was, as I conjecture, a precursor to the catalogue, and was with great industry circulated throughout the kingdom. It answered its end; the catalogue was printed in five octavo volumes, the collectors and lovers of books bought it, and Ofborne was reimbursed.

While the catalogue was compiling, Johnson was further employed by Osborne to select from the many thoufand volumes of which the library confifted, all such fmall tracts and fugitive pieces as were of greatest value or were moft fcarce, with a view to the reprinting and publishing them under the title of the Harleian Mifcellany. To recommend a fubfcription for printing the collection, proposals were published containing an account of the undertaking, and an enumeration of its contents, penned by Johnfon with great art; which being very fhort, may itself be deemed a fugitive piece, and is therefore here inferted.

It has been for a long time a very just complaint among the learned, that a multitude of valuable productions, published in small pamphlets, or in fingle 'fheets, are in a fhort time, too often by accidents or 6 negligence, deftroyed and entirely loft; and that

thofe authors, whofe reverence for the public has 'hindered them from fwelling their works with repetitions, or incumbering them with fuperfluities, and who, therefore, deferve the praife and gratitude of pofterity, are forgotten, for the very reafon for which they might expect to be remembered. It has been long lamented, that the duration of the monuments of genius and ftudy, as well as of wealth and power, depends in no fmall measure on their bulk; and that volumes, confiderable only for their fize, are handed down from one age to another, when compendious treatifes, of far greater importance, are fuffered to perifh, as the compacteft bodies fink into the water, while thofe of which the extenfion bears a greater proportion to the weight, float upon the furface.

• This

This obfervation hath been so often confirmed by experience, that, in the neighbouring nation, the ⚫ common appellation of small performances is derived ⚫ from this unfortunate circumftance; a flying feet, or a fugitive piece, are the terms by which they are diftinguifhed, and diftinguished with too great propriety, as they are subject, after having amufed mankind for a while, to take their flight and disappear for ever.

What are the loffes which the learned have already fuftained, by having neglected to fix thofe fugitives in fome certain refidence, it is not eafy to fay: but < there is no doubt that many valuable observations have ⚫ been repeated, because they were not preferved;

and that, therefore, the progrefs of knowledge has < been retarded, by the neceffity of doing what had ⚫ been already done, but was done for those who forgot their benefactor.

The obvious method of preventing thefe loffes, of preferving to every man the reputation he has merited by long affiduity, is to unite thefe fcattered 'pieces into volumes, that thofe which are too fmall to preferve themfelves, may be fecured by their combi⚫ nation with others; to confolidate these atoms of learning into fyftems, to collect thefe difunited rays, that their light and their fire may become perceptible.

Of encouraging this useful defign, the ftudious and • inquifitive have now an opportunity, which, perhaps, was never offered them before, and which, if it 'fhould now be loft, there is not any probability that they will ever recover. They may now conceive themselves in poffeffion of the lake into which all ⚫ those rivulets of science have for many years been flowing: but which, unless its waters are turned into proper channels, will foon burft its banks, or be dif'perfed in imperceptible exhalations.

In the Harleian library, which I have purchased, are treasured a greater number of pamphlets and small 'treatises, than were perhaps ever yet feen in one place; • productions of the writers of all parties, and of every age, from the reformation; collected with an unbounded and unwearied curiofity, without exclufion ⚫ of any fubject.

• So great is the variety, that it has been no fmall labour to peruse the titles, in order to reduce them to a rude divifion, and range their heaps under general heads; of which the number, though not yet increased by the fubdivifion which an accurate survey will neceffarily produce, cannot but excite the curiofity of all the ftudious, as there is scarcely any part ' of knowledge which fome of these articles do not comprehend.

[Then follows an enumeration of articles to the a ́mount of more than an hundred and fifty, which it is needlefs here to infert.]:

• As many of these tracts must be obfcure by length of time, or defective for want of those discoveries which have been made fince they were written, there will be added fome hiftorical, explanatory, or fupplemental notes, in which the occafion of the treatise will be fhewn, or an account given of the author, allufions to forgotten facts will be illuftrated, or the the subject farther elucidated from other writers.'

We may well conclude that the propofal met with call due encouragement, as the pieces recommended in it were in the year 1749, published in eight quarto 'volumes. To the first of them was prefixed, as an introduction, an effay on the origin and importance of fmall tracts and fugitive pieces..

Ofborne was an opulent tradesman, as may be judged from his ability to make so large a purchase as that above-mentioned; he was used to boast that he was

worth

worth forty thousand pounds, but of bookfellers he was one of the most ignorant of title pages or edi. tions he had no knowledge or remembrance, but in all the tricks and arts of his trade he was moft expert. Johnson, in his life of Pope fays, that he was entirely deftitute of shame, without fenfe of any difgrace, but that of poverty. He purchafed a number of unfold copies of Mr. Pope's Iliad, of the folio fize, printed on an inferior paper and without cuts, and cutting off the top and bottom margins, which were very large, had the impudence to call them the fubfcription books, and to vend them as fuch*. His infolence to his cufto mers was also frequently past bearing. If one came for a book in his catalogue, he would endeavour to force on him some new publication of his own, and if he refufed, would affront him.

I mention the above particulars of this worthlefs fellow as an introduction to a fact refpecting his be haviour to Johnson, which I have often heard related, and which himself confeffed to be true. Johnson, while employed in felecting pieces for the Harleian Mifcellany, was neceffitated, not only to perufe the title page of each article, but frequently to examine its contents, in order to form a judgment of its worth and importance, in the doing whereof, it must be supposed, curiofity might fometimes detain him too long, and whenever it did, Ofborne was offended. Seeing Johnson one day deeply engaged in perufing a book, and the work being for the instant at a stand, he reproached him with inattention and delay, in fuch coarse language as few men would ufe, and still fewer could brook: the other in his juftification afferted fomewhat, which Osborne anfwered by giving him the lie; Johnfon's anger at fo foul a charge, was not fo great as to make him forget

that

* See a note on the Dunciad, Book ii. verse 167, in the later editions.

that he had weapons at hand: he seized a folio that lay near him, and with it felled his adverfary to theground, with fome exclamation, which, as it is differently related, I will not venture to repeat.

>This tranfaction, which has been seldom urged with any other view than to fhew that Johnson was of an irafcible temper, is generally related as an entertaining ftory with me it has always been a subject of melancholy reflection. In our estimation of the enjoyments of this life, we place wisdom, virtue, and learning in the first class, and riches and other adventitious gifts of fortune in the laft. The natural fubordination of the one to the other we fee and approve, and when that is disturbed we are forry. How then must it affect a fenfible mind to contemplate that misfortune, which could fubject a man endued with a capacity for the highest offices, á philofopher, a poet, an orator, and, if fortune had fo ordered, a chancellor, a prelate, a statesman, to the infolence of a mean, worthless, ig+ norant fellow, who had nothing to justify the superiority he exercised over a man fo endowed, but those advantages which Providence indifcriminately difpenfes to the worthy and the worthlefs! to fee fuch a man, for the fupply of food and raiment, fubmitting to the commands of his inferior, and, as a hireling, looking up to him for the reward of his work, and receiving it accompanied with reproach and contùmely, this, I fay, is a fubject of melancholy reflection.

Having completed the Harleian catalogue and mifcellany, and thereby difengaged himself from Osborne, Johnson was at liberty to pursue some scheme of profit, lefs irkfome than that in which he had fo lately been employed. Biography was a kind of writing that he delighted in; it called forth his powers of reflection, and gave him occafion to contemplate human life and manners. He had made fome effays of his talent in

the