us "Life of Johnson." "The History of Rasselas,
Prince of Abyssinia," was written by Dr. Johnson in order to
meet the expenses incurred by his mother's illness and death.
According to Boswell, the work was composed in the evenings of
one week, and the sheets sent to the printers exactly as they
left his hands, without even being read over by the author
himself. It was published during the early part of 1759,
Johnson receiving for it the sum of L100, and a further amount
of L25 when it came to a second edition. Of all Johnson's
works, "Rasselas" was apparently the most popular. By 1775 it
reached its fifth edition, and has since been translated into
many languages. The work is more of a satire on optimism and
on human life in general than a novel, and perhaps is little
more than a ponderous dissertation on Johnson's favourite
theme, the "vanity of human wishes." As to its actual merits,
Johnson's contemporaries differed widely, some proclaiming him
a pompous pedant with a passion for words of six syllables and
more, others delighting in those passages in which weighty
meaning was illustrated with splendour and vigour.

_I.--Life in the Happy Valley_

Rasselas was the fourth son of the mighty emperor in whose dominions the
father of waters begins his course, whose bounty pours down the streams
of plenty, and scatters over the world the harvests of Egypt.

According to the custom which has descended from age to age among the
monarchs of the torrid zone, the prince was confined in a private
palace, with the other sons and daughters of Abyssinian royalty, till
the order of succession should call him to the throne.

The place which the wisdom, or policy, of antiquity had designed for the
residence of the princes was a spacious valley in the kingdom of Amhara,
surrounded on every side by mountains of which the summits overhang the
middle part. The only passage by which it could be entered was a cavern
that passed under a rock, of which it had long been disputed whether it
was the work of nature or of human industry. The outlet of the cavern
was concealed by a thick wood, and the mouth, which opened into the
valley, was closed with gates of iron, forged by the artificers of
ancient days, so massive that no man, without the help of engines, could
open or shut them.

From the mountains on every side rivulets descended that filled al