DR JOHNSON’S HOUSE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 86, 31 May 1911, Page 5

DR JOHNSON’S HOUSE.

Most of the visitors 'from overseas who comb to visit “Ye Old Cheshire Choose” in Fleet Street, for the sake of its associations with the famous Dr Johnson will remember Dr Johnson’s house on Gough Square, just, found the 'corner from the ancient inn. They will bo interested in the: news that Dr Johnson’s house has been purchased by Air Cecil Harmsworth, a brother of Lord Northedilfo,and will be dedicated by him to the nation. JUy this public-spirited action a fatuous house 'is rescued from the destruction which must soon have been its fate. This is the huildiing where Dr Johnson comp.cd Iris immortal dictionary. Johnson was fifty-four years of ago when, in IVO3, lie 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 thq most part in Gough Square, where he also housed several of his assistants and superintended their work. Ho employed si;; amanuenses, and although no was always fond or abusing- tno Scotch, according to Boswell, it is to ho noted that five of these amanuenses wore Scotsmen. At first Johnson- thought lie could complete the undortakinig in three years, and when reminded by Dr Adams that the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took f6rty years to compile their dictionary, ho sportively replied, “Sir, thus it ip: 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 tno dictionary saw the light. The house in Gough Square, which Dr Johnson occupied for ten years, from 1748, to 1758' was probably built about the beginning of the eighteenth century. Of recent years it has been used as a printing works, but the printer’s gas engine which shook it to the foundations during a recent tenancy has now been removed, and when some of the old beams have been replaced by others a lnm>; life will |,o secured for the fabric. It has a good panelled eighteenth century door, with carved lintel. Iwo oigihe original fireplaces remain, and there is one odd little cupboard with pigeon holes, in which Johnson might have stored sections of the famous dictionary while it was in the making. The attics above are particularly int("resting, for here, it was, presumixblv, that Dr Johnson’s assistants, the raw voting Scotsmen, used to work on the dictionary, under ids supervision, and there ho may have stamped ni) and down in his jwrath when ho.discovered that they had copied out part of the dictionary on hath sides of the pair.T, which, then as now, is to sin against the printer.' 'To rectify this blunder cost Johnson INO. The present condition of the house is bettrtr than might have been expected, and it will not be difficult to make it a more vroi thy plr.ee of pilgrimage.