OLIVES GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK m.
L761. likely, as Miss Keynolds tells us his fashion in these days
mas. was, to be mistaken for a beggarman. He had been seen in
no such respectable garb since he appeared behind Grarrick's
scenes on the first of the nine nights of Irene, in a scarlet
gold-laced waistcoat, and rich gold-laced hat. In fact, says
Percy, " he had on a new suit of clothes, a new wig nicely
" powdered, and everything about him so perfectly dissimilar
" from his usual habits and appearance, that his companion
" could not help enquiring the cause of this singular trans-
" formation. ' Why, sir,' said Johnson, ' I hear that Gold-
" ' smith, who is a very great sloven, justifies his disregard
" ' of cleanliness and decency by quoting my practice; and
" ' I am desirous this night to show him. a better example.'" *
The example was not lost, as extracts from tailors' bills will
shortly show; and the anecdote, which offers pleasant proof of
the interest already felt by Johnson for Ms new acquaintance,
is our only record connected with that memorable supper.
It had no Boswell-historian, and is gone into oblivion. But
the friendship which dates from it will never pass away.
* Percy Memoir, 62, 63. Campbell, writing to Percy about this anecdote when
arranging the Memoir, says, " The anecdote of Johnson I had recollected, but had
" forgot that it was at Goldsmith's yoii were to sup. The story of the Valet de
" Ckambre will, as Lord Bristol says, fill the basket of his absurdities; and
"really we may have a hamper full of them." Nichols's Illmtrations, vii. 780.
Unfortunately the anecdote of the Valet de Chambre has not emerged. To another
anecdote, - also unluckily lost, Campbell refers in a previous letter to Percy
(Hid, 779). " One thing, however, I could wish, if it met your approbation, that
' I had before me some hints respecting the affair of Q-oldsmith and Perrot: it
' may, without giving offence, be related; at least so as to embellish the work,
' by showing more of Goldsmith's character, which he himself has fairly drawn :
' ' fond of enjoying the present, careless of the future, his sentiments those of a
' ' man of sense, his actions those of a fool; of fortitude able to stand unmoved
' ' at the bursting of an earthquake, yet of sensibility to be affected by the breaking
" of a tea-cup.' " To which, in a later letter (781) this is added : " Your
' sketch of Sir Eichard Perrot will come in as an episode towards the conclusion,
' with good effect • but there, neither that nor anything that can sully, shall
' appear as coming from you." So the Perrot anecdote is also lost, and the basket
of absurdities by no means full!