The Adventures of Roderick Random

Ordinary Dinner and Political Debates

The narrator frequents a coffee-house noted for good company and dines upstairs at the ordinary, finding himself at a table of thirteen, mostly French-speaking and pro-French. The conversation turns on politics: a foreign ambassador vindicates the Queen of Spain’s claim to the Austrian dominions in Italy, a young gentleman in green (suspected by the narrator to be a prince, later named the Prince of Vandemont) justifies the French king’s breach of the Pragmatic Sanction, and an old martial general recounts the Battle of Dettingen to French advantage. A testy old English patriot opposes them, ultimately threatening the “young prince” with the laws against seditious discourse, which silences the pro-French faction. A self-important doctor, who had shown partiality, is rebuked for despising England while living among the English. The narrator proposes wine to smooth over disputes, and the general recounts exploits including a tale about the siege of Namur, though he refuses to explain the term “epaulement”—which the narrator later learns was due to his ignorance. Through these events the narrator becomes acquainted with Medlar and Doctor Wagtail.

第四十五章

The narrator and his fellow-labourer, after dining, adjourn to the coffee-room, where the fellow-labourer (revealed to be Mr. Medlar) discloses the true identities of the upper-dining guests. An absurdly dressed “doctor” then interrupts, confides a trivial oyster anecdote meant for Medlar, and rambles on about coffee and the etymology of drinking terms. The narrator corrects the doctor’s classical scholarship, astonishing him, and the two converse fluently in Latin for two hours, after which the doctor proposes introducing the narrator to wealthy young gentlemen at the Bedford coffee house.