Wine Court Office in Fleet Street: London #57

On the wall of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub, a rather eccentric sign:

 

'"SIR" said D^r Johnson "If you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this great City you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts........................................................................................................

This Court takes it's [sic] name from the Excise Office which was here up to 1665. VOLTAIRE came and, says tradition, CONGREVE and POPE, D^r. Johnson lived in Gough Square (End of the Court on the left), and finished his Great Dictionary there in 1755. OLIVER GOLDSMITH lived at N^o.6, where he wrote "The Vicar of Wakefield"
and Johnson saved him from eviction by selling the book for him..............................................................................

Here came Johnson's friends, REYNOLDS, GIBBON, GARRICK, D^r. BURNEY, BOSWELL and others of his circle. In the 19^th C. Came CARLYLE, MACAULEY, TENNYSON, DICKENS, (who mentions the Court in "A Tale of Two Cities") FORSTER, HOOD, THACKERAY, CRUIKSHANK, LEECH and WILKIE COLLINS. More recently came MARK TWAIN, THEODORE ROOSEVELT, CONAN DOYLE, BEERBOHM, CHESTERTON, DOWSON, LE GALEIENE [sic] SYMONS YEATS – and a host of others in search of D^r Johnson, or "The Cheese"'.