Note 178 — THURSDAY, AUGUST 19.

In The Tatler, for May 24, 1709, we are told that 'rural esquires wear shirts half a week, and are drunk twice a day.' In the year 1720, Fenton urged Gay 'to sell as much South Sea stock as would purchase a hundred a year for life, "which will make you sure of a clean shirt and a shoulder of mutton every day."' Johnson's Works, viii. 65. In Tristram Shandy, ii. ch. 4, published in 1759, we read:—'It was in this year [about 1700] that my uncle began to break in upon the daily regularity of a clean shirt.' In the Spiritual Quixote, published in 1773 (i. 51), Tugwell says to his master:—'Your Worship belike has been used to shift you twice a week.' Mrs. Piozzi (Journey, i. 105, date of 1789) says that she heard in Milan 'a travelled gentleman telling his auditors how all the men in London, that were noble, put on a clean shirt every day.' Johnson himself owned that he had 'no passion for clean linen.' Ante, i. 397.