NOTES.

Abbreviations: The Adventurer, Idler, Rambler, are referred to by number. By Dictionary or Dict. is meant Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language. Encyc. Brit. is the Encyclopædia Britannica, ninth edition. Hill, quoted in the notes, refers to the edition of Rasselas by G. Birkbeck Hill (1887). By Life is meant Boswell's Life of Johnson, Hill's edition. Unless otherwise specified, Lobo is Johnson's translation of Legrand's Lobo, Voyage to Abyssinia. A reference to West is the Rev. W. West's edition of Rasselas (1868). Cf. means compare.

I: I. Ye who. The optimists of the age. Those who believed with Shaftesbury and Pope that this is the best possible world. It was to express his disbelief in such optimism that Johnson wrote Rasselas; cf. Introduction, p. xxxvi, and Rambler, 128.

6. Rasselas. The name is undoubtedly from Ras Sela Christos, or, as it is usually printed in Legrand and Lobo, Rassela Christos, the name of a general or chief of Abyssinia. Ras signifies 'chief' or 'prince,' and the title still exists. The word is the same as the Hebrew Rosh, Gen. xlvi. 21, Ezekiel (Rev. Ver.) xxxviii. 2, 3; xxxix. 1. Sela Christos means 'image of Christ,' according to Ludolph's History of Ethiopia (1681). Many Abyssinian names were compounded of Christian names, as of Christ, the Trinity, Mary. In Ludolph the name appears as Ras-seelax, x being pronounced sh in Portuguese, so that this form is somewhat nearer the one given by Johnson. A writer in Notes and Queries, XII. (3d series) 411, suggests that Johnson may have had in mind an Abyssinian prince who is said to have lived for a time at the court of George II. Even if there were such a person, however, the fact explains nothing not better explained in other ways.

143

7. mighty emperor. "The kings of Abyssinia, having formerly had several princes tributary to them, still retain the title of emperor."-Lobo, p. 260.

8, Father of Waters. "The Nile Abavi, that is father of waters.'"-Lobo, p. 97.

the natives call

8, begins his course. Hill in his edition of Rasselas explains this by saying, "the floods which give Egypt its fertility are caused by the Blue Nile, and the Atbara, which both rise in Abyssinia." But such a statement fails to explain Johnson's reference to the source of the Nile. The latter is clear, however, from Lobo, whom Johnson followed in this particular as in so many others. Lobo says, "The Nile rises first in Sacala, a province of the kingdom of Goiama . . . In the eastern part of this kingdom on the declivity of a mountain . . . is that source of the Nile which has been sought after at so much expense of labor, and about which such variety of conjectures hath been formed without success," pp. 97, 98. A minute description follows of the springs at the head of the Nile; cf. note on 21: 22. If there were any doubt as to this explanation of the references to the source of the Nile, it is set at rest by a map in Legrand's Lobo, of which, for its interest in this and other particulars, a sketch is given on the following page.

10, harvests of Egypt. Egypt was famous for the production and export of grain from the time of the Pharaohs to the Mohammedan conquest about 640 A. D., after which it continued to decline until the tenth century. Cf. Encyc. Brit., VII. 707.

13, he. Note that the antecedent is in 1. 7. For explicit reference the noun should be repeated, as is done in most editions, though not so in the original.

14, private. Means 'secluded, solitary,' the older sense. Cf. Dict. and 4:9; 68: 26.

17, The place. See Introduction for origin of the idea of the happy valley. Cf. description with Paradise Lost, IV. 132–268. 20, of which. Note position of phrase at beginning of clause instead of after the word it modifies. Cf. 2:2; 6: 1; 12: 15; 15: 26; and Introduction, p. xlv.

21, the summits overhang. At the top it [the hill Amara] is overhung with rocks jutting forth at the sides the space of a mile,

spreading forth like mushrooms."-Purchas his Pilgrimage, cf. Introduction, p. xxv. This description may have been in Johnson's mind. See also 41: 18.

2:7, massy.

The older word to which the form massive is

now preferred; cf. 3: 30, and Introduction, p. xliv.

8, engines. The term once included instruments of all sorts, not machines of a certain kind; cf. 15: 17; 34: 26; and Introduction, p. xliv.

13, whom.

Who was sometimes used in the Elizabethan age for inanimate objects and for animals, as in King John, V. vii.

21-22.

"This pale faint swan,

Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death."

20, every month. They sow and reap in every season, the ground is always producing and the fruits ripen throughout the year."-Lobo, p. 109.

28, subtle monkey. Lobo refers to the " Monkeys, creatures so cunning that they would not stir if a man came unarmed, but would run immediately when they saw a gun” (p. 41).

3: 15, those.

print for those.

Printed these in first edition, but clearly a mis

31, by. One would now say with. For other unusual uses of by see 19: 26; 70: 24; 91: 2.

4:2, reparation. 1. The act of repairing. 2. Supply of what is wasted. 3. Recompense for any injury.'-Dict. The first meaning has now been almost wholly replaced by the third. II, successive. A favorite word, cf. 14: 10; 23: 21; 76: 18. It has been changed in this place to a long race of' in many

editions.

་

12, reposited. Generally printed deposited, but used here and often, as in 88: 30.

22, Abyssinia. An example of the name of the country for the king of it; cf. similar use in Shakespeare, King John, I. i. 20, and often.

5:1, public, as opposed to private in the sense explained in

note to I: 14.

4. felicity. A favorite word with Johnson; cf. 7:9, 10, and often.