complains that he often kept her up making tea
for him till four in the morning. His reluctance to go to bed was due to
the fact that his nights were periods of intense misery; but the vast
potations of tea can scarcely have tended to improve them.

The huge frame was clad in the raggedest of garments, until his
acquaintance with the Thrales led to a partial reform. His wigs were
generally burnt in front, from his shortsighted knack of reading with
his head close to the candle; and at the Thrales, the butler stood ready
to effect a change of wigs as he passed into the dining-room. Once or
twice we have accounts of his bursting into unusual splendour. He
appeared at the first representation of _Irene_ in a scarlet waistcoat
laced with gold; and on one of his first interviews with Goldsmith he
took the trouble to array himself decently, because Goldsmith was
reported to have justified slovenly habits by the precedent of the
leader of his craft. Goldsmith, judging by certain famous suits, seems
to have profited by the hint more than his preceptor. As a rule,
Johnson's appearance, before he became a pensioner, was worthy of the
proverbial manner of Grub Street. Beauclerk used to describe how he had
once taken a French lady of distinction to see Johnson in his chambers.
On descending the staircase they heard a noise like thunder. Johnson was
pursuing them, struck by a sudden sense of the demands upon his
gallantry. He brushed in between Beauclerk and the lady, and seizing her
hand conducted her to her coach. A crowd of people collected to stare at
the sage, dressed in rusty brown, with a pair of old shoes for slippers,
a shrivelled wig on the top of his head, and with shirtsleeves and the
knees of his breeches hanging loose. In those days, clergymen and
physicians were only just abandoning the use of their official costume
in the streets, and Johnson's slovenly habits were even more marked than
they would be at present. "I have no passion for clean linen," he once
remarked, and it is to be feared that he must sometimes have offended
more senses than one.

In spite of his uncouth habits of dress and manners, Johnson claimed
and, in a sense, with justice, to be a polite man. "I look upon myself,"
he said once to Boswell, "as a very polite man." He could show the
stately courtesy of a sound Tory, who cordially accepts the principle of
social distinction, but has far too strong a sense of self-respect to
fancy that compliance