DR. JOHNSON'S HOME

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 25, 30 January 1930, Page 18

DR. JOHNSON'S HOME

A LITERARY SHRINE

DICTIONARY MAKING

Samuel Johnson, passing with his heavy gait and nervously fingering each of the "massy" stone posts which in his day divided the footway from the wheeled traffic, is the most persistent figure in Fleet street. His homes were dotted about its byways, in Gough square, in Inner Temple lane, in Johnson court, and Bolt court. The galleried Mitre Tavern, which he so much frequented, stood back from the street.

It was there he had his first supper with Boswell, so momentous for us. "Sir, I have taken a liking for you," said the Sage; "I hope we shall pass many evenings, and mornings, too, together." Of Johnson's London homes, only No. 17, Gough square survives, literally snatched from the housebreaker, for the tenants were ejected and the; front plastered with notices of its imminent demolition as a dangerous building, when Mr. Cecil Harmsworth purchased it, to make of the house a literary shrine, writes Walter Bell in the "Daily Telegraph."

AN EIGHT YEARS' TASK

Dr. Johnson came into Gough square in June, 1748. It was then newly built, and this pleasant Georgian brick house alone remains to date it—later printing offices have the rest. Maitland at the time described Gough square as "well inhabited by persons of fashion," who were then content to live in the city. Johnson came for a purpose. He came for quiet. He had made arrangements with the London booksellers to write "The Dictionary of the English Language," for a fee of 1500 guineas. In the long attic of this old house his amanuenses toiled, while in one of the rooms below Johnson read the-mnsters and others, and scored with a pencil the words he would use and applied their definitions. It was a mad bargain. He had thought to complete the dictionary in three years. The task occupied him for eight years. He can have made nothing, paying his assistants out of his fes. For eleven years, till March, 1759, No. 17, Gough square, was Johnson's home. It wps, on the whole, rather a sad time. In 1752 his wife died—the "dear Tetty" who so often reappears in later years in his diary, whose superior age, whose plainness of feature, bo much the ill-tempered sport of Garrick and others, were as nothing to the bereaved widower. He never married again. It was Johnson who said, "A second marriage is a triumph of hope over experience." Perhapa he was worldly wise.

POVERTY AND FAME,

Poverty was in the house, and while the dictionary wqfl to bring fame, but little else, he laboured to produce the bi-weekly "Rambler," that curious little quarto sheet, written entirely by himself in Gough square, which contained his thoughts ;ind meditations. It abruptly ceused publication on his wife's death; tho faculty for continuous labour had gone. From Gough (square Johiißon addressed the dignified letter to Lord Chesterfield, so well remembered, refusing the too-loug-delayed patronage. There, too, he was arrested for a paltry debt of £5 18s, which his friendly neighbour, Samuel Richardson, paid for him. In happier vein is the story told of Johnson setting out from Gough square to witness Garrick's production at Drury Lane of his tragedy, "Irene." Not pleased with the conduct of the play and with some of fJie speeches he had himself written, from his place in the theatre he expressed olis disapproval in the customary manner. Perhaps the tale is untrue. .It is also told of La Fontaine.

It seems pretty certain that in Goirgb square "Kasselas" was written, though Staple Inn claims it. As Johnson bade farewell to the house of his labours on the dictionary he write to Lucy Porter: "I have this day moved my things, and you are no.w to direct to mo at Staple Inn, London. I am BOiug to publish a little story book, which I will send you when it is out." What else could that little story book have bcon? It is an interesting old house, "stout, old-fashioned, oak-balustraded," as Carlyle a century ago founcl it, delightfully reminiscent in every room of the eighteenth century.