It is a common belief that Fleet Street is dotted with houses which were Dr. Johnson’s homes in later years, and with the taverns in which he sat drinking tea and talking philosophy till the small hours of the morning. It is not so. The Doctor’s house at No. 1 Inner Temple Lane has given way to “Johnson’s Buildings.” In Johnson’s Court (named after Thomas Johnson, citizen and merchant taylor, and one of the Common Council from 1598 till his death in 1625) the Doctor lived from 1765 to 1776, and during his “journey” in Scotland humorously described himself as “Johnson of that Ilk.” The house (No. 7) has, however, gone the way of all bricks and mortar. In 1776 he removed to No. 8 Bolt Court, where he passed the rest of his life. The house was demolished soon after his death. In fact there is only one house—No. 17 Gough Square—on which we can look and say, “Here dwelt Dr. Johnson.” Gough Square itself has undergone inevitable alteration, but fortunately for the devotee, at the western end the Doctor’s house, No. 17, still stands intact. Here his wife died in 1752, and here he completed his Dictionary in 1755. In his note book for 1831, Carlyle mentions having paid a visit to the house and interviewed the occupant, who was apparently under the impression that his illustrious predecessor in the tenancy had been a schoolmaster. So he had been, and one of his pupils, a pupil of whom any master might have been proud, was David Garrick. But the tenant knew not that schoolmastering had long been abandoned when the Doctor was compiling his Dictionary in that by no means majestic abode. On the right-hand side of the doorway the Society of Arts has placed a plaque with the following inscription:— [Illustration: DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON _Author_ LIVED HERE B. 1709. D. 1784.] CHAPTER IX THE “CHEESE” AND ITS FARE—A GREAT FALL IN PUDDING Resurgam. _La découverte d’un mets nouveau fait plus pour le bonheur du genre humain que la découverte d’une étoile._—BRILLAT-SAVARIN. If, as Brillat-Savarin says, the discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star, how much more deserving of human gratitude is the discoverer of the “Cheese” pudding than a Herschel or an Adams? The _Sportsman_ of March 30, 1887, has a long and eulogistic article on the “Cheese,” but exigencies of space preclude its being quoted in its entirety. The writer says: “Happily the most famous of London ancient taverns is left to us in the Old Cheshire Cheese, which is yet nightly haunted by the shade of Dr. Johnson, whose modern prototypes still enjoy their steaks and punch, and discuss politics, polemics, and plays, though they wear short hair and masher collars instead of full-bottomed wigs and ruffles.