Doctor Johnson died in 1788—and this solicitor’s acquaintance with the place began scarcely twenty years after the Doctor’s death. The old frequenter’s memory would therefore have been very fresh. His style too, is pleasant. This worthy reminiscent dedicates his labours, in a quaint inscription, “To the Lawyers and Gentlemen with whom I have dined for more than half a century at the ‘Old Cheshire Cheese Tavern,’ Wine Office Court, Fleet Street; this work is respectfully dedicated by their obedient servant, Cyrus Jay.”
On the other side of Fleet Street we can see the “Mitre Tavern,” closing up the end of a court—but not the old original “Mitre,” where Johnson sat with Boswell. It was pulled down within living memory, and with it the corner in which the sage used to sit, and which was religiously marked by his bust. Yet, even as it stands in its restoration, there is something quaint in the feeling, as you enter a low, covered passage from Fleet Street, and see its cheerful open door at the end. There are other taverns with such approaches in the street. The “Old Bell” is curiously retired. The passage to the “Mitre” is as it was in Johnson’s day, and his eyes must have been often raised to the old beams that support its roof. Even in its modern shape it retains much that is old-fashioned and rococo. It is like a country tavern in London, with its “ordinary” at noon—and a good one too—and its retirement; so close and yet so far from the hum and clatter of Fleet Street.
From the old tavern we pass into the open place where St. Clement Danes stands—one of the most Dutch-like spots in London, to which idea the quaint and rather elegant tower lends itself. To hear its chimes, not at midnight, but on some December evening, when the steeple is projected on a cold blue background, while you can see the shadows of the ringers in the bell-tower, offers a picturesque effect. The bells fling out their janglings more wildly than any peal in London: they are nearer the ground, and the hurly-burly is melodious enough. Those tones the Doctor often heard in Gough Square and Bolt Court, and within he had his favourite seat, to this day reverently marked by a plate and inscription. Yet St. Clement’s is in a precarious way, and before many years its fate will be decided.
It is perhaps Gough Square, to which one of the little passages out of Fleet Street leads, that most faithfully preserves the memory of Johnson. It is rather a court than a square; so small is it that carriages could never have entered, and it is surrounded with good old brick houses that in their day were of some pretensions. The Society of Arts has fixed a tablet in the wall, recording that “Here lived Samuel Johnson.” The houses are of a good, sound old brick; some have carved porticoes, and one is set off by two rather elegant Corinthian pilasters. There is a pleasant flavour of grave old fashion and retirement about the place, and little has as yet been touched or pulled down. Johnson’s house faces us, and is about the most conspicuous. He had, of course, merely rooms, as it is a rather large mansion; a little shaken and awry, queerly shaped about the upper story, but snug and compact. It was lately a “commercial family boarding-house,” and the hall is “cosy” to a degree, with its panelled dado running round and up the twisted stairs, in short easy lengths of four or five steps, with landings—which would suit the Doctor’s chest. The whole is in harmony. We can see him labouring up the creaking stairs. A few peaceful traders are in occupation of the Square—printers, and the like. It is an old-world spot, has an old-world air, and suggests a snug country inn.
But, turning back to Essex Street, and not many doors down on the left, at the corner of a little cross passage leading to the pretty Temple gate, with its light iron work, we come on the “Essex Head Tavern,” an old, mean public-house of well-grimed brick. It was here, in his decay, that Johnson set up a kind of inferior club. Boswell is angry with Hawkins for calling it an “alehouse,” as if in contempt; but certainly, while the “Cheshire Cheese,” the “Mitre,” and the “Cock” are taverns, this seems to have been more within the category of an ale or public-house. It has been so rearranged and altered to suit the intentions and purposes of the modern “public,” that there is no tracing its former shape. In the passage there is a little room known as the “parlour,” underneath which accommodation has been found for a cobbler’s stall. The proprietors should surely have Johnson’s “rules” hung up. Probably they never heard of his name.
THE MAGPIE AND STUMP, Portsmouth Street.