such a library would be superfluous, as there exist so many valuable and curious collections. This is true, but this is not enough.-I know that many such collections exist among us, but I object that they are not sufficiently easy of access. The ingenuous pride and delicacy of a scholar, will often make him diffident of applying for books, where alone they are to be had; particularly, which is often the case, when the loan of them is considered as a great personal obligation." It is to be hoped, that this desideratum will be in time supplied by the recent establishment of the Royal Institution, in which the library forms a very prominent part of the design.

It was the misfortune of Johnson, during the time he laboured on the Harleian Catalogue, to be connected with a bookseller, who was, in almost every respect, a disgrace to literature. Osborne was alike destitute of morality and of shame, and, having acquired by all the arts of trade a very opulent fortune, thought he had a right to treat with brutal insolence every man of genius and learning, whose poverty unhappily placed him within the sphere of his influence and power. Our author, it has been related, whilst

*Note on book 6, chap. 17, of the Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius.

↑ Johnson, in his Life of Pope, says, that Osborne " was

employed in Gray's Inn, was coarsely taxed by Osborne with intentional delay; and when he endeavoured to defend himself, by affirming that it was often necessary to peruse not only the titlepage, but the contents of a book, in order accurately to describe the article, the worthless Osborne enforced his opposition by giving him the lie. To this Johnson immediately replied. by seizing a folio, and knocking the bookseller down. Of this account, which has been frequently repeated, part is true, and part without foundation; when the story was mentioned to Johnson, he answered, "Sir, he was impertinent to me, and I beat him. But it was not in his shop; it was in my own chamber." That a man of such ability and comprehension. of intellect as was Johnson, should, from the compulsion of poverty, be subjected to the pride

entirely destitute of shame, without sense of any disgrace but that of poverty. He purchased a number of unsold copies of Mr. Pope's Iliad, of the folio size, 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 subscription books, and to vend them as such. His insolence to his customers 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 refused, would affront him." Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 150.

* Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. 1, p. 126, edit. of 1799.

and ignorance of a being like Osborne, must certainly, with every feeling mind, be a theme of perpetual regret; " with me," says Sir John Hawkins, in a strain of eloquence and pathos much beyond his usual manner," 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 last. The natural subordination of the one to the other, we see and approve, and when that is disturbed we are sorry. How then must it affect a sensible mind to contemplate that misfortune, which could subject a man endued with a capacity for the highest offices, a philosopher, a poet, an orator, and, if fortune had so ordered, a chancellor, a prelate, a statesman, to the insolence of a mean, worthless, ignorant fellow, who had nothing to justify the superiority he exercised over a man so endowed, but those. advantages which Providence indiscriminately dispenses to the worthy and the worthless! to see such a man, for the supply of food and raiment, submitting 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 contumely; this, I say, is a subject of melancholy reflection."*

Hawkins's Life, p. 151.

To emancipate himself from the necessity of labouring under the direction of booksellers, Johnson had, at an early period of his literary career, projected various publications, which he conceived would at the same time extend his fame, and recruit his finances. This catalogue

he continued through life to enlarge; but it can not be recorded without regret, that of the many noble and useful designs which the list includes, not one was ever executed by him, or even commenced; it must be allowed, however, that many of the plans which he had chalked out, were of immense extent, and required the unembarrassed leisure of competence to conduct with vigour and success.

As a curious and interesting proof of great intimacy with books and general literature, I shall transcribe the catalogue, more especially as it will strongly tend to illustrate the fertility and resources of our author, under the department of which we are treating,

" DIVINITY.

1. "A small book of precepts and directions for piety, the hint taken from the directions in the Countess of Morton's (daily) exercise. "PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY, AND LITERATURE

IN GENERAL.

2. "History of Criticism, as it relates to judging.

of authors, from Aristotle to the present age. An account of the rise and improvements of that art; of the different opinions of authors ancient and modern.

3. "Translation of the History of Herodian. 4. "New edition of Fairfax's Translation of Tasso, with notes, glossary, &c.

5. "Chaucer, a new edition of him, from manuscripts and old editions, with various readings, conjectures, remarks on his language and the changes it had undergone from the earliest times to his age, and from his to the present. With notes explanatory of customs, &c. and references to Boccace and other authors from whom he has borrowed, with an account of the liberties he has taken in telling the stories, his life, and an exact etymological glossary.

6. "Aristotle's Rhetoric, a translation of it into English.

7. "A Collection of Letters, translated from the modern writers, with some account of the several authors.

8. "Oldham's Poems, with notes historical and critical.

9. "Roscommon's Poems, with notes.

10. "Lives of the Philosophers, written with a polite air, in such a manner as may divert as well as instruct.