usefully and pleasantly spent with Mr. Pope, Mr. Parnell,
Dean Swift, the Doctor (Arbuthnot), &c. I should be glad the
world knew you admitted me to your friendship; and since
your affection is too hard for your judgment, I am contented
to let the world know how well Mr. Pope can write upon a
barren subject. I return you an exact copy of the verses,
that I may keep the original, as a testimony of the only
error you have been guilty of. I hope, very speedily, to
embrace you in London, and to assure you of the particular
esteem and friendship wherewith I am your, &c.,

OXFORD.

Of TOM OSBORNE I have in vain endeavoured to collect some
interesting biographical details. What I know of him shall
be briefly stated. He was the most celebrated bookseller of
his day; and appears, from a series of his catalogues in my
possession, to have carried on a successful trade from the
year 1738 to 1768. What fortune he amassed, is not, I
believe, very well known: his collections were truly
valuable, for they consisted of the purchased libraries of
the most eminent men of those times. In his stature he was
short and thick; and, to his inferiors, generally spoke in
an authoritative and insolent manner. "It has been
confidently related," says Boswell, "that Johnson, one day,
knocked Osborne down in his shop with a folio, and put his
foot upon his neck. The simple truth I had from Johnson
himself. 'Sir, he was impertinent to me, and I beat him. But
it was not in his shop: it was in my own chamber.'" 4to.
edit., i., 81. Of Osborne's philological attainments, the
meanest opinion must be formed, if we judge from his
advertisements, which were sometimes inserted in the London
Gazette, and drawn up in the most ridiculously vain and
ostentatious style. He used to tell the public that he
possessed "all the pompous editions of Classicks and
Lexicons." I insert the two following advertisements,
prefixed, the one to his catalogue of 1748, the other to
that of 1753, for the amusement of my bibliographical
readers, and as a model for Messrs. Payne, White, Miller,
Evans, Priestley, and Cuthell. "This catalogue being very
large, and of consequence very expensive to the proprietor,
he humbly requests that, if it falls into the hands of any
gentleman