 According to one often-repeated story, Osborne once visited Samuel Johnson to complain about his slowness in compiling the either Harleian catalogue or "The Harleian Miscellany"—irritating Johnson enough that he knocked Osborne to the floor.The event seems to have taken place around 1742, but its first known mention came about thirty years later, in a 1773 article in "The London Packet".The article described an incident where writer Oliver Goldsmith had attacked bookseller Thomas Evans, publisher of "The Packet", and mockingly contrasted Goldsmith's defeat with Johnson's supposed victory against Osborne.