CHAP. IV.] PREPARING FOR A MEDICAL DEGREE.
lie has "good store of clothes " to accompany him on his 1753-
travels. Yet there was decided moderation even in the direc- •%&• ^-
*
tion sartorial; nor does the wardrobe, to which allusion was
made a few pages back, appear to have been by any means
extensive in the proportion of the gaiety of its colours.
Upon the latter point our evidence is not to be gainsayed.
What will have to be remarked of Goldsmith in this respect
at Mr. BoswelTs or Sir Joshua's, is already to be said of him
in the lodging-house and lecture-room at Edinburgh; and on
the same proof of old tailors' bills, the very ghosts of which
continue to flutter about and plague his memory.
The leaf of an Edinburgh ledger of 1758 has fallen into my
hands, from which it would appear that one of his fellow
students, Mr. Honner, had introduced him at the beginning of
that year to a merchant tailor with whom he dealt for sundry
items of hose, hats, silver lace, satin, allapeen, fustian, durant,
shalloon, cloth, and velvet; which materials of adornment
are charged to him, from the January to the December of
the year, in the not very immoderate sum of 9/, Us. %%d.
the first entries of which, to the amount of Si. 15s. 9%d. were
in November duly paid in full, and what remained at the
year's end carried to a folio in the same ledger, unluckily
destroyed before it was discovered to whom the page related.
A copy of the old leaf is given below; * and radiant as it is,
through all its age and dinginess, with a name bright and
familiar since to many generations of boys and men in the
good merchant-tailors' city, is it not also still sparkling in
every part with its rich sky-blue satin, its fine sky-blue
shalloon, its superfine silver-laced small hat, its rich black
Genoa velvet, and its best superfine high claret-coloured
* I owe this curious little document to the kindness of Mr, David Laing, of WIG
advocates' library in Edinburgh, whose readiness to coimrumicato information to