Salmagundi; or, The whim-whams and opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, esq. [pseud.] and others. By William Irving, James Kirke Paulding and Washington Irving. Printed from the original ed., with a preface and notes by Evert A. Duyckinck.

28 SALMAGUNDI.
against all other colors, because red is the color of Mr. Jefferson's ********, Tom Paine's nose, and my slippers.*
Let the grumbling smellfungi of this world, who cultivate
taste among books, cobwebs, and spiders, rail at the extravagance of the age; for my part, I was delighted with the magic
of the scene, and as the ladies tripped through the mazes of
the dance, sparkling and glowing and dazzling, I, like the
honest Chinese, thanked them heartily for the jewels and finery
with which they loaded themselves, merely for the entertainment of bystanders, and blessed my stars that I was a bachelor.
The gentlemen were considerably numerous, and being, as
usual, equipt in their appropriate black uniforms, constituted a
sable regiment, which contributed not a little to the brilliant
* In this instance, as well as on several other occasions, a little innocent
pleasantry is indulged at Mr. Jefferson's expense. The allusion made
here is to the red velvet small clothes with which the President, in
defiance of good taste, used to attire himself on levee days and other
public occasions.-Paris Ed.
In one of his splenetic moods in Virginia, John Randolph once vented
his complaint of Jefferson, with an allusion to the old scandal. "I
cannot live," said he, " in this miserable undone country, where, as the
Turks follow their sacred standard, which is a pair of Mahomet's green
breeches, we are governed by the old red breeches of that prince of
projectors, St. Thomas of Cantingbury; and surely, Becket himself
never had more pilgrims at his shrine, than the saint of Monticello."
As for the proboscis of Paine, " I shall secure him to a nicety," said
Jarvis, when lie was about to take the bust of Paine, now in the New
York Historical Society, "if I can get plaster enough for his carbunclcd
nose." Dr. Francis, who relates the anecdote in one of the interesting
historical sketches which he has given to the public, also furnishes a
couplet sung by the boys in the streets.
"Tom Paine is come from far, from far;
His nose is like a blazing star!"