, were extremely just; and to reserve my performance for the next season, when he hoped I would not be so unlucky. Although it was a grievous disappointment to me, who, by this time, began to want both money and necessaries; having on the strength of my expectation from the theatre, launched out into some extravagances, by which the sum I brought to town was already almost consumed. Indeed, I ought to be ashamed at this circumstance of my conduct; for my finances were sufficient, with good economy, to have maintained me comfortably a whole year. You will perhaps be amazed when I tell you that, in six months, I expended not a farthing less than ten guineas: but, when one considers the temptations to which a young man is exposed in this great city, especially if he be addicted to pleasure, as I am, the wonder will vanish, or at least abate. Nor was the cause of my concern limited to my own situation entirely: I had written an account of my good reception to my kinsman the farmer, and desired him to depend upon me for the money he had kindly accommodated me with about the end of February, which promise I now found myself unable to perform. However, there was no remedy but patience: I applied to my landlord, who was a very good-natured man, candidly owned my distress, and begged his advice in laying down some plan for my subsistence; he readily promised to consult his confessor on this subject, and, in the meantime, told me, I was welcome to lodge and board with him until fortune should put it in my power to make restitution.

“Mr. O’Varnish, being informed of my necessity, offered to introduce me to the author of a weekly paper, who, he did not doubt, would employ me in that way, provided he should find me duly qualified; but, upon inquiry, I understood that this journal was calculated to foment divisions in the commonwealth, and therefore I desired to be excused from engaging in it. He then proposed that I should write something in the poetical way, which I might dispose of to a bookseller for a pretty sum of ready money, and, perhaps, establish my own character into the bargain. This event would infallibly procure friends, and my tragedy would appear next season to the best advantage, by being supported both by interest and reputation. I was charmed with this prospect, and having heard what friends Mr. Pope acquired by his pastorals, set about a work of that kind, and in less than six weeks composed as many eclogues, which I forthwith offered to an eminent bookseller, who desired me to leave them for his perusal, and he would give an answer in two days. At the end of that time, I went to him, when he returned the poems, telling me, they would not answer his purpose, and sweetened his refusal by saying there were some good clever lines in them. Not a little dejected at this rebuff, which, I learned from Mr. O’Varnish, was owing to the opinion of another author whom this bookseller always consulted on these occasions, I applied to another person of the same profession, who told me the town was cloyed with pastorals, and advised me, if I intended to profit by my talents, to write something satirical or luscious, such as the Button Hole, Shockey and Towner, The Leaky Vessel, etc, and yet this was a man in years, who wore a reverend periwig, looked like a senator, and went regularly to church. Be that as it will, I scorned to prostitute my pen in the manner proposed, and carried my papers to a third, who assured me that poetry was entirely out of his way; and asked me if I had got never a piece of secret history, thrown into a series of letters, or a volume of adventures, such as those of Robinson Crusoe, and Colonel Jack, or a collection of Conundrums, wherewith to entertain the plantations. Being quite unfurnished for this dealer, I had recourse to another with as little success; and I verily believe, was rejected by the whole trade.

“I was afterwards persuaded to offer myself as a translator, and accordingly repaired to a person who was said to entertain numbers of that class in his pay; he assured me, he had already a great deal of that work on his hands, which he did not know what to do with; observed that translations were a mere drug, that branch of literature being overstocked with an inundation of authors from North Britain; and asked what I would expect per sheet for rendering the Latin classics into English. That I might not make myself too cheap, I determined to set a high price upon my qualifications, and demanded half-a-guinea for every translated sheet. “Half-a-guinea!” cried he, staring at me; then paused a little, and said, he had no occasion for my service at present. I found my error, and, resolving to make amends, fell one-half in my demand; upon which he stared at me and told me his hands were full. I attempted others without finding employment, and was actually reduced to a very uncomfortable prospect, when I bethought myself of offering my talents to the printers of half-penny ballads and other such occasional essays, as are hawked about the streets. With this in view I applied to one of the most noted and vociferous of this tribe, who directed me to a person whom I found entertaining a whole crowd of them with gin, bread, and cheese; he carried me into a little back parlour, very neatly furnished, where I signified my desire of being enrolled among his writers; and was asked what kind of composition I professed. Understanding that my inclination leaned towards poetry, he expressed his satisfaction, telling me one of his poets had lost his senses, and was confined in Bedlam, and the other was become dozed with drinking drams; so that he had not done anything tolerable these many weeks. When I proposed that we should enter into terms of agreement, he gave me to understand that his bargains were always conditional, and his authors paid in proportion to the sale of their works.

“Having therefore settled these conditions, which (I do assure you) were not very advantageous to me, he assigned me a subject for a ballad, which was to be finished in two hours; and I retired to my garret in order to perform his injunction. As the theme happened to suit my fancy, I completed a pretty sort of an ode within the time prescribed, and brought it to him, big with hope of profit and applause. He read it in a twinkling, and, to my utter astonishment, told me it would not do; though indeed he owned I wrote a good hand, and spelled very well, but my language was too high flown, and of consequence not at all adapted to the capacity and taste of his customers. I promised to rectify that mistake and in half an hour humbled my style to the comprehension of vulgar readers; he approved of the alteration, and gave me some hopes of succeeding in time, though he observed that my performance was very deficient in the quaintness of expression that pleases the multitude: however, to encourage me, he ventured the expense of printing and paper, and, if I remember aright, my share of the sale amounted to fourpence halfpenny.

“From that day I studied the Grub Street manner with great diligence, and at length became such a proficient that my works were in great request among the most polite of the chairmen, draymen, hackney-coachmen, footmen, and servant maids: nay, I have enjoyed the pleasure of seeing my productions adorned with cuts, pasted upon the walls as ornaments in beer cellars and cobblers’ stalls; and have actually heard them sung in clubs of substantial tradesmen—but empty praise (you know, my dear friend) will not supply the cravings of nature. I found myself in danger of starving in the midst of all my fame; for of ten songs I composed, it was well if two had the good fortune to please. For this reason I turned my thoughts to prose, and, during a tract of gloomy weather, published an apparition, on the substance of which I subsisted very comfortably a whole month; I have made many a good meal upon a monster; a rape has often afforded me great satisfaction; but a murder, well timed, was my never-failing resource. What then? I was almost a slave to my employers, who expected to be furnished at a minute’s warning with prose and verse, just as they thought the circumstances of the times required, whether the inclination was absent or present. Upon my sincerity, Mr. Random, I have been so much pestered and besieged by those children of clamour, that life became a burden to me.”