1740:  AETAT. 31.]—­In 1740 he wrote for the Gentleman’s Magazine the ‘Preface,’ ‘Life of Sir Francis Drake,’ and the first parts of those of ‘Admiral Blake,’ and of ‘Philip Baretier,’ both which he finished the following year.  He also wrote an ‘Essay on Epitaphs,’ and an ’Epitaph on Philips, a Musician,’ which was afterwards published with some other pieces of his, in Mrs. Williams’s Miscellanies.  This Epitaph is so exquisitely beautiful, that I remember even Lord Kames, strangely prejudiced as he was against Dr. Johnson, was compelled to allow it very high praise.  It has been ascribed to Mr. Garrick, from its appearing at first with the signature G; but I have heard Mr. Garrick declare, that it was written by Dr. Johnson, and give the following account of the manner in which it was composed.  Johnson and he were sitting together; when, amongst other things, Garrick repeated an Epitaph upon this Philips by a Dr. Wilkes, in these words: 

     ’Exalted soul! whose harmony could please
     The love-sick virgin, and the gouty ease;
     Could jarring discord, like Amphion, move
     To beauteous order and harmonious love;
     Rest here in peace, till angels bid thee rise,
     And meet thy blessed Saviour in the skies.’

Johnson shook his head at these common-place funereal lines, and said to Garrick, ‘I think, Davy, I can make a better.’  Then, stirring about his tea for a little while, in a state of meditation, he almost extempore produced the following verses: 

     ’Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove
     The pangs of guilty power or hapless love;
     Rest here, distress’d by poverty no more,
     Here find that calm thou gav’st so oft before;
     Sleep, undisturb’d, within this peaceful shrine,
     Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!’

1742:  AETAT. 33.]—­In 1742 he wrote . . .  ’Proposals for Printing Bibliotheca Harleiana, or a Catalogue of the Library of the Earl of Oxford.’  He was employed in this business by Mr. Thomas Osborne the bookseller, who purchased the library for 13,000l., a sum which Mr. Oldys 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.’