The adventures of Roderick Random / By T. Smollett, M.D. with illustrations by George Cruikshank.

  • Smollett, T. (Tobias), 1721-1771.
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The adventures of Roderick Random / By T. Smollett, M.D. with illustrations by George Cruikshank. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    freed from in a few days, by an accident which happened in a quarrel between me and another boy; who, taking on him to insult my poverty, I was so incensed at his ungenerous reproach, that with one stroke of my ma¬ chine I cut him to the skull, to the great terror of myself and schoolfellows, who left him bleeding on the ground, and ran to inform the master of what had happened. I was so severely punished for this trespass, that, were I to live to the age of Methusaleh, the impression it made on me would not be effaced; no more than the antipathy and horror I conceived for the merciless tyrant who in¬ flicted it. The contempt which my appearance natu¬ rally produced in all who saw me, the continual wants to which I was exposed, and my own haughty disposi¬ tion, impatient of affronts, involved me in a thousand troublesome adventures, by which I was at length inured to adversity, and emboldened to undertakings far above my years. I was often inhumanly scourged for crimes I did not commit, because, having the character of a vagabond in the village, every piece of mischief, whose author lay unknown, was charged on me. I have been found guilty of robbing orchards I never entered, of kill¬ ing cats I never hurted, of stealing gingerbread I never touched, and of abusing old women I never saw. Nay, a stammering carpenter had eloquence enough to per¬ suade my master that I fired a pistol loaded with small shot into his window, though my landlady and the whole family bore witness that I was a-bed fast asleep at the time when this outrage was committed. 1 was once flogged for having narrowly escaped drowning, by the sinking of a ferry-boat in which I was passenger; an¬ other time, for having recovered of a bruise occasioned by a horse and cart running over me ; a third time, for being bitten by a baker’s dog : in short, whether I was guilty or unfortunate, the correction and sympathy of this arbitrary pedagogue were the same. Far from being subdued by this infernal usage, my in¬ dignation triumphed over that slavish awe which had hitherto enforced ruy obedience; and the more my years and knowledge increased, the more I perceived the in-