Project Gutenberg's The Adventures of Roderick Random, by Tobias Smollett

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Title: The Adventures of Roderick Random

Author: Tobias Smollett

Release Date: May, 2003 [Etext #4085]
Posting Date: December 11, 2009
Last Updated: December 21, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVENTURES OF RODERICK RANDOM ***

Produced by Tapio Riikonen

THE ADVENTURES OF RODERICK RANDOM

By Tobias Smollett

THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Of all kinds of satire, there is none so entertaining and universally
improving, as that which is introduced, as it were occasionally, in
the course of an interesting story, which brings every incident home
to life, and by representing familiar scenes in an uncommon and amusing
point of view, invests them with all the graces of novelty, while nature
is appealed to in every particular. The reader gratifies his
curiosity in pursuing the adventures of a person in whose favour he
is prepossessed; he espouses his cause, he sympathises with him in his
distress, his indignation is heated against the authors of his calamity:
the humane passions are inflamed; the contrast between dejected
virtue and insulting vice appears with greater aggravation, and every
impression having a double force on the imagination, the memory retains
the circumstance, and the heart improves by the example. The attention
is not tired with a bare catalogue of characters, but agreeably diverted
with all the variety of invention; and the vicissitudes of life appear
in their peculiar circumstances, opening an ample field for wit and
humour.

Romance, no doubt, owes its origin to ignorance, vanity, and
superstition. In the dark ages of the World, when a man had rendered
himself famous for wisdom or valour, his family and adherents availed
themselves of his superior qualities, magnified his virtues, and
represented his character and person as sacred and supernatural. The
vulgar easily swallowed the bait, implored his protection, and yielded
the tribute of homage and praise, even to adoration; his exploits
were handed down to posterity with a thousand exaggerations; they were
repeated as incitements