The Adventures of Roderick Random
Tobias Smollett
CHAPTER XLV Page 2
Having paid our bill, we adjourned to the coffee-room, where my fellow-labourer insisted on treating me with a dish, giving me to understand, at the same time, I had acquired his good opinion, both with respect to my principles and understanding. I thanked him for his compliment, and, professing myself an utter stranger in this part of the world, begged he would have the goodness to inform me of the quality and characters of the people who dined above. This request was a real favour to one of his disposition, which was no less communicative than curious; he therefore complied with great satisfaction, and told me, to my extreme astonishment, that the supposed young prince was a dancer at one of the theatres, and the ambassador no other than a fiddler belonging to the opera. "The doctor," said he "is a Roman Catholic priest, sometimes appears in the character of an officer, and assumes the name of captain; but more generally takes the garb, title, and behaviour of a physician, in which capacity he wheedles himself into the confidence of weak-minded people, and by arguments no less specious than false, converts them from their religion and allegiance. He has been in the hands of justice more than once for such practices, but he is a sly dog, and manages matters with so much craft, that hitherto he has escaped for a short imprisonment. As for the general, you may see he has owed his promotion more to his interest than his capacity; and, now that the eyes of the ministry are opened, his friends dead or become inconsiderable, he is struck off the list, and obliged to put up with a yearly pension. In consequence of this reduction, he is become malcontent, and inveighs against the government in all companies, with so little discretion, that I am surprised at the lenity of the administration, in overlooking his insolence, but the truth of the matter is, he owes his safety to his weakness and want of importance. He has seen a little, and but a little, service, and yet, if you will take his word to 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 everybody is in pain for him. Caesar, 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 harangues as unintelligible as infinite; for, if once he begin, there is no chance of his leaving off speaking while one person remains to yield attention; therefore the only expedient I know, for 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; this method will effectually put him to silence, if not to flight, as it happened when I inquired about an epaulement. Had he been acquainted with the signification of that word, his triumph would have been intolerable, and we must have quitted the field first, or been worried with impertinence."
Having thus gratified my curiosity, the old gentleman began to discover his own, in questions relating to myself, to which I thought proper to return ambiguous answers. "I presume, Sir," said he, "you have travelled." I answered, "Yes." "I dare say you have found it very expensive," said he. I replied, "To be sure, one cannot travel without money." "That I know by experience," said he, "for I myself take a trip to Bath or Tunbridge every season; and one must pay sauce for what he has on the road, as well in other countries as in this. That's a pretty stone in your ring--give me leave, sir--the French have attained to a wonderful skill in making compositions of this kind. Why, now, this looks almost as well as a diamond." "Almost as well, Sir!" said I, "Why not altogether? I am sure if you understand anything of jewels, you must perceive, at first sight, that this stone is a real diamond, and that of a very fine water. Take it in your hand and examine it." He did so with some confusion, and returned it, saying, "I ask your pardon; I see it is a true brilliant of immense value." I imagined his respect to me increased after this inquiry; therefore to captivate his esteem the more, I told him, I would show him a seal of composition, engraved after a very valuable antique; upon which I pulled out my watch a rich gold chain, adorned with three seals set in gold, and an opal ring, He viewed each of them with great eagerness, handled the chain, admired the chased case, and observed that the whole must have cost me a vast sum of money. I affected indifference, and replied in a careless manner, "Some trifle of sixty or seventy guineas." He stared in my face for some time, and then asked if I was an Englishman? I answered in the negative. "You are from Ireland then, Sir, I presume," said he. I made the same reply. "Oh! perhaps," said he "you were born in one of our settlements abroad." I still answered No. He seemed very much surprised, and said, he was sure I was not a foreigner. I made no reply, but left him upon the tenter-hooks of impatient uncertainty. He could not contain his anxiety, but asked pardon for the liberties he had taken and, to encourage me the more to disclose my situation, displayed his own without reserve. "I am," said he, "a single man, have a considerable annuity, on which I live according to my inclination, and make the ends of the year meet very comfortably. As I have no estate to leave behind, I am not troubled with the importunate officiousness of relations or legacy hunters, and I consider the world as made for me, not me for the world. It is my maxim, therefore, to enjoy it while I can, and let futurity shift for itself."
While he thus indulged his own talkative vein, and at the same time, no doubt, expected retaliation from me, a young man entered, dressed in black velvet and an enormous tie-wig, with an air in which natural levity and affected solemnity were so jumbled together, that on the whole he appeared a burlesque on all decorum. This ridiculous oddity danced up to the table at which we sat, and, after a thousand grimaces, asked my friend by the name of Mr. Medlar, if we were not engaged upon business. My companion put on a surly countenance, and replied "No great business, doctor--but however--" "Oh! then," cried the physician; "I must beg your indulgence a little; pray pardon me, gentlemen." "Sir," said he, addressing himself to me, "your most humble servant. I hope you will forgive me, sir--I must beg the favour to sit--sir--sir--I have something of consequence to impart to my friend Mr. Medlar--sir, I hope you will excuse my freedom in whispering, sir," Before I had time to give this complaisant person my permission, Mr. Medlar cried, "I'Il have no whispering--if you have anything to say to me, speak with an audible voice." The doctor seemed a little disconcerted at this exclamation, and, turning again to me, made a thousand apologies for pretending to make a mystery of anything, a piece of caution which he said was owing to his ignorance of my connection with Mr. Medlar; but now he understood I was a friend, and would communicate what he had to say in my hearing. He then began, after two or three hems, in this manner: "You must know, sir, I am just come from dinner at my Lady Flareit's (then addressing himself to me), a lady of quality, sir, at whose table I have the honour of dining sometimes. There was Lady Stately and my Lady Larum, and Mrs. Dainty, and Miss Biddy Giggler, upon my word, a very good-natured young lady, with a very pretty fortune sir. There was also my Lord Straddle. Sir John Shrug, and Master Billy Chatter, who is actually a very facetious young gentleman. So, sir, her ladyship seeing me excessively fatigued, for she was the last of fifteen patients (people of distinction, sir) whom I had visited this forenoon, insisted upon my staying dinner, though upon my word I protest I had no appetite; however, in compliance ladyship's request, sir, I sat down, and the conversation turning on different subjects, among other things, Mr Chatter asked very earnestly when I saw Mr. Medlar. I told him I had not had the pleasure of seeing you these nineteen hours and a half; for you may remember, sir, it was nearly about that time; I won't be positive as to a minute." "No," says he, "then I desire you will go to his lodgings immediately after dinner, and see what's the matter with him, for he must certainly be very bad from having eaten last night such a vast quantity of raw oysters." The crusty gentleman, who, from the solemnity of his delivery, expected something extraordinary, no sooner heard his conclusion, than he started up in a testy humour, crying, "Pshaw, pshaw! D--n your oysters!" and walked away, after a short compliment of, "Your servant sir," to me. The doctor got up also, saying, "I vow and protest, upon my word, I am actually amazed;" and followed Mr. Medlar to the bar, which was hard by, where he was paying for his coffee: there he whispered so loud that I could overhear, "Pray who is this gentleman?" His friend replied hastily, "I might have known that before now, if it had not been for your impertinent intrusion,"--and walked off very much disappointed. The ceremonious physician returned immediately and sat down by me, asking a thousand pardons for leaving me alone: and giving me to understand that what he had communicated to Mr. Medlar at the bar, was an affair of the last importance, that would admit of no delay. He then called for some coffee, and launched out into the virtues of that berry, which, he said, in cold phlegmatic constitutions, like his, dried up the superfluous moisture, and braced the relaxed nerves. He told me it was utterly unknown to the ancients; and derived its name from an Arabian word, which I might easily perceive by the sound and termination. From this topic he transferred his disquisitions to the verb drink, which he affirmed was improperly applied to the taking of coffee, inasmuch as people did not drink, but sip or sipple that liquor; that the genuine meaning of drinking is to quench one's thirst, or commit a debauch by swallowing wine; the Latin word, which conveyed the same idea, was bibere or potare, and that of the Greeks pinein or poteein, though he was apt to believe they were differently used on different occasions: for example--to drink a vast quantity, or, as the vulgar express it, to drink an ocean of liquor, was in Latin potare, and in Greek poteein; and, on the othand, to use it moderately, was bibere and pinein;--that this was only a conjecture of his, which, however, seemed to be supported by the word bibulous, which is particularly applied to the pores of the skin, and can only drink a very small quantity of the circumambient moisture, by reason of the smallness of their diameters;--whereas, from the verb poteein is derived the substantive potamos, which signifies a river, or vast quantity of liquor. I could not help smiling at this learned and important investigation; and, to recommend myself the more to my new acquaintance, whose disposition I was by this time well informed of, I observed that, what he alleged, did not, to the best of my remembrance, appear in the writings of the ancients; for Horace uses the words poto and bibo indifferently for the same purpose, as in the twentieth Ode of his first Book.
That I had never heard of the verb poteein, but that potamos, potema, and potos, were derived from pino, poso, pepoka, in consequence of which, the Greek poets never use any other word for festal drinking. Homer describes Nestor at his cups in these words,
"Nestora d'ouk elathen jache pinonta pcrempes."
And Anacreon mentions it on the same occasion always in every page.
"Pinonti de oinon hedun. Otan pino ton oinon. Opliz' ego de pino."