The book of The Cheese

by Unknown

Two oil paintings by Seymour Lucas, R.A., of the dining-room, with portraits of customers, will repay inspection, while above Dr. Johnson’s old seat is an oil painting of the Lexicographer himself, a copy of the famous portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, now preserved in the National Gallery. Underneath may be read the following inscription:—“The Favourite Seat of Dr. Johnson. Born 18th Septr., 1709. Died 13th Decr., 1784. In him a noble understanding and a masterly intellect were united. With grand independence of character, and unfailing goodness of heart, which won the admiration of his own age and remain as recommendations to the reverence of posterity. ‘No, Sir! there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness has been produced as by a good tavern.—Johnson.’”

Hard by are two interesting old prints, one of Dr. Johnson rescuing Oliver Goldsmith from his landlady, the other of a literary party at the house of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Then there is an oil painting of a family group in which the Doctor is easily to be recognised. More modern, but still well worthy of inspection, is an artist’s proof, signed by the artist himself, of the well-known picture—“Toddy at the Cheese.” This is the painter, Mr. Dendy Sadler’s own gift to the house, the interior of whose dining-room he has so genially portrayed. Noticeable adjuncts of the apartments also are two old water-bottles, one of leather, the other of stone, and of what is known as Godstone ware.

THE JOHNSONIAN CORNER.

The old staircase is well worth careful attention, having stood marvellously the test of time. If we ascend it we arrive at the first floor and William’s room, to which an announcement on the wainscot at the foot of the stairs served as a guide. It is immediately on our left when we reach the landing, perpetuating with its name the memory of Mr. Dolamore’s faithful old henchman. Its most interesting feature is a second copy in oils of the portrait of Dr. Johnson by Sir Joshua Reynolds, to which I have just made allusion. But it is much more than a mere replica of the copy downstairs in the dining-room. It is a copy, indeed, but a very old copy, and dates back to the Doctor’s own time. It was painted in order that it might adorn the room at “The Mitre,” in Chancery Lane, where the club founded by Dr. Johnson first held its meetings. Dr. Johnson’s “Mitre” has long since been pulled down, but the club he founded exists, and meets several times a year in William’s room. Two prints next claim our attention—a coloured one of Dr. Johnson’s House in Gough Square, the other a book print of Dr. Johnson, who is also shown to us in a framed wax bas-relief model.

About the room also are a number of sepia drawings of the various parts of the house—the work of that accomplished artist, F. Cox—while there are several pictures on the wall which serve to show that the tastes of the frequenters of the “Cheese” are not limited to literature and journalism. For example, we have “Roach, Perch and Dace,” and “Salmon Trout” and “Trout,” by C. Foster, a coloured print of steeple-chasing, a portrait of Lord Palmerston, engraved by F. Holl from the painting by F. Grant; a landscape of considerable merit by an unknown artist, and a view of Fleet Street, showing the entrance to Wine Office Court. Very interesting too is a print of the meeting of Dr. Johnson and Flora Macdonald in the Isle of Skye in the year 1773. This valuable work was recently exhibited at the Franco-British Exhibition of 1908 at Shepherd’s Bush.

Issuing from this room, which embalms the memory of “William,” we must pause at the foot of the flight of stairs leading to the next floor to admire a handsome old grandfather’s clock, which even in Dr. Johnson’s time was venerable by reason of its years, as it was almost certainly part of the furniture of “The Cheese” when the hostelry was rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1667. It is not impossible it was ticking off the flight of time when Hawkins and other Elizabethan sea captains were harrying the warships of the great Armada in its progress up the British Channel. Shakespeare and Ben Jonson may have studied that ancient clock-face which would warn them that it was desirable to cut short their pleasant revelry and hasten to the theatre. We pass on with a lingering look, and the next turn in the old staircase brings us to a private room, containing one of the most valued treasures of the Cheshire Cheese, nothing less than the original chair used by Dr. Johnson at the Mitre, the old Chancery Lane tavern, patronised occasionally by the Doctor and now pulled down. This chair was acquired by the proprietor of the Cheshire Cheese, and sedulously protected from all accident and injury. The better to ensure this end it is now enclosed in a glass case. On the back of the chair is a medallion of Dr. Johnson with the inscription—“Born Sept. 7th, 1709. Died Dec. 13th, 1784.” Copies of the chair can be supplied to order in oak at £5 each, but the medallion and inscriptions, which are perhaps modern, or at least post-Johnsonian additions to the original chair, are not copied. A notice card upon the seat of the chair announces to the visitor that “This chair was in daily use by Dr. Samuel Johnson,” while below follows the quotation:—“More regal in his state than many kings.” Though he passed away when George Washington was in the zenith of his renown after splendid epoch-making achievement in arms and diplomacy and council, the memory of the great Doctor is as fresh and fragrant as ever, as on the day when he last sat in the chair before us, the oracle of a select company of wits and scholars. It is idle to moralise further on this more than royal relic. Each intelligent visitor, as he reverently contemplates it, will pursue his own line of reflection.

Turning from the chair we find at the other end of the room a glass-fronted cupboard, which contains many original samples of the old willow pattern plate and also of the unique badge plate, which has been in use in the house for many years. Here, too, are several specimens of the old punch glasses, which have found favour with so many generations of convives of the Cheshire Cheese. The stranger is not perhaps without a tremor of gastronomic emotion when the spoon used for at least three generations, probably for a period of over a century, in stirring the pudding is pointed out to him. Hard by on the walls of the room are seven old prints from Hogarth’s “Rake’s Progress.”

The great artistic treasures of this room are, however, three important paintings, which have recently been restored by Messrs. William Marchant & Co., of the Goupil Gallery, 5 Regent Street. The first, which looks down on the chair of Dr. Johnson in its glass shrine, is an oil painting of a boy and dog. On the back of the picture is written:—“David Boyle, aged 10.” “Ye 19th of July, 1691.” So that it was painted eighteen years before the birth of Dr. Johnson. On the opposite wall is another oil painting, a still life picture, attributed by competent critics to Peter Boel, who lived from 1626 to 1680, and was a pupil of Snyders. The third of these oil paintings is a figure picture, probably of “Diana,” by Charles Le Brun, or the school (France, XVII. century).

In the smoking-room adjoining there is nothing of special interest for visitors, since this apartment is mainly devoted to the smoking of churchwarden pipes and to the consumption of “goes” of rack, cork, and, above all, of Punch, for the right compounding of which Ye Old Cheshire Cheese enjoys a reputation so deservedly high. Here take place noteworthy arguments, conducted with much skill and logical acumen by the regular customers, each in his own special chair, and each with his own churchwarden pipe in his mouth, or held gracefully poised to emphasise a rhetorical point. A case is provided in which gentlemen may keep from harm the favourite pipes to which use and wont have made them attached. In this room, too, the evening clubs hold their meetings. The subject of “Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese Clubs” is, however, dealt with elsewhere. Still attention may be drawn to the fact that on the walls of the smoking-room are some interesting pen and ink sketches and drawings relating to the clubs. It would be unbecoming perhaps to omit mention of an engraving of “The Empty Chair at Gadshill,” since it serves to remind us of the intimate association of Charles Dickens with “Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese,” while it suggests that other empty chair in the next room. Further, a pen and ink drawing of the old bar downstairs, by Joseph Pennell, must not be forgotten, any more than three Phil May sketches, the gift of the Goupil Gallery.