RASSELAS; the name 'usually given io a moral story with an Oriental setting written by the famous lexicographer and essayist, Dr. Samuel Johnson, and published in the spring of 1759, in two volumes, under the title of (The Prince of Abyssinia: A Tale.) It reached a second edition the same year, and has since been. often reprinted and translated, maintaining its rank as a notable if somewhat old-fashioned English classic. There is uncertainty as to just when and why and in how short a space of time it was written, but it seems clear that Johnson composed it rapidly at the period of his mother's death in January 1759, and that he probably used some of the money it brought him for filial purposes connected with that event.
Scholars have exercised themselves over the sources and the materials of the story, and have shown ithat Johnson did not invent his happy valley, his Abyssinian paradise; but they have taken away none of the credit due him for selecting au impressive theme — the vain search of youth after happiness—and for treat ing it with adequate weight of thought, sound ness of feeling and dignity of style. The book plainly belongs with the grave, solid, some what magniloquent essays of his middle period rather than with the less stilted biographies of his old age, and it holds by his early years in owing something to his translation of theFrench version of (Voyage to Abyssinia.' Everyone of its 49 short chapters, however little calculated to arouse the interest of the experienced reader of modern novels, is thor oughly representative of Johnson himself — of his sturdy morality, his common sense, his wide knowledge of men and books, his sombre but far from cowardly and ' depressing views of life.
The plot is simple in the extreme. Ras atlas, shut up in a beautiful valley,
the order of succession should call him to the throne?' grows weary of the factitious enter tainments of the place, and after much brood ing escapes with his sister Nekayah, her at tendant Pekuah and his poet-friend Imlac. They are to see the world and search for happi ness, but after some sojourn in Egypt, where They frequent various classes of society and undergo a few mild adventures, they perceive the futility of their search and abruptly return to Abyssinia. That the plot should be so sim ple, that local color should be almost non existent, that episodic elements, e.g., the story of Iodic and that . of the mad 'astronomer, should abound, is not surprising when one con siders what didactic purposes the Oriental tale of 18th. century western Europe was intended to serve and remembers that Johnson was a Moral ist and essayist, not 'a novelist. What does sur prise is that with so little of incident, with no lave4naldng, with few endeavors to charm the fancy, with but slight recognition of the claims of 'sentiment,