Mr. Allen's house stands at the head of Bolt Court; Dr. Johnson's stood to its left. On the site of the latter was erected, after the before-mentioned fire, a spacious printing-office, and both are now in the occupation of Mr. Tyler.
The Gentleman's Magazine (1819, part i., p. 575.), in giving an account of this fire, says in a note:
"It may be interesting to some of our readers to know that the house in Bolt Court, formerly the residence of Dr. Johnson, formed part of Mr. Bensley's office, and is now entirely destroyed. A view of it is preserved in the European Magazine for 1810."
The European Magazine (1810, vol. lvii. pp. 353-4.) contains, besides the view above-mentioned, an article to which your correspondent may be referred, in confirmation of the fact that the house occupied by Dr. Johnson was the one I have referred to, and was not exactly opposite the "Dr. Johnson tavern." The view, I am told by one who well recollects the old house, and is a great lover of Johnsoniana, is a correct representation of it.
Timperley's Dictionary of Printers and Printing, also, in relating the occurrence of the fire of Messrs. Bensley's premises, states that a part of it was formerly the residence of Dr. Johnson.
TEE BEE.
In answer to the Query of EDWIN LECHLADE, being in a position to give you unquestionable information, I will, to quote your correspondent's words, let the question be set at rest. Of the house in which Dr. Johnson lived and died, not one brick is left upon another. It was destroyed totally by fire in 1819; and the partywall between that and Mr. Allen's house alone remains, being the west wall of that large residence. When up Bolt Court, you turn to the left through an iron gate leading to a flight of stone steps to the printing-office now occupied by Mr. Tyler, and where those stone steps are, stood the doctor's residence. I know of no relic that was saved except the scraper, which was distorted into a curious shape by the action of the fire, and being firmly fixed in a heavy stone, it lay about the yard for years.
The late well-known printer Mr. Bensley succeeded Mr. Allen there in business in 1783, going at once to reside in his house next door to Dr. Johnson, whom, of course, as a close neighbour, he often saw, and whose funeral he witnessed. After the Doctor's death the Rev.—Stockdale, of the Church of England, occupied the house; next to him it was tenanted by a Rev.—Moir, (I believe) a Presbyterian; next, by one Copley, an old tailor, whom I have teased many times when a boy; for some of us youngsters having overheard him once in a soliloquy groaning, "Dear me—and the buttons all wrong!" on passing him it became a mot among us expressed sufficiently loud to reach his ears, when he would look unutterable things. He was a worthy but somewhat cross old man, in very respectable circumstances. His was the last family which ever occupied the premises as a dwelling-house; I knew him there for about twenty years. During his abode the freehold was put up for sale by auction, as well as of Allen's house; Mr. Bensley purchased both. This was somewhere about 1804-1807. But as Copley had a lease, he did not vacate till about 1814, when Mr. Bensley appropriated the two houses to his printing purposes (and there, it may not be unworthy of notice, was steam-printing first practised),—so occupied the said premises were, till destroyed by fire in 1819. Mr. Bensley's eldest surviving son succeeded him in 1820, but did not, in re-constructing the premises, build on the site of Dr. Johnson's house, though a part thereof has since been covered. The map—a very fragile, worm-eaten affair—shows the exact dimensions of the house, the place where the walls stood, &c. The property remains in Mr. Bensley's family. I have often heard Mr. Bensley describe the Doctor and his funeral.
The print in the European Magazine is an accurate representation of the appearance of this ancient and gloomy house in the dark corner; but it had many comforts, and "a large garden," in which I have been; it is now all built upon, and has been covered for nearly half a century. Some yet living may have visited Dr. Johnson there: I have often conversed with others who are dead that did—the late Mr. Bowyer Nichols, Mr. Cradock (of Leicestershire), Mr. A. Strahan, and others mentioned in the Doctor's works, when gratifying their curiosity by showing them over the house; and it has fallen to my lot to do so to many literary characters. Indeed as to the place where Dr. Johnson lived and died, there is no more room for doubt than as to where old London bridge stood. I have many times been with the late Mr. James Boswell (son of Dr. Johnson's biographer) in the rather dismal parlour—which spot, it is not to be wondered at, had a peculiar attraction for him.
There is no kind of foundation for assigning Dr. Johnson's residence to that where Cobbett lived or wrote—it was a mere joke. As to the "Johnson's Head" tavern, it was an upholsterer's manufactory at the time of Dr. Johnson's death. I myself knew an old man of the name of Hale residing in it, and carrying on that occupation so early as 1800, who had doubtless been there before Dr. Johnson's death; his son followed him, and continued till about 1826-1830 in those premises. By the same token (as Paddy says), while now addressing "N. & Q." (though nearly 300 miles from the spot) I am writing at a table Hale sen. made for me in that house in 1818.