employed under him, gained admittance; they brought away the subject of
discussion, the names of the speakers, the side they took, and the order
in which they rose, together with notes of the arguments advanced in the
course of the debate. The whole was afterwards communicated to me, and I
composed the speeches in the form which they now have in the
parliamentary debates." To this discovery, Dr. Francis made answer:
"Then, sir, you have exceeded Demosthenes himself; for to say, that you
have exceeded Francis's Demosthenes, would be saying nothing." The rest
of the company bestowed lavish encomiums on Johnson: one, in particular,
praised his impartiality; observing, that he dealt out reason and
eloquence, with an equal hand to both parties. "That is not quite true,"
said Johnson; "I saved appearances tolerably well; but I took care that
the WHIG DOGS should not have the best of it." The sale of the magazine
was greatly increased by the parliamentary debates, which were continued
by Johnson till the month of March, 1742-3. From that time the magazine
was conducted by Dr. Hawkesworth.

In 1743-4, Osborne, the bookseller, who kept a shop in Gray's inn,
purchased the earl of Oxford's library, at the price of thirteen
thousand pounds. He projected a catalogue in five octavo volumes, at
five shillings each. Johnson was employed in that painful drudgery. He
was, likewise, to collect all such small tracts as were, in any degree,
worth preserving, in order to reprint and publish the whole in a
collection, called The Harleian Miscellany. The catalogue was completed;
and the miscellany, in 1749, was published in eight quarto volumes. In
this business Johnson was a day-labourer for immediate subsistence, not
unlike Gustavus Vasa, working in the mines of Dalecarlia. What Wilcox, a
bookseller of eminence in the Strand, said to Johnson, on his first
arrival in town, was now almost confirmed. He lent our author five
guineas, and then asked him, "How do you mean to earn your livelihood in