Hodge, cast in bronze and life-size, is
depicted sitting on Dr Johnson's dictionary with a couple of oyster shells in
front of him. He is looking towards Dr Johnson's House which is now a museum.
The plinth, on which the statue sits, is made from Portland stone and has
'Hodge' inscribed on it. Beneath the name is a plaque that reads:
Hodge
'a very
fine cat indeed'
belonging to
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
of Gough
Square
'Sir, when a man is tried of London
he is tired of life: for
there is in
London all that life can afford.'
'The chief glory of
every people
arises from its authors.'
The Atlas Obscura wbsite [visit link]
tells us:
"“I never shall forget the
indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat... 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.'”
-James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson 1799
Hodge was a black cat belonging to
the English lexicographer Samuel Johnson, of whom the writer was particularly
fond. He was known to go out of his way to purchase oysters to feed the cat,
even to the point of annoying his servants by his pampering of his
pets.
After Hodges death, the poet
Percival Stockdale wrote "An Elegy on the Death of Dr Johnson's Favourite
Cat":
“Who, by his master when
caressed
Warmly his gratitude expressed;
And never failed his thanks to
purr
Whene'er he stroked his sable fur.”
The bronze statue to Hodge by
sculptor Jon Bickley was installed in 1997 by the Lord Mayor of London, Sir
Roger Cook, outside Johnson’s house at Number 17 Gough Square where he lived
from 1748 to 1759, now a museum dedicated to the writer's life. Hodge is shown
sitting on top of Johnson’s open dictionary and next to some empty oyster
shells. The monument is inscribed with the words "a very fine cat
indeed."
The Purr 'n' Fur website [visit link] gives some
more information:
"Hodge was the treasured companion
of Samuel Johnson (1709-84), who is remembered as an eighteenth-century man of
letters, lexicographer — his most famous work is the Dictionary of the English
Language, published in 1755 — and cat lover. Hodge loved oysters, which at the
time were seen as a cheap and nutritious food rather than the luxury they have
become today; and Johnson would go himself to the fish market to buy them, as he
thought asking the servants to do so would make them resentful and ill disposed
towards Hodge.
James Boswell (1740-95) became a
friend and later the biographer of Johnson, but admitted that the presence of
the cat when he visited sometimes made him uneasy. He confessed to being much
surprised at the 'indulgence with which [Johnson] treated Hodge'. One day,
though, he suggested that, as cats go, Hodge was a very fine specimen — to which
Johnson replied that he was indeed, but that he had previously had cats that he
had liked better. However, he noticed that his cat seemed rather put out by this
remark, so Johnson added, 'But he is a very fine cat; a very fine cat indeed.'
Hence the inscription on Hodge's memorial.
Dr Johnson lived for 11 years at 17
Gough Square, just off London's Fleet Street, and it was there that he did much
of the work on the dictionary. Gough Square is very small, so to take up less
space a statue of Hodge, rather than one of the great man himself, has been
placed there. The cat is seated on a large book representing the dictionary, and
there are a couple of oyster shells too. A statue of Johnson can be seen not far
away, outside the church of St Clement Dane's that he often
attended.
Hodge's sculpture was created by
Jon Bickley, an English-born sculptor who is fond of cats, dogs and most other
four-legged creatures. Bickley used his own cat Thomas Henry as a model when
creating the likeness of Hodge.
It isn't known when Hodge went to
live with Johnson, but he's first mentioned in the late 1760s. The name 'Hodge'
is a variation of Roger and was a traditional name for an English countryman, so
possibly the cat came as a youngster from one of Johnson's many trips to the
countryside at around that time. We do not know when Hodge died, but it's known
that when he was near to death his master went out to obtain some valerian for
him, to make his last hours as pleasant as possible. (Valerian is a plant that
cats like, similar to catnip.) It is thought that he was a black
cat.
Little is known of Samuel Johnson's
other cats, although he and his wife Elizabeth had some during their married
life in London. It's suggested that the series of felines with whom he later
shared his rooms gave him companionship and an outlet for his love in the
isolated life of a hard-working scholar, following the early death of Elizabeth
in 1752. In a letter of 1783 he mentions one called Lily as 'the white kitling
now at full growth and very well behaved', so she must have been with him for a
year or 18 months by then.
To bring the tale more up to date,
in September 1997 a new Lily, an all-black kitten described as 'decidedly
mischievous', was taken on at 17 Gough Square, which is now a museum. Lily came
from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and was about 5 when adopted. Our thanks go to
Natasha McEnroe, museum curator, for letting us know that Lily was still alive
in 2006, but as befitted an 'old lady' of 14 or 15 years, she preferred to spend
much of her time quietly in the curator's cottage rather than in the
museum.
In early 2011 Lily was reported to
be 'elderly and a bit batty', but still very much alive. She lives with the
former curator of Dr Johnson's house, and her principal occupations were
described as following patches of sunlight across the floor, and being
worshipped by the family's twin children! Unfortunately there are now no cats in
the Johnson house."