This year Johnson resumed the scheme, first proposed eleven years previously, of giving an edition of Shakespeare with notes.  He issued proposals of considerable length, but his indolence prevented him from pursuing the undertaking, and nine years more elapsed before it saw the light.

On April 15, 1758, he began a new periodical paper entitled “The Idler,” which came out every Saturday in a weekly newspaper called “The Universal Chronicle, or Weekly Gazette.”  These essays were continued till April 5, 1760, and of the total of one hundred and three, twelve were contributed by his friends, including Reynolds, Langton, and Thomas Warton.  “The Idler” has less body and more spirit than “The Rambler,” and has more variety of real life, and greater facility of language.  It was often written as hastily as it predecessor.

In 1759, in the month of January, Johnson’s mother died, at the great age of ninety, an event which deeply affected him, for his reverential affection for her was not abated by years.  Soon after, he wrote his “Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia,” in order that with the profits he might defray the expenses of her funeral, and pay some little debts which she had left.  He told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he composed it in the evenings of one week, and sent it to the press in portions, as it was written.  Mr. Strahan, Mr. Johnston, and Mr. Dodsley purchased it for L100, but afterwards paid him L25 more when it came to a second edition.  Though Johnson had written nothing else this admirable performance would have rendered his name immortal in the world of literature.  None of his writings has been so extensively diffused over Europe; for it has been translated into most, if not all, of the modern languages.  Voltaire’s “Candide,” written to refute the system of optimism, which it has accomplished with brilliant success, is wonderfully similar in its plan and conduct to Johnson’s “Rasselas.”

Early in 1762, having been represented to the king as a very learned and good person, without any certain provision, his majesty was pleased to grant him a pension of L300 a year.  The prime movers in suggesting that Johnson ought to have a pension were Mr. Thomas Sheridan and Mr. Murphy.  Having, in his “Dictionary,” defined pension as “generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country,” Johnson at first doubted the propriety of his accepting this mark of the royal favour.  But Sir Joshua having given his opinion that there could be no objection to his receiving from the king a reward for literary merit, and Lord Bute having told him expressly, “It is not given you for anything you are to do, but for what you have done,” his scruples about accepting it were soon removed.

VII.—­Boswell’s First Meeting with Johnson

Johnson, who thought slightingly of Sheridan’s art, and perhaps resented that a player should be rewarded in the same manner with him, upon hearing that a pension of L200 a year had been given to Sheridan, exclaimed, “What!  Have they given him a pension?  Then it’s time for me to give up mine.”