DR JOHNSON’S HOUSE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7450, 26 May 1911, Page 6

DR JOHNSON’S HOUSE

FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT. LONDON, Arpil 13. Most of the visitors from overseas who come to visit “Ye Old Cheshire Cheese' in Fleet street, for' the sake of its associations with tho famous Dr Johnson, will remember Dr. Johnson's house on Gough square, just round the corner from the ancient inn. They will be interested in the news that Dn Johnson's house has been purchased by. Mr Cecil Haransworth, a brother of Lord Northcllffe, and will be dedicated by him to the nation. By this public-spirited action n famous house is rescued xrom . the destruction which must soon have been its fate. This is the building where Dr Johnson compiled his immortal dictionary. ‘ Johnson was fifty-four years of age when, in dZCS, no first met Boswell in the shop of" Davies the bookseller,' and the dictionary had been established , eight years before, in 1755. It had been begun in 1747, and during the' period of its compilation. Johnson lived for the most part in Gough square, where-he also' housed several of his assistants and superintended their work. Ho emp.ldyed sis amanuenses, and although:-he was always- fond of. Abusing the Scotch,' according, to Boswell,'it'is to bo noted that five of these ainauucnsrs were Scotsmen.: ; At first Johnson thought he could complete tho undertaking' in, throe' years, and when reminded by Dr Adams' that, the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to coni pile their dictionary, he sportively replied, "Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As there is no sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman." But it was nearer eight years than three before tho dictionary saw the light. ' , The house in. Gough square, which Dr Johnson occupied for ten years from 1748 to 1758, was probably built about* tho beginning of the eighteenth century. Of recent wears it has been used as : a printing works, but the printers' gas egine which shook it to the .foundations during a recent tenancy has now been’ removed, and when some of the old beams have been replaced by others a long life will be secured for the fabric. It has a good panelled eighteenth century door, with carved lintel. Two of the original fireplaces remain, and there is one odd little cupboard with \pigeon holes, in which Johnson might have sections of the famous dictionary while it wfis in the making. The attics oHove are nartioularly interesting, for here it Was, presumably, that Dr Johnsons units, the raw young Scotsmen; used to work on the dictionary, under his supervision, and her© ho may have stamped up and down in his wrath when ho. discovered that they had copied out part -of the dictionary on both sides o-f tho paper, which, then as now, is to sin against the printer. To rectify this blunder cost Johnson £2O. The present condition of the house is better than might have been expected, and it will not be difficult to make , it a more -worthy place of pilgrimage. • • ■