Note 402 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY (continued 3)

Several particulars of Johnson’s wigs are given by Boswell. The improvements he made in his dress through the influence of Mrs. Thrale included “a Paris-made wig of handsome construction.” “In general,” says Croker, “his wigs were very shabby, and their fore parts were burned away by the near approach of the candle, which his short-sightedness rendered necessary in reading. At Streatham Mrs. Thrale’s butler always kept a better wig in his own hands, with which he met Johnson at the parlour door, when the bell had called him down to dinner; and this ludicrous ceremony was performed every day.”