RASSELAS, PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. BY SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. EDITED, WITH NOTES, FOR SCHOOLS. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY GINN & COMPANY. 1886. Educt 843.454.424 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. J. S. CUSHING & Co., PRINTERS, BOSTON. CONTENTS. 1. Description of a Palace in a Valley II. The Discontent of Rasselas in the Happy Valley III. The Wants of Him that wants Nothing IV. The Prince continues to grieve and muse v. The Prince meditates his Escape. VI. A Dissertation on the Art of Flying. VII. The Prince finds a Man of Learning. IX. The History of Imlac continued x. Imlac's History continued. A Dissertation upon Poetry XXIV. The Prince examines the Happiness of High Stations xxv. The Princess pursues her Inquiry with More Diligence than CHAP. XXXVI. Pekuah is still remembered. The Progress of Sorrow. XXXVII. The Princess hears News of Pekuah. XXXVIII. The Adventures of the Lady Pekuah XXXIX. The Adventures of Pekuah continued XL. The History of a Man of Learning XLI. The Astronomer discovers the Cause of his Uneasiness XLII. The Opinion of the Astronomer is explained and justified XLIII. The Astronomer leaves Imlac his Directions. XLIV. The Dangerous Prevalence of Imagination XLV. They discourse with an Old Man . XLVI. The Princess and Pekuah visit the Astronomer XLVII. The Prince enters, and brings a New Topic SAMUEL JOHNSON. IN N the London newspapers of March, 1712, may be found a notice that Queen Anne, on certain appointed days, will "touch" for the king's-evil, or scrofula. That announcement was made in accordance with the ancient belief that the English sovereigns possessed the power of removing some forms of disease by placing their hands on the patient's head and uttering the words, "The king toucheth thee; may God cure thee." Among those who went to the palace to get help of this kind was Michael Johnson, a bookseller of Litchfield, who carried up his little son, Samuel, a feeble, sickly child of three, half-blind with a humor of the eyes. Though so young, yet the event made an indelible impression on the boy's mind, so that, he says, he always retained a confused, but somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds and a long black hood." " The ceremony, however, seems to have had no perceptible effect, but time brought some relief; and at the age of sixteen the lad had grown to be a large-framed, awkward young fellow, who cared much more for the society of the books he found on the shelves of his father's shop than for that of boys of his own age. As this thirst for learning increased, his father began to think of giving him an education, and as an opportunity offered to send him to Oxford, the young man, who |