hey waited for one of the party, Johnson kindly
maintaining that six ought to be kept waiting for one, if the one would
suffer more by the others sitting down than the six by waiting.
Meanwhile Garrick "played round Johnson with a fond vivacity, taking
hold of the breasts of his coat, looking up in his face with a lively
archness," and complimenting him on his good health. Goldsmith strutted
about bragging of his dress, of which Boswell, in the serene
consciousness of superiority to such weakness, thought him seriously
vain. "Let me tell you," said Goldsmith, "when my tailor brought home my
bloom-coloured coat, he said, 'Sir, I have a favour to beg of you; when
anybody asks you who made your clothes, be pleased to mention John
Filby, at the Harrow, Water Lane.'" "Why, sir," said Johnson, "that was
because he knew that the strange colour would attract crowds to gaze at
it, and thus they might hear of him, and see how well he could make a
coat even of so absurd a colour." Mr. Filby has gone the way of all
tailors and bloom-coloured coats, but some of his bills are preserved.
On the day of this dinner he had delivered to Goldsmith a half-dress
suit of ratteen lined with satin, costing twelve guineas, a pair of silk
stocking-breeches for L2 5_s_. and a pair of bloom-coloured ditto for L1
4_s_. 6_d_. The bill, including other items, was paid, it is
satisfactory to add, in February, 1771.

The conversation was chiefly literary. Johnson repeated the concluding
lines of the _Dunciad_; upon which some one (probably Boswell) ventured
to say that they were "too fine for such a poem--a poem on what?" "Why,"
said Johnson, "on dunces! It was worth while being a dunce then. Ah,
sir, hadst _thou_ lived in those days!" Johnson previously uttered a
criticism which has led some people to think that he had a touch of the
dunce in him. He declared that a description of a temple in Congreve's
_Mourning Bride_ was the finest he knew--finer than anything in
Shakspeare. Garrick vainly protested; but Johnson was inexorable. He
compared Congreve to a man who had only ten guineas in the world, but
all in one coin; whereas Shakspeare might have ten thousand separate
guineas. The principle of the criticism is rather curious. "What I mean
is," said Johnson, "that you can show me no passage where there is
simply a description of material objects, without any admixture of moral
notions, which produces such an effect." The description of the night
befor