December, 1932] THE VIRGINIA TEACHER 199 UOAO cbaRI&R ft HIGH HOLBOP^ o 1 -n> woooyroCK JT. V-fTAPLC INN XiV-- 5\T> \ □ -, /i cough / soake- 5 c /OHO ^ TIT COURT (C-ERRARD /T.) JOH 01U COURT —rl PAUiy FLEET CANNON yr XQMiU /r. BRio&y NEW THE TEMPLE i^ourey yo. yoX/ J / ADELPH1 ^-^tebrace Hh, yOUTHWAOK Y (TO ^TQEATHAM) SAMUEL JOHN ON'S LONDON EACH year London gentlemen make most unattractive, to say the least. There a journey to Lichfield on Septem- were no sidewalks but, in the streets most ber 7, there to visit Johnson's birth- congested with traffic, posts were set up place, the little bookseller's shop, and the along the sides to safeguard pedestrians Three Crowns. And yet it is not Lichfield against being run over by carriages and which comes first into our minds when carts. Surface water and filth were carried thinking of Johnson, but London—Fleet off in open drains, or gutters, which ran Street, Bolt Court, and the Mitre Tavern. through the middle of the streets, to the Johnson had a genuine affection for Lich- great detriment of the gentlemen's white field and his friends there, but his real love silk stockings. Stone doorsteps jutted out was given to London, and Boswell tells us, into the pavements so that it was difficult "He would have thought himself an exile to walk at night, especially since the light- in any other place." He evidently thought ing system was very inadequate. Robber- that the road which led to London was the ies were so numerous as to make firearms most alluring of all prospects, not only for necessary; so Dr. Johnson may be pardoned a Scotchman but for all others as well, for for his warlike preparations for his trip to he said, "When a man is tired of London, the Hebrides. Until 1736 the only method he is tired of life; for there is in London all of lighting the town was by candles, each that life can afford." householder being required to keep a can- Yet to us a description of eighteenth cen- dle burning before his house from six until tury London does not seem exactly that of eleven in the evening. Then, because of Elysium. The streets were narrow and the increased robberies and murders, oil 200 THE VIRGINIA TEACHER [Vol. 13, No. 9 lamps were substituted. These, which were ments, exhibitions, public establishments, kept in order by the lamplighters hired by and remarkable objects in and near Lon- the city officials, were paid for by a tax don." This little red-bound book, then in levied upon the householders—a tax regu- its ninth edition, really did give a mass of lated by the amount of the rent of each miscellaneous material about the city and house. There were other street dangers, or its life—which is very interesting when certainly nuisances: rubbish in heaps along compared with our own time. Many pages the way, numbers of mad dogs, swarms of of this book are devoted to public amuse- beggars, ruinous houses, cattle driven ments and galleries: Drury Lane, Covent through the streets. Garden, the Italian Opera, the Pantheon, The living conditions of the London or the summer spectacles at Haymarket populace were poor. The drinking water, Theatre, Vauxhall Gardens, and other which was by this time piped into practi- places. But this was not Johnson's Lon- cally all the houses of the city, was brought don. While he loved to be entertained, and in wooden mains from the Thames, or was the most sociable of men, he did not— from ponds, and there seem to have been no dressed in velvet coat, lace ruffles, and filtration plants, though there were some curled wig—-step into a sedan chair and hie complaints as to the number of bathers in away to the resorts of the average pleasure- the Thames every Sunday morning. Nor seeker. Instead—in shabby coat, with was the water supply always at hand at the "snuffy" ruffles, if any, and his old scorched turn of a tap, but it was furnished on only wig—he would take his lumbering way three days in the week. Needless to say down to the Mitre Tavern, touching each that epidemics were many and fearful, and post on the way, and muttering to himself the mortality rate was very high. Not only as he rolled along. It was not the gay pa- was the drinking water unsafe and all san- geantry of the Thames pleasure-boats which itary conditions very bad, but there were he sought, but the brilliant wit and enliven- no laws to guarantee the quality of food- ing conversation of his literary friends stuffs. Bread was not, in the main, adul- around a bottle of port. terated; but other foods were, particularly Johnson's London was the London of milk, and in the milk-houses it was the reg- Fleet Street and its environs, a quarter ular custom to have a pump to simplify the north of the Strand occupied by coffee matter of watering this beverage. houses, taverns, theatres, a great market, There were two extremes in London life and the people belonging to these places. of the eighteenth century—squalor, pov- Even yet is Fleet Street associated with lit- erty, and filth on one hand; luxury, gayety, erary work and publishers, and today this and extravagance on the other. There was street, or piece of street, is filled with the London of St. James's and the Pall newspaper offices and the lodgings of those Mall and Hyde Park section; there was the who carry on such work. In and around London of the wharf rats or of the tumble- this street, in this limited district lying just down houses on London Bridge. But outside one of the western gates of the old Johnson's London was not in either of city walls, Johnson lived for forty-seven these. Though occasionally in touch with years, driving down through Southwark to both extremes, Johnson was of neither. Streatham, venturing out to the royal li- In 1808 there was published in London brary at the palace, going for an occasional a little book of 4 by S inches, but made up visit to Lichfield or Oxford, or even pene- of over 460 pages, which claimed to be a trating the dreadful wilds of Scotland, but "correct guide to all the curiosities, amuse- always coming home to Fleet Street. He December, 1932] THE VIRGINIA TEACHER 201 agreed with Boswell in saying that no beau- short while in Bow Street. All the great ties of nature could be equal to Fleet Street. authors and actors had lived here when the In all Johnson's life in London he had place was more fashionable. Here John- lodgings in seventeen different places. The son dwelt when drudging for Cave, tramp- first of these was in Exeter Street, opening ing out perpetually to St. John's Gate in into the Strand. Here, when in 1737 he and Clerkenwell to see him, and there frequent- Garrick came to London, Johnson lodged ly dining behind a screen, since he did not in a garret at the house of Norris, a stay- consider himself well enough dressed to ap- maker, and finished writing his Irene. pear in company with Cave's more distin- Here in this Venetian street, looking out on guished guests. the water which glittered under the sun or There were other dwelling places of turned leaden under the clouds, he lived as Johnson's, of which but little is known. He a struggler. At the eight-penny ordinary, had for a short time a lodging in Wood- the Pine Apple, in New Street, where he stock Street, far away from printers and dined, he was noticeable for his gaunt, taverns; there was a brief stay in that lank form and scarred, twitching face, but grimy defile known as Fetter Lane; and he more for his learning and for his conver- also lived for a time in Bedford Street in a sational powers. For some time he lived on house opposite Henrietta Street. This was four-pence-halfpenny a day, and paid visits one of those thoroughfares in which the on clean-shirt days only. Pie met "very traffic was sufficiently heavy to necessitate good company" at the Pine Apple; for the use of posts to safeguard pedestrians though no one knew his neighbor's name, from vehicles and horses. Sheridan and some had traveled. "It used to cost the Whyte once came to call at the house in rest," the Doctor related proudly in after- Bedford Street, and there were watching life at great tables, "a shilling, for they for Johnson's return. Aided by an opera drank wine; but I had a cut of meat for glass they could recognize him at quite a sixpence, and bread for a penny, so that I distance, and were amused to see him lum- was quite well served; nay, better than the bering along, with that queer rolling gait of rest, for they gave the waiter nothing." his, and laying his hand on every post he This Exeter Street was that in which Exe- passed. If by chance he had overlooked ter House once stood, and where lived Earl one, he would return and rest his' hand up- Cecil, son of the celebrated Burleigh. There on it a second and then resume his walk. was a wide gap between the Exeter Street He also for a time had lodgings in the of Johnson's garret, amidst most unsavory Temple.