With written names, unto that sacred port,
So here Historians learn'd, and Poets rare,
Preserve then in clear fame and good report."
S. W. SINGER.
JOHNSON'S HOUSE, BOLT COURT.
(Vol. v., p. 176.)
A correspondent discussing the question of the site, or of the continued existence, of the house in Bolt Court in which Johnson lived and died, mentions that one person now living called there during the last illness of our sublime moralist. I believe he refers to Mr. Rogers.
The fact is that there is also a lady, an inhabitant of Piccadilly, Viscountess Keith, who not only grew from childhood to the age of twenty in the constant association of the Doctor, but who is also mentioned by Madame D'Arblay as having been a visitor at Bolt Court in 1784. Whether the noble lady referred to, at the extraordinary age she has reached (she was the eldest Miss Thrale), could solve from memory your friend's doubts as to this classical locality, I know not.
M. A.
I am in a position to assure MR. EDWIN LECHLADE that Dr. Johnson's house was burnt down in 1819, the premises having been long previously occupied by the most eminent English printer of his own or any other time, Mr. Thomas Bensley, to whose energy the world is indebted for the perfection of the printing machine.
The house of Johnson's friend, Mr. Allen the printer, was not destroyed by the disastrous fire which reduced to ashes the Doctor's residence; indeed only one corner of it was injured; and, with that exception, it stands as it was built shortly after the Great Fire of London.