Smollett's Hugh Strap
In the year 1809 was interred, in the churchyard of St. Martin's in the
Fields, the body of one Hew Hewson, who died at the age of 85. He was
the original of Hugh Strap, in Smollett's Roderick Random. Upwards of
forty years he kept a hair-dresser's shop in St. Martin's parish; the
walls were hung round with Latin quotations, and he would frequently
point out to his customers and acquaintances the several scenes in
Roderick Random pertaining to himself, which had their origin, not in
Smollett's inventive fancy, but in truth and reality. The meeting in a
barber's shop at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the subsequent mistake at the inn,
their arrival together in London, and the assistance they experienced
from Strap's friend, are all facts. The barber left behind an annotated
copy of Roderick Random, showing how far we are indebted to the genius
of the author, and to what extent the incidents are founded in reality.
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