The Story of Doctor Johnson; Being an Introduction to Boswell's Life

by S. C. Roberts

Johnson's House in Gough Square

No. 17 Gough Square, the house in which Johnson lived from 1748 to 1759, was bought in 1911 by Mr Cecil Harmsworth, who undertook such restoration as was necessary. The visitor will find it most easily by turning into Bolt Court, on the north side of Fleet Street, and will note with satisfaction that "almost every original feature of importance has survived."

A descriptive booklet, with a good coloured portrait, may be bought at the house, and a well-illustrated account is given in The Architectural Review for December, 1918. Carlyle's description of his visit (Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. IV) is well known and the reader may also be referred to Mr Austin Dobson's A Garret in Gough Square (Eighteenth Century Vignettes, 1st Series) and Miss Sophie Cole's novel, A London Posy.]

Though these pencil-marks do not remain for us to see, the house in Gough Square still stands. The literary adventurer of to-day may behold it with something of that reverence which St John's Gate inspired in Johnson when he first came to London.

The Dictionary employed Johnson for eight years.

"Mr Andrew Millar, bookseller in the Strand, took the principal charge of conducting the publication.... When the messenger who carried the last sheet to Millar returned, Johnson asked him 'Well, what did he say?'—'Sir (answered the messenger) he said, Thank God I have done with him.' 'I am glad (replied Johnson, with a smile) that he thanks God for anything.'"

Lord Chesterfield, to whom the "Plan" had been addressed, had taken no notice of Johnson during his years of toil. Johnson had waited in his "outward rooms" and been "repulsed from his door"—an incident which a famous picture has made familiar to many who otherwise, perhaps, would hardly have heard either of the rich nobleman or of the "uncourtly scholar."

On the eve of publication, however, Lord Chesterfield attempted to make amends by two complimentary notices in a paper called The World. This provoked Johnson to write one of the best known letters in English literature. Here is a part of it: