, says Mr. Timbs, lived Dryden Leach, the printer, who, in
1763, was arrested on a general warrant upon suspicion of having printed
Wilkes's _North Briton_, No 45. Leach was taken out of his bed in the
night, his papers were seized, and even his journeymen and servants were
apprehended, the only foundation for the arrest being a hearsay that
Wilkes had been seen going into Leach's house. Wilkes had been sent to
the Tower for the No. 45. After much litigation, he obtained a verdict
of L4,000, and Leach L300, damages from three of the king's messengers,
who had executed the illegal warrant. Kearsley, the bookseller, of Fleet
Street (whom we recollect by his tax-tables), had been taken up for
publishing No. 45, when also at Kearsley's were seized the letters of
Wilkes, which seemed to fix upon him the writing of the obscene and
blasphemous "Essay on Woman," and of which he was convicted in the Court
of King's Bench and expelled the House of Commons. The author of this
"indecent patchwork" was not Wilkes (says Walpole), but Thomas Potter,
the wild son of the learned Archbishop of Canterbury, who had tried to
fix the authorship on the learned and arrogant Warburton--a piece of
matchless impudence worthy of Wilkes himself.

[Illustration: THE ROYAL SOCIETY'S HOUSE IN CRANE COURT (_see page
104_).]

Red Lion Court (No. 169), though an unlikely spot, has been, of all the
side binns of Fleet Street, one of the most specially favoured by
Minerva. Here Valpy published that interminable series of Latin and
Greek authors, which he called the "Delphin Classics," which Lamb's
eccentric friend, George Dyer, of Clifford's Inn, laboriously edited,
and which opened the eyes of the subscribers very wide indeed as to the
singular richness of ancient literature. At the press of an eminent
printer in this court, that useful and perennial serial the _Gentleman's
Magazine_ (started in 1731) was partly printed from 1779 to 1781, and
entirely printed from 1792 to 1820.

Johnson's Court, Fleet Street (a narrow court on the north side of Fleet
Street, the fourth from Fetter Lane, eastward), was not named from Dr.
Johnson, although inhabited by him.

[Illustration: Theodore E. Hook (_See page 110_).]

Dr. Johnson was living at Johnson's Court in 1765, after he left No. 1,
Inner Temple Lane, and before he removed to Bolt Court. At Johnson's
Court he made the acquaintance of Murphey, and he worked at his edition
of "Shakespeare." He saw much of R