merits of their several pretenfions, or distinguish between fpecious, and found reafoning. In the attempts to remove the minifter, experience has however convinced us, that ambition and perfonal refentment were the motives that actuated his opponents, for neither when they attained to power did they manifeft greater integrity, nor did they cease to practise those methods for the maintaining their influence over the public councils, which were imputed to him as criminal.

It is befide my purpose to enter into a formal defence of the adminiftration of this fervant of the public, or to attempt a detection of the arts that were practifed to render him odious: I will nevertheless mention a few facts respecting him that have come to my own knowledge, and may serve to exculpate him, in fome degree, from the charge of being an enemy to the conftitution or the interefts of this country.

When he first came into power, he found it his duty to undertake the arduous task of reconciling the people to the dominion of a prince born in a foreign country, and fecuring the fucceffion to his descendants, and this he lived to fee effected. War he hated as much as fome of his fucceffors did peace, and from a war with Spain he forefaw that no good could follow: the fettlements abroad of that power are very remote, and in a climate deftructive to Englishmen; fo that what we were ever able to take from them we never could hold. The extenfion of empire was never his wish; but the encouragement of commerce and the improvement of the revenue, in both which fubjects his skill was unrivalled, engroffed his attention. To effect the one,

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a greater number of laws in its favour were framed and paffed under his fanction, than had ever been enacted in any known period of equal duration with his miniftry; and to carry the other into practice, he projected a scheme for an extenfion of the excife, as the only means of putting a ftop to the frauds of merchants and illicit traders, and making the receipts of that branch of the public income equal to what they were computed at. This scheme, it is true, subjected him to much obloquy, and he was neceffitated to abandon it; but in a fucceeding administration it was partly carried into execution, at the exprefs folicitation of the principal perfons concerned in that article of trade which it was fuggefted would have been most affected had the scheme paffed into a law: and afterwards the most popular minister that ever directed the councils of this country, fcrupled not to declare in full fenate, that if ever a time fhould arrive that was likely to render the project feasible, himself would recommend an extenfion of the excife-laws as a measure big with advantage to commerce, to the revenue, and to the general interefts of the kingdom.

The question whether he was in principle an enemy to his country or not, will poffibly be decided by the following fact, which the best authority warrants me in relating: When he was feized with the diforder that put a period to his days, and from its violence he had abandoned the hope of living much longer, he called one of his fons to him, gave him his bleffing, and with tears in his eyes told him, that from intelligence he had obtained, he would affure him that within a twelvemonth's time the crown of England would be fought for upon English ground: the fubfequent rebellion,

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rebellion in 1745, and the irruptions of the enemy beyond the borders of the north, veritied this pre

diction.

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 reftraining the fale of fpirituous 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 Ruff head 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. Hawkesworth, 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 bookfellers is diftinguished by his name.

About this time Johnson 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 tafk, which at firft view, feems to be not above the capacity of almost the lowest of literary artificers, but on a nearer was found to require the abilities of one of the higheft. Ofborne the bookfeller, had ventured on the purchase of the earl of Oxford's library of printed books, at the price of 13,000l. and meaning to difpofe of them by fale at his fhop in the ordinary way, projected a catalogue

thereof

thereof diftributed into common-places, in five octavo volumes, which being fold for five fhillings each, would pay itfelf, and circulate throughout the kingdom and alfo abroad.

It is probable that Ofborne had confulted Maittaire, then one of the mafters of Weftminfter fchool, and who had formerly affifted 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 feveral books are arranged, a work of fome labour, and that required no finall stock of erudition. This at leaft 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 Johnfon, who while he was engaged in fo fervile an employment refembled a lion in harness. The former of thefe perfons was a natural fon of Dr. Oldys, a civilian of fome eminence, and fubfifted by writing for the book fellers. Having a general knowledge of books, he had been long retained in the service of Edward Earl of Oxford, and was therefore by Ofborne thought a fit perfon for his purpose; 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 Jolinfon: the fifth is nothing more than a catalogue of Ofborne's old ftock.

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 Raifonnée, in which befides the title, and the colophon containing the place and year of publication, a description of each article is given, ferving to fhew both its intrinsic 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 Osborne 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 reftored 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 express authority for faying: It is related of Johnfon, by a perfon 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 such remarks on the books as are above inferted, an ordinary hand would have done as well; but it required the learning of a scholar 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 difcriminate between his notes and thofe of Oldys, is not eafy; as literary curiofities, and as a fpecimen of a great work, they nevertheless deferve attention.

⚫ther,