Blake, the mystical painter, died in 1828, at No. 3 Fountain Court, after five years’ residence there. In these dim rooms he believed he saw the ghost of a flea, Satan himself looking through the bars of the staircase window, to say nothing of hosts of saints, angels, evil spirits, and fairies. Here also he wrote verse passionate as Shelley’s and pure and simple-hearted as Wordsworth’s. Here he engraved, tinted, railed at Woollett, and raved over his Dante illustrations; for though poor and unknown, he was yet regal in his exulting self-confidence. Here, just before his death, the old man sat up in bed, painting, singing, and rejoicing. He died without a struggle.[143] The office of the _Sun_ is on this side the Strand. This paper was established in 1792. Mr. Jerdan left the _Sun_ in 1816, selling his share for £300. He had quarrelled with the co-proprietor, Mr. John Taylor, who aspired to a control over him. In 1817 he set up the _Literary Gazette_, the first exclusive organ of literary men.[144] The first editor of the _Sun_ got an appointment in the West Indies. The paper was then edited by Robert Clark, printer of the _London Gazette_, and afterwards by Jerdan, assisted by Fladgate the facetious lawyer, Mulloch, and John Taylor. After getting his sop in the pan of £300 a year from Government, that low-principled satirist, Dr. Wolcot (Peter Pindar), wrote epigrams for it. Fountain Court was in Strype’s time famous for an adjacent tavern from which it derived its name. It was well paved, and its houses were respectably inhabited.[145] The Fountain Tavern was renowned for its good rooms, excellent vaults, “curious kitchen,” and old wine. The Fountain Club, of which Pulteney was a member (circa 1737), held its meetings in this tavern, to oppose that fine old Whig gentleman Sir Robert Walpole.[146] Sir Charles Hanbury Williams thus mentions it in one of his lampoons:-- “Then enlarge on his cunning and wit, Say how he harangued at the Fountain, Say how the old patriots were bit, And a mouse was produced by a mountain.” Here Pulteney may have planned the _Craftsman_ with Bolingbroke, and perhaps have arranged his duel with Lord Hervey, the “Sporus” of Pope. Dennis, the critic, mentions in his _Letters_ dining here with Loggen, the painter, and Wilson, a writer praised by poor Otway in Tonson’s first _Miscellany_. “After supper,” he says, “we drank Mr. Wycherly’s health by the name of Captain Wycherly.”[147] This was the dramatist, the celebrated author of _The Plain Dealer_ and _The Country Wife_. The great room of the Fountain Tavern was afterwards Akermann’s well-known picture shop; and is now Simpson’s cigar divan.