A Very Fine Cat, Indeed

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Just off Gunpowder Square is Gough Square, where sits the statue of a cat; Hodge, 'A very fine cat, indeed.' Next to Hodge, on the plinth, are some oyster shells that Dr Johnson would buy for his favourite black feline. Dr Samuel Johnson lived in Gough Square and, apart from being very fond of cats, this is where he finished his dictionary, published in 1755, the culmination of nine years solo work. Not the first English dictionary, but accepted as definitive for 173 years until the appearance of the Oxford English Dictionary. In one of those strange coincidences, across the Atlantic, the first English dictionary by an American was written by Samuel Johnson, no relation, a school teacher and published in 1798. Again there had been an earlier dictionary, but it had been written by a non-American. The house in Gough Square is the only one of Johnson's 18 homes to survive until today. By 1910 the house was in neglected and parlous state, but restored and opened to the public in 1914. As for Hodge, all we know of him is from one passage from Boswell's book 'Life of Johnson.'