indecision. Because we cannot choose we are not therefore to do nothing. 'While we are making the choice of life,' we are not 'to neglect to live. Let 'the young enthusiast"," as he closes Rasselas, chase away any sadness or de spondency that may have come over him, by listening once more to that 'road-melody or marching music of mankind,' which Thomas Carlyle, translating from the greatest of German poets, addressed to the students of Edinburgh :

'The Future hides in it
Gladness and sorrow;
We press still thorow,
Nought that abides in it
Daunting us,-onward.

And solemn before us,
Veiled, the dark Portal;
Goal of all mortal:-
Stars silent rest o'er us,
Graves under us silent!

While earnest thou gazest,
Comes boding of terror,
Comes phantasm and error;
Perplexes the bravest

With doubt and misgiving.

But heard are the Voices,
Heard are the Sages,
The Worlds and the Ages:
Choose well; your choice is
Brief, and yet endless.

Here eyes do regard you
In Eternity's stillness;
Here is all fulness,

Ye brave, to reward you;

Work, and despair not".'

* Post, p. 108.

The Vanity of Human Wishes, l. 136.

Thomas Carlyle, Inaugural Address at Edinburgh.

CHIEF EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF

1709. Birth.

SAMUEL JOHNSON,

1728. Enters Pembroke College, Oxford.

1735. Publishes Lobo's Abyssinia. Marriage. 1737. Removes to London.

1738. London.

1740-3. Debates.

1744. Life of Savage.

1745. Miscellaneous Observations on Macbeth.

1747. Plan for a Dictionary of the English Language. 1749. Vanity of Human Wishes. Irene acted.

1750-2. The Rambler.

1752. Death of his wife.

1753. The Adventurer.

1755. Publication of The Dictionary.

1756. Proposals for an edition of Shakespeare.

1758-60. The Idler.

1759. Death of his mother. Rasselas.

1762. Pensioned.

1763. Gets to know Boswell.

1764. Literary Club founded.

(or 1765) Gets to know the Thrales.

1765. Edition of Shakespeare.

1773. Tour to Scotland.

1775. Journey to the Western Islands.

1779. First four volumes of The Lives of the Poets.

1781. Last six volumes of The Lives of the Poets. Death of Thrale.

1784. Mrs. Thrale's second marriage. Death.

THE

HISTORY OF RASSELAS,

PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA.

THE

HISTORY OF RASSELAS,

PRINCE OF ARYSSINIA.

CHAPTER I.

DESCRIPTION OF A PALACE IN A VALLEY.

YE who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope, who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow,-attend to the history of Rasselas, prince of 10 Abyssinia.

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 half the world the harvests of Egypt.

According to the custom which has descended from age to age among the monarchs of the torrid zone, Rasselas 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 destined for the residence of the Abyssinian princes, was a spacious valley in the kingdom of Amhara, surrounded on

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