to inquire into the claims of ancient heroes or sages; and names which hoped to range over kingdoms and continents shrink at last into cloisters and colleges.  Nor is it certain that even of these dark and narrow habitations, these last retreats of fame, the possession will be long kept.  Of men devoted to literature very few extend their views beyond some particular science, and the greater part seldom inquire, even in their own profession, for any authors but those whom the present mode of study happens to force upon their notice; they desire not to fill their minds with unfashionable knowledge, but contentedly resign to oblivion those books which they now find censured or neglected.”

The most remarkable of Johnson’s utterances upon his favourite topic of the Vanity of Human Wishes is the story of Rasselas.  The plan of the book is simple, and recalls certain parts of Voltaire’s simultaneous but incomparably more brilliant attack upon Optimism in Candide.  There is supposed to be a happy valley in Abyssinia where the royal princes are confined in total seclusion, but with ample supplies for every conceivable want.  Rasselas, who has been thus educated, becomes curious as to the outside world, and at last makes his escape with his sister, her attendant, and the ancient sage and poet, Imlac.  Under Imlac’s guidance they survey life and manners in various stations; they make the acquaintance of philosophers, statesmen, men of the world, and recluses; they discuss the results of their experience pretty much in the style of the Rambler; they agree to pronounce the sentence “Vanity of Vanities!” and finally, in a “conclusion where nothing is concluded,” they resolve to return to the happy valley.  The book is little more than a set of essays upon life, with just story enough to hold it together.  It is wanting in those brilliant flashes of epigram, which illustrate Voltaire’s pages so as to blind some readers to its real force of sentiment, and yet it leaves a peculiar and powerful impression upon the reader.

The general tone may be collected from a few passages.  Here is a fragment, the conclusion of which is perhaps the most familiar of quotations from Johnson’s writings.  Imlac in narrating his life describes his attempts to become a poet.

“The business of a poet,” said Imlac, “is to examine not the individual, but the species; to remark general properties and large appearances; he does not number the streaks of the tulip or describe the different shades in the verdure of the forest.  He is to exhibit in his portraits of nature such prominent and striking features as recall the original to every mind; and must neglect the minute discriminations which one may have remarked, and another have neglected for those characteristics which are alike obvious to vigilance and carelessness.”