Notes and Queries, Vol. V, Number 123, March 6, 1852: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, Vol. V, Number 123, March 6, 1852: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
"But as the swans that there still flying are,
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.
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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