had been given over by the physicians. Three days later she died. She
left her husband almost broken-hearted. Many people had been surprised
to see a man of his genius and learning stooping to every drudgery and
denying himself almost every comfort, for the purpose of supplying a
silly, affected old woman with superfluities which she accepted with
but little gratitude. But all his affection had been concentrated on
her. He had neither brother nor sister, neither son nor daughter. To
him she was as beautiful as the Gunnings, and witty as Lady Mary. Her
opinion of his writings was more important to him than the voice of
the pit of Drury Lane Theatre, or the judgment of the _Monthly
Review_. The chief support which had sustained him through the most
arduous labor of his life was the hope that she would enjoy the fame
and the profit which he anticipated from his Dictionary. She was gone;
and in that vast labyrinth of streets, peopled by eight hundred
thousand human beings, he was alone. Yet it was necessary for him to
set himself, as he expressed it, doggedly to work. After three more
laborious years the Dictionary was at length complete.

In the spring of 1758 Johnson put forth the first of a series of
essays entitled _The Idler_. During two years these essays continued
to appear weekly. They were eagerly read, widely circulated, and,
indeed, impudently pirated while they were still in the original
form, and had a large sale when collected into volumes. _The Idler_
may be described as a second part of _The Rambler_, somewhat livelier
and somewhat weaker than the first part.

While Johnson was busied with his _Idlers_, his mother, who had
accomplished her ninetieth year, died at Lichfield. It was long since
he had seen her; but he had not failed to contribute largely out of
his small means to her comfort. In order to defray the charges of her
funeral, and to pay some debts which she had left, he wrote a little
book in a single week, and sent off the sheets to the press without
reading them over. A hundred pounds were paid him for the copyright;
and the purchasers had great cause to be pleased with their bargain,
for the book was "Rasselas."

By such exertions as have been described Johnson supported himself
till the year 1762. In that year a great change in his circumstances
took place. He had from a child been an enemy of the reigning dynasty.
His Jacobite prejudices had been exhibited with little disguise both
in his w