Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

The Adventures of Roderick Random

London

Printed for J. Osborn

1748

"Cæsar, Pompey, and Alexander the Great are continually in his mouth; and as he reads a good deal without any judgment to digest it, his ideas are confused, and his harrangues as unintelligible as infinite."

[...] --He has seen a little, and but a little service, and yet if you will take his word for it, there has not been a great action performed in the field since the revolution, in which he was not principally concerned. When a story is told of any great general, he immediately matches it with one of himself, though he is often unhappy in his invention, and commits such gross blunders in the detail, that every body is in pain for him.--Cæsar, Pompey, and Alexander the Great are continually in his mouth; and as he reads a good deal without any judgment to digest it, his ideas are confused, and his harrangues as unintelligible as infinite; for, once he begins, there is no chance of his leaving off speaking, while one person remains to yield attention; therefore the only expedient I know, of putting a stop to his loquacity, is to lay hold of some incongruity he has uttered, and demand an explanation; or ask the meaning of some difficult term that he knows by name only, this will effectually put him to silence, if not to flight, as it happened when I enquired about an epaulement. [...]

Body::Digestion

Searching in HDIS

Over 45 entries in ESTC (1748, 1749, 1750, 1755, 1760, 1762, 1763, 1766, 1768, 1770, 1772, 1773, 1774, 1775, 1777, 1778, 1779, 1780, 1783, 1784, 1786, 1787, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1794, 1795, 1797, 1799, 1800).

Smollett, Tobias. The Adventures of Roderick Random. In Two Volumes. (London: printed for J. Osborn, 1748). <Link to ECCO>

04/27/2004