But Dr. Johnson is the great figure at Ashbourne. Here he for many years used to visit Dr. Taylor, at the great brick house, still standing, opposite the old Grammar School. It is named simply, and yet arrogantly, “The Mansion.” Tradition tells that the frontage was designed by an Italian architect: probably the dullest dog in his profession, if the solid, stolid, uninspired elevation is the measure of his capabilities. But how beautiful is the garden front, with its two gabled wings and the odd, but distinguished, pavilion between! This unusual feature, containing what is known as the “Octagon Room,” is said to have been built by Dr. Taylor for the purpose of entertaining George the Third.
Dr. Taylor was one of a kind peculiar to the eighteenth century and the first few years of the nineteenth. Low reforming people have so altered the complexion of affairs that his sort are now well-nigh impossible. He was the ideal squarson; with an estate of his own and all manner of pickings from the Church of England, including the rectory of St. Margaret, Westminster, a prebendal stall in the Abbey, and the rectory of Market Bosworth. He was also a Justice of the Peace. He lived in a style befitting these dignities and the emoluments that derived from most of them, and rarely went out without his post-chaise, four horses, and two postilions.
THE SQUARSON
The tie between Taylor and Dr. Johnson was that of early school-friendship and of a continued acquaintance at Oxford, although, to be sure, when they went up to the University, Taylor as a rich man went of course to Christ Church, and Johnson, equally of course, to Pembroke.
One of Taylor’s hobbies was that of making cascades in his garden, from the Henmore. The observer of to-day who regards the exiguous trickle of that stream with a doubtful eye is of opinion that it must have been ill striving to make cascades out of it, if the flow were no greater then than now. Another hobby was farming, and Dr. Johnson, in his correspondence with Mrs. Thrale, tells how he kept a great bull whose like, he boasted, was not to be found elsewhere in Derbyshire. He was so proud of his bull that he generally, with considerable pains, managed to lead up to the subject of it at table. One day, however, a man called upon Dr. Taylor, on the subject of hiring a farm, and was shown the famous bull, and to Dr. Taylor’s mortification declared he had seen one still larger. He does not seem to have succeeded in hiring that farm, and a year later, Dr. Johnson is found writing to Mrs. Thrale, “We yet hate the man who had seen a bigger bull.”
THE “GREEN MAN AND BLACK’S HEAD,” ASHBOURNE.
In 1776 Johnson introduced his friend Boswell to Dr. Taylor, and the next year that hero-worshipper was invited, on the instance of Dr. Johnson, to make a longer stay. He remained a fortnight. At his departure for the north he hired a post-chaise at the still-existing “Green Man” inn, which has absorbed the “Black’s Head” since then and added the name of that extinct house to its own. Boswell describes the landlady of the “Green Man” as a “mighty civil gentlewoman.” Indeed she was! She gave him a humble curtsey, and an engraving of her house, upon which she had written: “M. Kilingley’s duty waits upon Mr. Boswell, is exceedingly obliged to him for this favour; whenever he comes this way, hopes for the continuance of the same. Would Mr. Boswell name this house to his extensive acquaintance, it would be a singular favour conferred on one who has it not in her power to make any other return but her most grateful thanks and sincerest prayers for his happiness in time and in blessed eternity. Tuesday morn.” There does not seem to have been an “Amen” at the end of this, but it is certainly a “felt want.”
The gallows sign of the house boldly straddles the narrow street, with the “Green Man” sign pendant from it, and a huge “Black’s Head,” with glaring eyes and a gaudily painted turban, above.