Its most famous bibliopolic resident, however, is Thomas Osborne, or Tom Osborne, as he was called in the trade and by posterity. Tom Osborne's fame began and ended with himself. Nobody knew whence he came, and probably nobody cared. His catalogues cover a period of thirty years--1738-1768--and include some very remarkable libraries of many famous men. In stature he is described as short and thick, so that Dr. Johnson's famous summary method of knocking him down[192:A] was not perhaps so difficult a feat as is generally supposed. To his inferiors--including, as he apparently but ruefully thought, Dr. Johnson--he generally spoke in an authoritative and insolent manner. As ignorant as Lackington, he was considerably less aware of the fact. Osborne's shop, like that of Jacob Tonson[192:B] at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, was at the Gray's Inn Road gate of, or entrance to, Gray's Inn. His greatest _coup_ was the purchase of the Harleian Collection of books--the manuscripts were bought by the British Museum for L10,000--for L13,000, in 1743. It is said on good authority that the Earl of Oxford gave L18,000 for the binding of only a part of them. In 1743-44, the extent of this extraordinary collection was indicated by the 'Catalogus Bibliotheca Harleianae,' in four volumes. The first two, in Latin, were compiled by Dr. Johnson at a daily wage, and the third and fourth (which are a repetition of the first two), in English, are by Oldys. A charge of 5s. was made for the first two volumes, which caused a good deal of grumbling among the trade, and was resented 'as an avaricious innovation,' but Osborne replied that the volumes could be either returned in exchange for books or for the original purchase-money. He was also charged with rating his books at too high a price, but a glance through the catalogue will prove this to be an unjust accusation. The copy of the Aldine Plato, 1513, on vellum, for which Lord Oxford gave 100 guineas, is priced by Osborne at L21. The sale of the books appears to have been extremely slow, and Johnson assured Boswell that 'there was not much gained by the bargain.' Nichols' 'Literary Anecdotes' (iii. 649-654) gives a list of the libraries which Osborne absorbed into his stock at different times, but few of these are anything more than names at the present day. Osborne is satirized in the 'Dunciad,' but, according to Johnson, was so dull that he could not feel the poet's gross satire. Sir John Hawkins states that Osborne used to boast that he was worth L40,000, and doubtless this was true. His 'Bushy bob, well powder'd every day, Bloom'd whiter than a hawthorn hedge in May,' was one of his acquired peculiarities. Nichols tells us that the expression 'rum books' arose from Osborne's sending unsaleable volumes to Jamaica in exchange for rum.