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Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) - Edited with notes and Introductory Account of her life and writings by Hester Lynch Piozzi
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Talking of the symptoms of Christopher Smart's madness, he said,
"Another charge was that he did not love clean linen; and I have no
passion for it."

His deficiency in this respect seems to have made a lasting
impression on his hostess. Referring to a couplet in "The Vanity of
Human Wishes":--

"Through all his veins the fever of renown
_Spreads_ from the strong contagion of the gown,"

"he had desired me (says Boswell) to change _spreads_ into _burns._ I
thought this alteration not only cured the fault, but was more
poetical, as it might carry an allusion to the shirt by which
Hercules was inflamed." She has written in the margin: "Every fever
burns I believe; but Bozzy could think only on Nessus' dirty shirt,
or Dr. Johnson's." In another marginal note she disclaims that
attention to the Doctor's costume for which Boswell gives her credit,
when, after relating how he had been called into a shop by Johnson to
assist in the choice of a pair of silver buckles, he adds: "Probably
this alteration in dress had been suggested by Mrs. Thrale, by
associating with whom his external appearance was much improved." She
writes: "it was suggested by Mr. Thrale, not by his wife."

In general his wigs were very shabby, and their foreparts were burned
away by the near approach of the candle, which his short-sightedness
rendered necessary in reading. At Streatham, Mr. Thrale's valet had
always a better wig ready, with which he met Johnson at the parlour
door when dinner was announced, and as he went up stairs to bed, the
same man followed him with another.
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