The house in which Dr. Johnson was born, at Lichfield--where his father,
it is well known, kept a small bookseller’s shop, and where he was
partly educated--stood on the west side of the market-place. In the
centre of the market-place is a colossal statue of Johnson, seated upon
a square pedestal: it is by Lucas, and was executed at the expense of
the Rev. Chancellor Law, in 1838. By the side of a footpath leading from
Dam-street to Stow, formerly stood a large willow, said to have been
planted by Johnson. It was blown down, in 1829; but one of its shoots
was preserved and planted upon the same spot: it was in the year 1848 a
large tree, known in the town as “Johnson’s Willow.”
Mr. Lomax, who for many years kept a bookseller’s shop--“The Johnson’s
Head,” in Bird-street, Lichfield, possessed several articles that
formerly belonged to Johnson, which have been handed down by a clear and
indisputable ownership. Amongst them is his own _Book of Common Prayer_,
in which are written, in pencil, the four Latin lines printed in
Strahan’s edition of the Doctor’s Prayers. There are, also, a
sacrament-book, with Johnson’s wife’s name in it, in his own
handwriting; an autograph letter of the Doctor’s to Miss Porter; two
tea-spoons, an ivory tablet, and a breakfast table; a Visscher’s Atlas,
paged by the Doctor, and a manuscript index; Davies’s _Life of Garrick_,
presented to Johnson by the publisher; a walking cane; and a Dictionary
of Heathen Mythology, with the Doctor’s MS. corrections. His wife’s
wedding-ring, afterwards made into a mourning-ring; and a massive chair,
in which he customarily sat, were also in Mr. Lomax’s possession.
Among the few persons living in the year 1848 who ever saw Dr. Johnson,
was Mr. Dyott, of Lichfield: this was seventy-four years before, or in
1774, when the Doctor and Boswell, on their tour into Wales, stopped at
Ashbourne, and there visited Mr. Dyott’s father, who was then residing
at Ashbourne Hall.[8]