Ch 51 of the Adventures of Roderick Random: Suddenly, A Bunch of 18thC Gay Stuff

[oulfis]

I've been reading Tobias Smollett's 1748 book The Adventures of Roderick Random, and was really surprised to find, buried in chapter 51 as yet another mildly amusing mishap as the protagonist Rory fails repeatedly to make his fortune, an explicitly gay Earl whose attempts to seduce Rory are presented as annoying but not disgusting.

Ch. 51

Baffled hitherto in my matrimonial schemes, I began to question my talents for the science of fortune-hunting, and to bend my thoughts towards some employment under the government. With the view of procuring which, I cultivated the acquaintance of Lords Straddle and Swillpot, whose fathers were men of interest at court. [...] Straddle assured me, his father, having lately disobliged the minister by subscribing his name to a protest in the house of peers, was thereby rendered incapable of serving his friends at present; but he undertook to make me acquainted with Earl Strutwell, who was hand and glove with a certain person who ruled the roast. This offer I embraced with many acknowledgments, and plied him so closely, in spite of a thousand evasions, that he found himself under a necessity of keeping his word, and actually carried me to the levee of this great man, where he left me in a crowd of fellow-dependents, and was ushered to a particular closet audience; from whence, in a few minutes, he returned with his lordship, who took me by the hand, assured me he would do me all the service he could, and desired to see me often. I was charmed with my reception, and, although I had heard that a courtier's promise is not to be depended upon, I thought I discovered so much sweetness of temper and candour in this earl's countenance, that I did not doubt of finding my account in his protection. I resolved therefore to profit by this permission, and waited on him next audience day, when I was favoured with a particular smile, squeeze of the hand, and a whisper, signifying that he wanted half-an-hour's conversation with me in private, when he should be disengaged, and for that purpose desired me to come and drink a dish of chocolate with him to-morrow morning.

This invitation, which did not a little flatter my vanity and expectation, I took care to observe, and went to his lordship's house at the time appointed. ... [The footman] conducted me to a chamber, where I was received with great kindness and familiarity by his lordship, whom I found just risen, in his morning-gown, and slippers. After breakfast, he entered into a particular conversation with me about my travels, the remarks I had made abroad, and examined me to the full extent of my understanding. My answers seemed to please him very much, he frequently squeezed my hand, and, looking at me with a singular complacency in his countenance, bade me depend upon his good offices with the ministry in my behalf. “Young men of your qualifications,” said he, “ought to be cherished by every administration. For my own part, I see so little merit in the world, that I have laid it down as a maxim, to encourage the least appearance of genius and virtue to the utmost of my power: you have a great deal of both; and will not fail of making a figure one day, if I am not mistaken; but you must lay your account with mounting by gradual steps to the summit of your fortune. Rome was not built in a day. As you understand the languages perfectly well, how would you like to cross the sea as secretary to an embassy?” I assured his lordship, with great eagerness, that nothing could be more agreeable to my inclination: upon which he bade me make myself easy, my business was done, for he had a place of that kind in his view. This piece of generosity affected me so much, that I was unable for some time to express my gratitude, which at length broke out in acknowledgments of my own unworthiness, and encomiums on his benevolence. I could not even help shedding tears at the goodness of this noble lord, who no sooner perceived them than he caught me in his arms, and hugged and kissed me with a seemingly paternal affection. Confounded at this uncommon instance of fondness for a stranger, I remained a few moments silent and ashamed; then rose and took my leave, after he had assured me that he would speak to the minister in my favour that very day; and desired that I would not for the future give myself the trouble of attending at his levee, but come at the same hour every day, when he should be at leisure, that is, three times a week.

Though my hopes were now very sanguine, I determined to conceal my prospect from everybody, even from Strap, until I should be more certain of success: and in the meantime give my patron no respite from my solicitations. When I renewed my visit, I found the street-door opened to me as if by enchantment; but in my passage towards the presence-room, I was met by the valet-de-chambre, who cast some furious looks at me the meaning of which I could not comprehend. The earl saluted me at entrance with a tender embrace, and wished me joy of his success with the Premier, who, he said, had preferred his recommendation to that of two other noblemen very urgent in behalf of their respective friends, and absolutely promised that I should go to a certain foreign court in quality of secretary to an ambassador and plenipotentiary who was to set out in a few weeks an affair of vast importance to the nation. I was thunderstruck with my good fortune, and could make no other reply than kneel and attempt to kiss my benefactor's hand, which submission he would not permit; but, raising me up, pressed me to his breast with surprising emotion, and told me he had now taken upon himself the care of making my fortune. What enhanced the value of the benefit still the more, was his making light of the favour, and shifting the conversation to another subject.

Among other topics of discourse, that of the Belles Lettres was introduced, upon which his lordship held forth with great taste and erudition and discovered an intimate knowledge of the authors of antiquity, “Here's a book,” said he, taking one from his bosom, “written with great elegance and spirit; and, though the subject may give offence to some narrow-minded people, the author will always be held in esteem by every person of wit and learning.” So saying, he put into my hand Petronius Arbiter, and asked my opinion of his wit and manner. I told him, that, in my opinion, he wrote with great ease and vivacity, but was withal so lewd and indecent that he ought to find no quarter or protection among people of morals and taste. “I own,” replied the earl, “that his taste in love is generally decried, and indeed condemned by our laws; but perhaps that may be more owing to prejudice and misapprehension than to true reason and deliberation. The best man among the ancients is said to have entertained that passion; one of the wisest of their legislators has permitted the indulgence of it in his commonwealth; the most celebrated poets have not scrupled to avow it. At this day it prevails not only over all the East, but in most parts of Europe; in our own country, it gains ground apace, and in all probability will become in a short time a more, fashionable vice than simple fornication. Indeed there is something to be said in vindication of it; for, notwithstanding the severity of the law against offenders in this way, it must be confessed that the practice of this passion is unattended with that curse and burthen upon society which proceeds from a race of miserable and deserted bastards, who are either murdered by their parents, deserted to the utmost want and wretchedness, or bred up to prey upon the commonwealth: and it likewise prevents the debauchery of many a young maiden, and the prostitution of honest men's wives; not to mention the consideration of health, which is much less liable to be impaired in the gratification of this appetite, than in the exercise of common venery, which, by ruining the constitutions of our young men, has produced a puny progeny that degenerates from generation to generation. Nay, I have been told, that there is another motive perhaps more powerful than all these, that induces people to cultivate this inclination; namely, the exquisite pleasure attending its success.”

From this discourse I began to be apprehensive that his lordship, finding I had travelled, was afraid I might have been infected with this spurious and sordid desire abroad, and took this method of sounding my sentiments on the subject. Fired at this supposed suspicion, I argued against it with great warmth, as an appetite unnatural, absurd, and of pernicious consequence; and declared my utter detestation and abhorrence of it in these lines of the satirist:—

Eternal infamy the wretch confound
Who planted first that vice on British ground!
A vice! That spite of nature and sense reigns,
And poisons genial love, and manhood stains.

The earl smiled at my indignation, and told me he was glad to find my opinion of the matter so conformable to his own, and that what he had advanced was only to provoke me to an answer, with which he professed himself perfectly well pleased. After I had enjoyed a long audience, I happened to look at my watch, in order to regulate my motions by it; and his lordship, observing the chased case, desired to see the device, and examine the exception, which he approved with some expressions of admiration. ... [Rory attempts to give the gold watch as a gift, which Earl Strutwell several times deflects.] ... I assured his lordship that I should look upon it as an uncommon mark of distinction, if he would take it without further question; and, rather than disoblige me, he was at last persuaded to put it in his pocket, to my no small satisfaction, who took my leave immediately, after having received a kind squeeze, and an injunction to depend upon his promise.

Buoyed up with this reception, my heart opened; I gave away a guinea, among the lacqueys, who escorted me to the door, flew to the lodgings of Lord Straddle, upon whom I forced my diamond ring as an acknowledgment for the great service he had done me, and from thence hied me home, with an intent of sharing my happiness with honest Strap. [...] he wept with joy, calling my Lord Strutwell by the appellations of Jewel, Phoenix, Rara avis; and praising God, that there was still some virtue left among our nobility. Our mutual congratulations being over, we gave way to our imagination, and anticipated our happiness by prosecuting our success through the different steps of promotion, till I arrived at the rank of a prime minister, and he to that of my first secretary.

Intoxicated with these ideas, I went to the ordinary, where, meeting with Banter, I communicated the whole affair in confidence to him, concluding with an assurance that I would do him all the service in my power. He heard me to an end with great patience, then regarding me a good while with a look of disdain, pronounced, “So your business is done, you think?” “As good as done. I believe,” said I. “I'll tell you,” replied he, “what will do it still more effectually—a halter! 'Sdeath! if I had been such a gull to two such scoundrels as Strutwell and Straddle, I would, without any more ado, tuck myself up.” Shocked at this exclamation, I desired him with some confusion to explain himself; upon which he gave me to understand that Straddle was a poor contemptible wretch, who lived by borrowing and pimping for his fellow-peers; that in consequence of this last capacity, he had doubtless introduced me to Strutwell, who was so notorious for a passion for his own sex that he was amazed his character had never reached my ears; and that, far from being able to obtain for me the post he had promised, his interest at court was so low, that he could scarce provide for a superannuated footman once a year in the customs or excise; that it was a common thing for him to amuse strangers, whom his jackals ran down, with such assurances and caresses as he had bestowed on me, until he had stripped them of their cash, and everything valuable about them, very often of their chastity, and then leave them a prey to want and infamy: that he allowed his servants no other wages than that part of the spoil which they could glean by their industry; and the whole of his conduct towards me was so glaring, that nobody who knew anything of mankind could have been imposed upon by his insinuations.

I leave the reader to judge how I relished this piece of information, which precipitated me from the most exalted pinnacle of hope to the lowest abyss of despondence, and well nigh determined me to take Banter's advice and finish my chagrin with a halter. I had no room to suspect the veracity of my friend, because, upon recollection, I found every circumstance of Strutwell's behaviour exactly tallying with the character he had described; his hugs, embraces, squeezes, and eager looks, were now no longer a mystery; no more than his defence of Petronius, and the jealous frown of his valet-de-chambre, who, it seems, had been the favourite pathic of his lord.

End ch. 51

The whole thing is kind of a wild ride! There are two aspects that particularly interest me:

1. Rory and Banter both seem to be much more upset about Earl Strutwell's false claims to wealth and influence than they are about his queerness. Gay sex seems both a known phenomenon and relatively unthreatening. Even when Rory thinks that Strutwell is worried that Rory has gone gay due to exposure to the continent, I get the feeling that Rory gives his anti-gay tirade mostly in order to please his patron, rather than due to sincere feeling. After all, we hear much more of Earl Strutwell's defense of gay sex than we do Rory's rejection of it! And Rory doesn't reject it in his own words, but rather recites a stock satire.

2. In the middle of all this, Rory flies home to his childhood friend Hugh Strap, with whom he shares lodging, finances, life schemes, and often a bed, and feels absolutely no need to reflect on or justify the love that the two of them frequently confess for each other. In retrospect he's able to see something kind of gay about Earl Strutwell's hand-squeezing, but this doesn't make him suspicious of physical or emotional intimacy with men in general.

I don't have any conclusions yet, except that this is way more chill about gay sex than anything I expected to read from 1748!

Comments

[breathedout]

This is fascinating! (And Rory, like many a similar protagonist, seems hilariously slow on the uptake.)

[oulfis]

I think that's part of what fascinates me: he DOES seem slow on the uptake, but that implies that there's something to be on the lookout for, that too much hand-squeezing and too many private audiences is able to mean something, and yet this is literally the only time in the entire 69-chapter (nice) book that this possibility is raised. The rest of the time, Rory squeezes hands with impunity, and he and Hugh weep with how much they love each other, etc, etc. I think I'd gotten in the habit of writing off that kind of closeness as "homosociality prior to the threat of homosexuality," that these expressions of physical and emotional closeness are able to exist in part because there's nothing else they can mean. But that's not true!!

It also seems interesting to me, on reflection, that Rory doesn't encounter any gay sex in France, OR in the navy, renowned hotbed of gay sex (and he spends a long time complaining about the many failings of the navy!!) -- we see that gay sex exists only here, in its most benign form, and accompanied with a slightly ridiculous but also roughly compelling defense of the practice. Earl Strutwell is one of the story's many, many petty villains, but he doesn't make the top 25 in terms of harm done or animosity earned. If apparently Smollett KNOWS about gay sex, as a thing that a person should be on the lookout for, he could have presented it in a MUCH worse light with trivial ease! And yet he didn't!!

[breathedout]

INTERESTING, these are all such juicy points. In a context of such accept homosociality, maybe he doesn't actually read as that slow on the uptake as he at first appears. And it's true that he does seem weirded out, not by the Earl's familiarity per se, but by the fact that he's so familiar without knowing Rory that well, so it's unearned. (Which is consonant with other 18th & early 19th century novels I've read: unearned familiarity is always a red flag). In any case, what a find!

[lettered]

I mentioned to breathedout that I was writing a story set in a fantasy analogue of mid 18th c France and they asked if I knew you. I am delighted that this is the first post I found by you, as the story centers around a gay man and his daughter.

Anyway, this was fascinating. I was particularly amused by the, "Hey look at this Roman dude" part of it. I feel like it's such a cliche (bringing up Greco-Roman culture as an example of acceptance of homosexulaity in order to get someone comfortable with homosexuality and then into bed with you), and a part of me has been wondering (because of this current thing I'm writing) whether it's something people actually did, or whether it's just something we do when we're portraying historic examples of homosexuality. But I feel like this is not the first example of it in an actual historic context that I've seen--though of course this is a fictional account, so perhaps it was a cliche even at the time. Hm.

[oulfis]

hbbo sent you to the right place!! What serendipity that it was this post, too!

Even while I was reading the novel I found myself thinking, "what? Romans? but that's SUCH a cliche" but at the same time, I'm really pleased to discover that even if this trope isn't accurate to the lives of 18thC queers, it's not a modern invention. I... now have several tabs open with journal articles to try to answer how commonplace this kind of coded vocabulary actually was in the 18thC. I'll be sure to post about it here if I find anything interesting!

What years/regions do you mean by "mid" 18thC France? What drew you to that period? My own passion lies with the 1790s and England, so I may not actually know anything very relevant to what you're doing but I love hearing about just about everything even tangentially related, haha.

[lettered]

Hello! Sorry for the late reply; I, too, got very busy with family and such for the holidays.

I was pleased that that trope wasn't a modern invention either. Did you find anything about how commonplace it was? I find it so difficult to research stuff like that.

It's a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, which largely determined the time period. (In the 1740 Villeneuve version, the merchant father picks a rose and the beast tells him he has a month to decide whether to send his daughter to the beast or sacrifice his own life as payment. My premise is that the merchant decides to sacrifice his own life, but the beast didn't actually want to kill him and so keeps him around; they fall in love. It doesn't break the spell because the faerie who cursed him said he needed to earn the love of a woman. Beauty discovers the faerie and slays her.) I will say though that it is extremely loose in terms of both location and time period; I wanted a French Enlightenment flavor, but I also wanted enough other elements that if anyone reads it as firmly rooted in that time and place they'll hate it.

So anyway it's set in that vague era but is about a beast in a castle with faeries, so there's a somewhat Gothic feel, and I guess part of the whole point is a Gothic/Romantic view of medievalism (since the beast himself is somewhat medieval; the idea is he's hundreds of years old) vs Enlightenment pursuit of Reason (the merchant being a bourgeois, practical sort who liked to fancy himself an intellectual, when he was young) but of course since I'm writing it in the 21st century all of that is somewhat deconstructed. To me B&B has always kind of been about those themes and I've never seen anyone address them really; I think the Villeneuve version has a lot to do with French politics at the time. But anyway I'm about as far from an expert on any of these subjects as you can get; the story I'm writing isn't meant to be an intellectual story by any means. It just has some of those ideas underlying it, while hopefully being different enough that it doesn't just feel like a cheap mess of pseudo-history.

Anyway, for Gothic tone/mood I've been reading The Mysteries of Udolpho and so far it's much better than I had been led to believe (by Jane Austen, obviously).

[sea_changed]

This is completely fascinating. Roderick Random has been on my list of 18th c novels to read for a while, but this may have moved it up a spot or two. The completely blasé attitude toward gay sex is definitely the most striking thing about this passage, as you say—it’s clear that Smollett is, and his reader is expected to be, perfectly aware that gay men exist and have sex with other men, and that while some moral outrage is perhaps expected, there are also arguments to be made in favor (even if perhaps paridically?). “I own,” replied the earl, “that his taste in love is generally decried, and indeed condemned by our laws; but perhaps that may be more owing to prejudice and misapprehension than to true reason and deliberation. is incredible, as is the discussion of ancient homosexuality in general. And “a passion for his own sex” is actually a pretty great phrase, considering—it’s clearly historically accurate while seeming to be fairly neutral and relatively judgement-free. Thank you for posting!