Dr
Johnson's statue (top left) stands on a traffic island in the middle
of Fleet Street, behind (not, as Tagholm states, in
front of) the church of
St. Clement Danes where the author often worshipped. The base of the statue
contains a bas-relief of the great doctor with his friend Mrs Thrale, and on
the opposite side a bas-relief of his biographer James Boswell.From 1749 to 1759 Johnson lived in a house at number 17 Gough Square (top right), just off Fleet street, in an area which in the eighteenth century was the centre of the publishing trade. His great Dictionary of the English Language (1755) was written there, the entries being transcribed by a team of six copyists (five of whom were Scots) working in the garret on the top floor. On the opposite side of the square stands a statue of the doctor's cat, Hodge, seated on a copy of the dictionary with oysters at his feet (middle left). The statue was created by Jon Buckley, and was unveiled by the Lord Mayor of London in 1997. Boswell, who was not a cat lover,
did not approve of the "indulgence with which Johnson
treated Hodge" - Johnson reportedly fed his pet with
oysters and described him as "a very fine cat indeed", a phrase which now serves as
an inscription below the statue. When Hodge died, the poet Percival Stockdale
wrote an elegy for him, which states that Hodge was a black cat "who, by
his master when caressed Warmly his gratitude expressed And never failed his
thanks to purr When'er he stroked his sable fur."On a narrow alley near Fleet Street, not far from Johnson's house, stands the famous "Cheshire Cheese" tavern, which Johnson, together with many other luminaries, allegedly patronized, though Boswell, at least, never mentions it. He and Johnson are known to have patronized the Mitre Tavern on Fleet Street, however. A plaque (middle right) marks its former location. Another
site associated with Johnson is located on High Holborn. It consists of an attractive timbered
building adjoining a quiet garden (bottom left and right). According to the "Oxford Literary Guide to the British Isles, Johnson once lodged here in 1858-60 and may have composed "Rasselas" while he was a resident. Davis and Tagholm remind us that Dickens, who worked close by in Furnival's Inn (no longer standing) described the garden as follows in "The Mystery of Edwin Drood": "It is one of those nooks, the turning into which out of the clashing street, imparts to the relieved pedestrian the sensation of having put cotton in his ears, and velvet soles on his boots. It is one of those nooks where a few smoky sparrows twitter in smoky trees . . . Morover it is one of those little nooks which are legal nooks, and it contains a little Hall with a little lantern in its roof."