rebellion in 1745, and the irruptions of the enemy beyond the borders of the north, verified this prediction.

As I fhall have but little occafion to fay more of the debates in parliament as they appear in the Magazine, I fhall close the account above given of them with faying, that Johnfon continued to write them till the paffing the bill for restraining the sale of spirituous liquors, which was about the end of the year 1743. After that, they were written by Dr. Hawkefworth, and by him continued to about 1760, within which period the plan of the Magazine was enlarged by a review of new publications. In this, Mr. Owen Ruffhead was first employed, but he being, in about two years, invited to fuperintend a re-publication of the Statutes at large, the office of reviewer dropped into the hands of Dr. Hawkefworth, who, though he was thought to exercise it with fome afperity, continued in it till about the year 1772, when he was employed to digeft the papers of fundry late navigators, and to become the editor of that collection of voyages, which in the catalogues of booksellers is distinguished by his name.

About this time Johnfon was folicited to undertake an employment of a kind very different from any he had ever been accustomed to: it was to compile a catalogue of books; a task, which at first view, seems to be not above the capacity of almoft the lowest of literary artificers, but on a nearer was found to require the abilities of one of the highest. Osborne the bookfeller, had ventured on the purchase of the earl of Oxford's library of printed books, at the price of 13000l. and meaning to difpofe of them by fale

at

at his shop in the ordinary way, projected a catalogue thereof distributed into common-places, in five octavo volumes, which being fold for five fhillings each, would pay itself, and circulate throughout the kingdom and alfo abroad.

It is probable that Ofborne had confulted Maittaire, then one of the masters of Westminster school, and who had formerly aflifted in making out the Catalogus librorum manufcriptorum Angliæ & Hiberniæ, on the fubject of his intended catalogue, and that Maittaire might have furnished the general heads or claffes under which the several books are arranged, a work of fome labour, and that required no small stock of erudition. This at least is certain, that he drew up a Latin dedication of the whole to Lord Carteret, then fecretary of ftate, and fubfcribed it with his name; but the under-workmen were, as I conjecture, firft Oldys, and afterwards Johnson, who while he was engaged in fo fervile an employment resembled a lion in harness. The former of these persons was a natural fon of Dr. Oldys, a civilian of fome eminence, and subsisted by writing for the bookfellers. Having a general knowledge of books, he had been long retained in the fervice of Edward earl of Oxford, and was therefore by Ofborne thought a fit perfon for his purpofe; but whether they difagreed, or that Oldys was hindered by the restraint of his perfon in the Fleet, a misfortune that he laboured under fome time about that period, he defifted, after having proceeded to the end of the fecond volume. The third and fourth I conceive to be the work of Johnson*; the fifth is nothing more than a catalogue of Ofborne's old stock.

The

* At what part of the catalogue Oldys's labours ended and John.

The catalogue of the Harleian printed books, for of the manufcripts there is another in being, drawn up by an able hand, is of that kind which philologifts call Bibliotheque Raifonée, in which befides the title, and the colophon containing the place and year of publication, a defcription of each article is given, ferving to fhew both its intrinfic and extrinfic worth, the hands through which it has paffed, and various other particulars that tend to recommend it. I will felect a few examples of this.kind from the third volume, and leave the reader to applaud the judgment of Ofborne in appointing so able a man as Johnson to this laborious task, and the industry and perfeverance of the latter in the performance of it.

No. 412. The Antiquities of Stone-Henge on Salisbury plain restored by Inigo Jones, architectgeneral to the King, published by J. Webb, • 1655.

This book has its margins (fides, tops and bottoms, in many leaves) almost written throughout, with fome of the strangest notes, perhaps, to be met with, no ways relating to the fubject-matter, nor to one ano

fon's begin I have no exprefs authority for faying: It is related of Johnson, by a person who was very likely to know the fact, that he was employed by Ofborne to make a catalogue of the Harleian Library,' and if not to make fuch remarks on the books as are above inferted, an ordinary hand would have done as well; but it required the learning of a fcholar to furnish fuch intelligence as the catalogue contains. This is one of the facts on which I ground my affertion that Johnson worked on the catalogue: to discriminate between his notes and thofe of Oldys, is not eafy; as literary curiofities, and as a specimen of a great work, they nevertheless deserve attention.

ther, except in one or two places. The book is infcribed by J. Webb to Philip earl of • Pembroke and Montgomery, fome time lord< chamberlain to King Charles I. and chancellor of Oxford. And it had been his own copy; for the faid earl has, in the next leaf, writ his own name, which is apparently the fame hand with that in which all thofe marginal eruptions of his memory and imagination < were written, Some following poffeffor, or reader of this book, difcovering the faid writing to be his lordfhip's, has written in the margin against his name "This Philip "earl of Pembroke, and Montgomery was the " writer of these wild notes. A. Wood would "have lefs belied him in calling him a mad

man, than in saying he was illiterate and "could not write his name.' The notes

are written in Latin, French and English, in profe and verfe, containing truth, fiction, 'trifles, matters of useful intelligence, fome < enough to make you merry, others melancholy. He feems to have been under the displeasure of Cromwell and his daughters. Of the former he fays "Ravilliac Cromuell "is to be pulled a pieces with wild horfes,

upon London streets, and then to be hanged, "drawn, &c. not decapited in jeft." p. 31. In the fame page where he has writ his name, he has these words: "If he be mad, as my lady Harwood fais, (whofe tongue is no flaunder,) it is rather for wanting the 10000

pounds a year his father promised to give

K 4

" him,

"him, than that he thinks 6000 pounds a ' year too much for him to manage, with "Wilton and Ramfbury; for he is very "learnedly proud, and proudly learned." In feveral places he has mentioned Inigo Jones,

the King's furveyor, affirming in one place, "He had, for 20 years together, fixteen thou"fand pounds a year, for keeping the King's

houfes in repair, and yet they lay worse "than any house in Turnball street.” p. 3, But in one place he augments his falary very much, when he fays, " Hinnico Jones, "alias Iniquity Jones, a juftice of peace, and "of the Quorum, i and Cuftos Rotulorum, "hath for keeping the King's houses in re

pair, deux cens mil efcu per an. threescore "thousand pounds fterling a year, i and well "paid He is fourfcore years ould." P. 34.

• &c. &c.'

No. 1168. Gloffarium Archaiologicum, Authore Henrico Spelmanno, Equite-1664.

Because it had been intimated as if the latter part of this famous work, now first published with the former, and makes it complete, was not that learned author's own to whom it is afcribed, Dr. Robert Brady has fatisfied the world of this particular in the following curious anecdote : "The "first part of the Gloffary, to the letter N, "was published in the year 1626, the whole "being then finished and offered by Sir Henry Spelman to Mr. Bill, the King's printer, for "the value of five pounds in books only; but

" he