Red Lion Court (No. 169), though an unlikely spot, has been, of all the side binns of Fleet Street, one of the most specially favoured by Minerva. Here Valpy published that interminable series of Latin and Greek authors, which he called the "Delphin Classics," which Lamb's eccentric friend, George Dyer, of Clifford's Inn, laboriously edited, and which opened the eyes of the subscribers very wide indeed as to the singular richness of ancient literature. At the press of an eminent printer in this court, that useful and perennial serial the Gentleman's Magazine (started in 1731) was partly printed from 1779 to 1781, and entirely printed from 1792 to 1820.
Johnson's Court, Fleet Street (a narrow court on the north side of Fleet Street, the fourth from Fetter Lane, eastward), was not named from Dr. Johnson, although inhabited by him.
Dr. Johnson was living at Johnson's Court in 1765, after he left No. 1, Inner Temple Lane, and before he removed to Bolt Court. At Johnson's Court he made the acquaintance of Murphey, and he worked at his edition of "Shakespeare." He saw much of Reynolds and Burke. On the accession of George III. a pension of £300 a year had been bestowed on him, and from that time he became comparatively an affluent man. In 1763, Boswell had become acquainted with Dr. Johnson, and from that period his wonderful conversations are recorded. The indefatigable biographer describes, in 1763, being taken by Mr. Levett to see Dr. Johnson's library, which was contained in his garret over his Temple chambers, where the son of the well-known Lintot used to have his warehouse. The floor was strewn with manuscript leaves; and there was an apparatus for chemical experiments, of which Johnson was all his life very fond. Johnson often hid himself in this garret for study, but never told his servant, as the Doctor would never allow him to say he was not at home when he was.
"He"(Johnson), says Hawkins, "removed from the Temple into a house in Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, and invited thither his friend Mrs. Williams. An upper room, which had the advantage of a good light and free air, he fitted up for a study and furnished with books, chosen with so little regard to editions or their external appearances as showed they were intended for use, and that he disdained the ostentation of learning."
"I returned to London," says Boswell, "in February, 1766, and found Dr. Johnson in a good house in Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, in which he had accommodated Mrs. Williams with an apartment on the ground-floor, while Mr. Levett occupied his post in the garret. His faithful Francis was still attending upon him. He received me with much kindness. The fragments of our first conversation, which I have preserved, are these:—I told him that Voltaire, in a conversation with me, had distinguished Pope and Dryden, thus: 'Pope drives a handsome chariot, with a couple of neat, trim nags; Dryden, a coach and six stately horses.' Johnson: 'Why, sir, the truth is, they both drive coaches and six, but Dryden's horses are either galloping or stumbling; Pope's go at a steady, even trot.' He said of Goldsmith's 'Traveller,' which had been published in my absence, 'There's not been so fine a poem since Pope's time.' Dr. Johnson at the same time favoured me by marking the lines which he furnished to Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village,' which are only the last four:—
'That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.'
At night I supped with him at the 'Mitre' tavern, that we might renew our social intimacy at the original place of meeting. But there was now considerable difference in his way of living. Having had an illness, in which he was advised to leave off wine, he had, from that period, continued to abstain from it, and drank only water or lemonade."
"Mr. Beauclerk and I," says Boswell, in another place, "called on him in the morning. As we walked up Johnson's Court, I said, 'I have a veneration for this court,' and was glad to find that Beauclerk had the same reverential enthusiasm." The Doctor's removal Boswell thus duly chronicles:—"Having arrived," he says, "in London late on Friday, the 15th of March, 1776, I hastened next morning to wait on Dr. Johnson, at his house, but found he was removed from Johnson's Court, No. 7, to Bolt Court, No. 8, still keeping to his favourite Fleet Street. My reflection at the time, upon this change, as marked in my journal, is as follows: 'I felt a foolish regret that he had left a court which bore his name; but it was not foolish to be affected with some tenderness of regard for a place in which I had seen him a great deal, from whence I had often issued a better and a happier man than when I went in; and which had often appeared to my imagination, while I trod its pavement in the solemn darkness of the night, to be sacred to wisdom and piety.'"