He was employed in this business by Mr. Thomas Osborne the bookseller, who purchased the library for 13,000l., a sum which Mr. Oldys[1] says, in one of his manuscripts, was not more than the binding of the books had cost; yet, as Dr. Johnson assured me, the slowness of the sale was such, that there was not much gained by it. It has been confidently related, with many embellishments, 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[2].'
A very diligent observer may trace him where we should not easily suppose him to be found. I have no doubt that he wrote the little abridgment entitled 'Foreign History,' in the Magazine for December. To prove it, I shall quote the Introduction. 'As this is that season of the year in which Nature may be said to command a suspension of hostilities, and which seems intended, by putting a short stop to violence and slaughter, to afford time for malice to relent, and animosity to subside; we can scarce expect any other accounts than of plans, negotiations and treaties, of proposals for peace, and preparations for war.' As also this passage: 'Let those who despise the capacity of the Swiss, tell us by what wonderful policy, or by what happy conciliation of interests, it is brought to pass, that in a body made up of
- ↑ See Post, end of 1744.
- ↑ 'There is nothing to tell, dearest lady, but that he was insolent and I beat him, and that he was a blockhead and told of it, which I should never have done. . . . I have beat many a fellow, but the rest had the wit to hold their tongues.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 233. In the Life of Pope Johnson thus mentions Osborne:—'Pope was ignorant enough of his own interest to make another change, and introduced Osborne contending for the prize among the booksellers [Dunciad, ii. 167]. Osborne was a man entirely destitute of shame, without sense of any disgrace but that of poverty. . . . The shafts of satire were directed equally in vain against Gibber and Osborne; being repelled by the impenetrable impudence of one, and deadened by the impassive dulness of the other.' Johnson's Works, viii. 302.
