So far we have seen little of Johnson's domestic life. He was happiest in a club or a tavern and, in the early days of struggle, home was not much more for him than the place where he sat down to write for a living. In his garret, which he considered as his library, a visitor would find "about five or six Greek folios, a deal writing-desk, and a chair and a half. Johnson giving to his guest the entire seat, tottered himself on one with only three legs and one arm."

But the household which he gradually gathered round him was a remarkable one.

Of Mrs Johnson's life in London we do not know much; but Johnson, being slovenly in his habits and cantankerous about his food, was bound to have "little disagreements" with a tidy housewife.

"My wife" he told Mrs Thrale "had a particular reverence for cleanliness, and desired the praise of neatness in her dress and furniture, as many ladies do, till they become troublesome to their best friends, slaves to their own besoms, and only sigh for the hour of sweeping their husbands out of the house as dirt and useless lumber."

When asked whether he ever "huffed his wife about his dinner," he replied:

"So often that at last she called to me, and said, 'Nay, hold, Mr Johnson, and do not make a farce of thanking God for a dinner which in a few minutes you will protest not eatable.'"

Sometimes she would get tired of the dirt and poverty of Fleet Street and stay for a time at Hampstead; but she could appreciate her husband's work and of Johnson's fondness for "his dear Tetty" there can be no doubt.

She died in March 1752, when Johnson had just finished the last number of The Rambler and was still in the middle of his labours on the Dictionary. Here is the letter he wrote on the following day to his friend, Dr Taylor:

"'Sir,' he said twenty-six years later 'I have known what it was to have a wife, and (in a solemn tender faultering tone) I have known what it is to lose a wife.—It had almost broke my heart.'"

Long before the pension had given him security Johnson had begun to make his home a refuge for the poor and lonely:

"Though Johnson's circumstances were at this time far from being easy, his humane and charitable disposition was constantly exerting itself. Mrs Anna Williams, daughter of a very ingenious Welsh physician, and a woman of more than ordinary talents and literature, having come to London in hopes of being cured of a cataract in both her eyes, which afterwards ended in total blindness, was kindly received as a constant visitor at his house while Mrs Johnson lived; and after her death, having come under his roof in order to have an operation upon her eyes performed with more comfort to her than in lodgings, she had an apartment from him during the rest of her life, at all times when he had a house."

From the accounts we have of Mrs Williams we cannot imagine her to have been an easy companion. Her blindness made her peevish and quarrelsome and we may wonder, with Boswell, at Johnson's patience with her. But she was a good talker and that was a great merit in Johnson's eyes. He made many efforts to brighten her life and increase her tiny income; Garrick was induced to give her a benefit performance and Mrs Montagu to provide her with a small pension.

"The truth is," says Boswell "that his humane consideration of the forlorn and indigent state in which this lady was left by her father, induced him to treat her with the utmost tenderness, and even to be desirous of procuring her amusement, so as sometimes to incommode many of his friends, by carrying her with him to their houses, where, from her manner of eating, in consequence of her blindness, she could not but offend the delicacy of persons of nice sensations."

But Boswell was a proud man when he was first invited to drink tea with her after dining out with Johnson. He knew that it was a sign of real intimacy.

"We went home to his house to tea. Mrs Williams made it with sufficient dexterity, notwithstanding her blindness, though her manner of satisfying herself that the cups were full enough appeared to me a little aukward; for I fancied she put her finger down a certain way, till she felt the tea touch it [12]. In my first elation at being allowed the privilege of attending Dr Johnson at his late visits to this lady ..., I willingly drank cup after cup."

Nor was the lady's dinner forgotten when Boswell and Johnson went off to their tavern:

"There was, on these occasions, a little circumstance of kind attention to Mrs Williams, which must not be omitted. Before coming out, and leaving her to dine alone, he gave her her choice of a chicken, a sweetbread, or any other little nice thing, which was carefully sent to her from the tavern, ready-drest."

Her death left Johnson very desolate.

"I have lost a companion," he wrote "to whom I have had recourse for domestick amusement for thirty years, and whose variety of knowledge never was exhausted.... She left her little substance to a charity-school. She is, I hope, where there is neither darkness, nor want, nor sorrow."

About 1746 Johnson had made the acquaintance of another "humble friend," Mr Robert Levet.

"He was" says Boswell "an obscure practiser in physick amongst the lower people, his fees being sometimes very small sums, sometimes whatever provisions his patients could afford him; but of such extensive practice in that way, that Mrs Williams has told me, his walk was from Hounsditch to Marybone.... Such was Johnson's predilection for him, and fanciful estimation of his moderate abilities, that I have heard him say he should not be satisfied, though attended by all the College of Physicians, unless he had Mr Levet with him. Ever since I was acquainted with Dr Johnson, and many years before, as I have been assured by those who knew him earlier, Mr Levet had an apartment in his house, or his chambers, and waited upon him every morning, through the whole course of his late and tedious breakfast. He was of a strange grotesque appearance, stiff and formal in his manner, and seldom said a word while any company was present."

But this "odd old surgeon" was poor and honest; and that, as Goldsmith said, was recommendation enough to Johnson, who never treated him as a dependent and indeed declared that "Levet was indebted to him for nothing more than house-room, his share in a penny-loaf at breakfast, and now and then a dinner on a Sunday." The greatest honour which Johnson paid his old friend were the "pathetick verses" which he wrote at his death. Here we will quote two stanzas:

For five years towards the end of his life Johnson had a further addition to his household.

"On Friday, March 20, [1778]" says Boswell "I found him at his own house, sitting with Mrs Williams, and was informed that the room formerly allotted to me was now appropriated to a charitable purpose; Mrs Desmoulins[13], and I think her daughter, and a Miss Carmichael, being all lodged in it. Such was his humanity, and such his generosity, that Mrs Desmoulins herself told me, he allowed her half-a-guinea a week. Let it be remembered, that this was above a twelfth part of his pension."

The invasion had, as we shall see, a disturbing effect on the household and it was well that Johnson had a devoted servant.

This was Francis Barber, a negro who had been brought to England in 1750 and received his freedom (for the slave trade still flourished) from his master, Colonel Bathurst. Dr Bathurst, the Colonel's son, was a very intimate friend of Johnson and gave him Francis as a servant. Johnson, as his way was, made of him a friend. Francis once took a fancy to go to sea; but Johnson had a horror of the sailor's life and got him back. Finding him intelligent and worth a better education he sent him to school at Bishop Stortford.

Here are two letters which shew Johnson's fatherly kindness:

"To Mr Francis Barber.

"To Mr Francis Barber, at Mrs Clapp's, Bishop-Stortford, Hertfordshire.

After his four years' schooling Francis returned to London and remained a faithful servant till his master's death. When Johnson was making his will he "asked Dr Brocklesby what would be a proper annuity to a favourite servant, and being answered that it must depend on the circumstances of the master; and, that in the case of a nobleman, fifty pounds a year was considered as an adequate reward for many years' faithful service; 'Then (said Johnson,) shall I be nobilissimus, for I mean to leave Frank seventy pounds a year, and I desire you to tell him so.'"

Lastly, we must mention a fireside creature that Johnson loved:

"I shall never forget" says Boswell "the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, 'Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this'; and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, 'but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.'"

How did this "crowd of wretched old creatures," as Macaulay rather unkindly calls them, agree? Not very well. Hodge was probably the only peaceful member.

In 1778 the following conversation took place between Johnson and his friends Mr and Mrs Thrale:

"Mrs Thrale. Pray, Sir, how does Mrs Williams like all this tribe? Dr Johnson. Madam, she does not like them at all; but their fondness for her is not greater. She and Desmoulins quarrel incessantly.... Mr Thrale. And pray who is clerk of your kitchen, Sir? Dr Johnson. Why, Sir, I am afraid there is none; a general anarchy prevails in my kitchen, as I am told by Mr Levett, who says it is not now what it used to be. Mrs Thrale. Mr Levett, I suppose, Sir, has the office of keeping the hospital in health, for he is an apothecary. Dr Johnson. Levett, Madam, is a brutal fellow, but I have a good regard for him; for his brutality is in his manners, not his mind. Mr Thrale. But how do you get your dinners drest? Dr Johnson. Why, Desmoulins has the chief management of the kitchen; but our roasting is not magnificent, for we have no jack. Mr Thrale. No jack! Why, how do they manage without? Dr Johnson. Small joints, I believe, they manage with a string, and larger are done at the tavern.... Mrs Thrale. But pray, Sir, who is the Poll[14] you talk of? She that you used to abet in her quarrels with Mrs Williams, and call out, At her again, Poll! Never flinch, Poll! Dr Johnson. Why, I took to Poll very well at first, but she won't do upon a nearer examination. Mrs Thrale. How came she among you, Sir? Dr Johnson. Why I don't rightly remember, but we could spare her very well from us. Poll is a stupid slut. I had some hopes of her at first; but when I talked to her tightly and closely, I could make nothing of her; she was wiggle waggle...."

Nothing, perhaps, makes us realise more fully Johnson's largeness of heart than the picture of his extraordinary household.

Goldsmith was right when he said: "Johnson, to be sure, has a roughness in his manner; but no man alive has a more tender heart. He has nothing of the bear but his skin."