bones, won't
you?" "No, Sir; he'll not come out: he'll only growl in his den." "But
you think, Sir, that Warburton is a superiour critick to Theobald?" "O
Sir he'd make two-and-fifty Theobalds, cut into slices! The worst of
Warburton is, that he has a rage for saying something, when there's
nothing to be said." Mr. Burney then asked him whether he had seen the
letter which Warburton had written in answer to a pamphlet addressed "To
the most impudent Man alive." He answered in the negative. Mr. Burney
told him it was supposed to be written by Mallet. The controversey now
raged between the friends of Pope and Bolingbroke; and Warburton and
Mallet were the leaders of the several parties. Mr. Burney asked him
then if he had seen Warburton's book against Bolingbroke's Philosophy?
"No, Sir, I have never read Bolingbroke's impiety, and therefore am not
interested about its confutation."'

On the fifteenth of April he began a new periodical paper, entitled The
Idler, which came out every Saturday in a weekly news-paper, called
The Universal Chronicle, or Weekly Gazette, published by Newbery. These
essays were continued till April 5, 1760. Of one hundred and three,
their total number, twelve were contributed by his friends.

The Idler is evidently the work of the same mind which produced The
Rambler, but has less body and more spirit. It has more variety of real
life, and greater facility of language. He describes the miseries of
idleness, with the lively sensations of one who has felt them; and in
his private memorandums while engaged in it, we find 'This year I hope
to learn diligence.' Many of these excellent essays were written as
hastily as an ordinary letter. Mr. Langton remembers Johnson, when on
a visit at Oxford, asking him one evening how long it was till the post
went out; and on being told about half an hour, he exclaimed, 'then we
shall do very well.' He upon this instantly sat down and finished an
Idler, which it was necessary should be in London the next day. Mr.
Langton having signified a wish to read it, 'Sir, (said he) you shall
not do more than I have done myself.' He then folded it up and sent it
off.

1759: AETAT. 50.]--In 1759, in the month of January, his mother died at
the great age of ninety, an event which deeply affected him; not that
'his mind had acquired no firmness by the contemplation of mortality;'
but that his reverential affection for her was not abated by years, as
indeed he retained all h