On the other side of Fleet Street we can see the “Mitre Tavern,” closing up the end of a court--but not the old original “Mitre,” where Johnson sat with Boswell. It was pulled down within living memory, and with it the corner in which the sage used to sit, and which was religiously marked by his bust. Yet, even as it stands in its restoration, there is something quaint in the feeling, as you enter a low, covered passage from Fleet Street, and see its cheerful open door at the end. There are other taverns with such approaches in the street. The “Old Bell” is curiously retired. The passage to the “Mitre” is as it was in Johnson’s day, and his eyes must have been often raised to the old beams that support its roof. Even in its modern shape it retains much that is old-fashioned and _rococo_. It is like a country tavern in London, with its “ordinary” at noon--and a good one too--and its retirement; so close and yet so far from the hum and clatter of Fleet Street. From the old tavern we pass into the open _place_ where St. Clement Danes stands--one of the most Dutch-like spots in London, to which idea the quaint and rather elegant tower lends itself. To hear its chimes, not at midnight, but on some December evening, when the steeple is projected on a cold blue background, while you can see the shadows of the ringers in the bell-tower, offers a picturesque effect. The bells fling out their janglings more wildly than any peal in London: they are nearer the ground, and the hurly-burly is melodious enough. Those tones the Doctor often heard in Gough Square and Bolt Court, and within he had his favourite seat, to this day reverently marked by a plate and inscription. Yet St. Clement’s is in a precarious way, and before many years its fate will be decided.