_Old Hewson and Smollett's "Strap."_--Perhaps the enclosed extract from an
old newspaper of April, 1809, will throw some light upon this subject:
"SMOLLETT'S CELEBRATED HUGH STRAP.
"On Sunday was interred, in the burial-ground of St.
Martin's-in-the-Fields, the remains of Hugh Hewson, who died at the age
of 85. The deceased was a man of no mean celebrity. He had passed more
than forty years in the parish of St. Martin's, and kept a
hair-dresser's shop, being no less a personage than the identical _Hugh
Strap_, whom Dr. Smollett rendered so conspicuously interesting in his
life and adventures of Roderick Random. The deceased was a very
intelligent man, and took delight in recounting the scenes of his early
life. He spoke with pleasure of the time he passed in the service of
the Doctor; and it was his pride, as well as boast, to say, that he had
been educated at the same seminary with so learned and distinguished a
character. His shop was hung round with Latin quotations, and he would
frequently point out to his acquaintance the several scenes in Roderick
Random, pertaining to himself, which had their foundation, not in the
Doctor's inventive fancy, but in truth and reality. The Doctor's
meeting with him at 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 were all of that
description. The deceased, to the last, obtained a comfortable
subsistence by his industry, and of late years had been paid a weekly
salary by the inhabitants of the Adelphi, for keeping the entrances to
Villiers-walk, and securing the promenade from the intrusion of
strangers."