unable to feed." "Upon conversing with him on that inability," relates Sir John Hawkins," which was his reason for declining the offer, it was found to be a suspicion of his patience to undergo the fatigue of catechizing and instructing a great number of poor ignorant persons, who, in religious matters, had, perhaps, every thing to learn." In the Adventurer he has given his opinions on this subject at full length, and with his usual ability.t To the commencement of the year 1759 we have to ascribe an event, which, however afflicting at the time to the feelings of Johnson, was productive of one of the noblest efforts of his pen, and which demands from us the distinct consideration of its author under the character of a NoVELLIST. In January, at the very advanced age of ninety, he lost his mother, for whom, to the latest moment of her existence, he preserved a reverential affection, unsubdued by time or absence. Though his literary engagements precluded his personal attendance upon her, a circumstance which he ever regretted; yet to his filial piety she was indebted for her sole support; and his motive for the composition of Rasselas was, that with the profits of the sale he might discharge his mother's debts, and pay the expences of her funeral. Life of Johnson, p. 365. † No. 126. Promptitude in the execution of his task, therefore, became a duty; and he declared to Sir Joshua Reynolds, that "he composed it in the evenings of one week, sent it to the press in portions as it was written, and had never since read it over!" The sum obtained from the sale of this work, thus consecrated to filial affection, amounted to one hundred and twenty-five pounds. To oriental fiction Johnson was peculiarly partial; and it is probable, that to his translation of Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia in early life we are, in a great measure, indebted for this attachment. He has, moreover, given us various specimens of his skill in the difficult departments of Vision and Allegory; and his papers of this kind are, with the exception of the inimitable Mirza of the Spectator, inferior to none which have been produced by his predecessors in periodical literature. His first, however, and probably one of his best, attempts in the realms of fancy, was published in the Preceptor of Dodsley in 1748, under the title of "The Vision of Theodore the Hermit of Teneriffe, found in his cell." This very interesting allegory, of which its author's opinion was so high, that he declared to the Bishop of Dromore that he considered it as the best thing he ever wrote, paints in very vivid colours the condition and vicissitudes of mortality, and represents, under the well conceived fiction of the ascent of the Mountain of Existence, the effects of education and religion, of the appetites, passions, and habits, on the mind and frame of man. Of the productions which, under this head, diversify the pages of the Rambler, the principal are, Criticism, an Allegory, N°3; Wit and Learning, an Allegory, N° 22; Rest and Labour, an Allegory, N° 33; The Garden of Hope, a Dream, No67; Patronage, an Allegory, No 91; Truth, Falsehood, and Fiction, an Allegory, No 96; The Voyage of Life, a Dream, N° 102; and The Universal Register, a Dream, N° 105. Among these, the Voyage of Life may be pointed out as superior to the rest, whether its imagery or its moral be considered. The Allegory on Patronage exhibits the experience of the author on the subject; nor shall we therefore be surprized that it concludes with the following paragraph, which, there is reason to regret, was not merely suggested by individual suffering, but by the general fate of those who have placed any dependence upon a source so capricious as private patronage. "The SCIENCES, after a thousand indignities, retired from the palace of PATRONAGE, and having long wandered over the world in grief and distress, were led at last to the cottage of INDEPENDENCE, the daughter of FORTITUDE.; where they were taught by PRUDENCE and PARSIMONY to support themselves in dignity and quiet." On fictions illustrative of the common and domestic occurrences of life, our author has not bestowed many pages. The story of Misella, however, in Nos. 170 and 171 of the Rambler, and that of Mysargyrus in Nos. 34, 41, and 53 of the Adventurer, depict the miseries of prostitution and dissipation with a pencil of peculiar strength; nor was the passion of love, the assiduities of affection, ever placed in a more entertaining or pleasing light than in the Greenland story of Anningait and Ajut, which, owing to its wild and savage imagery, and the felicity with which it is adapted to the circumstances of the narrative, possesses the attractions of no ordinary share of originality.t * Rambler, Nos. 186, 187. † Mr. Campbell, in his truly sublime poem on the Pleasures of Hope, has thus beautifully alluded to the story of Anningait and Ajut: Oh! vainly wise, the moral Muse hath sung VOL. IV Part 2, line 213. BB It is in the oriental tales of the Rambler and Idler, however, and more particularly in the His tory of Rasselas, that we behold, in full splendor, the imagination of Johnson. Like Addison, he has reserved the creations of his fancy for prose composition; and, while his poetry can claim little more than the merit of moral and satiric energy, clothed in harmonious numbers, his narratives in language devoid of metre exhibit a profusion of the most distinct and luxuriant imagery. In the Rambler, the Apologue of Hamet and Raschid, N° 88; the Story of Obidah and the Hermit, N°65; the History of Almamoulin the son of Nouradin, N° 120; the Story of Abouzaid the son of Morad, N° 190; and the History of Ten Days of Seged Emperor of Ethiopia, Nos. 204 and 205; greatly enliven, while they add, in the most alluring form, to the preceptive wisdom of the work. In the Idler too we have three oriental tales, under the titles of Gelaleddin of Bassora, N° 75; Ortogrul of Basra, N° 99; and Omar's Plan of Life, N° 101; to these we may annex The Fountains, a Fairy Tale, published in Mrs. Williams's Miscellanies. The popularity which the oriental tales in the Rambler and Idler acquired probably induced Johnson, when he was anxious to obtain an immediate sum, to recur, on a larger scale, to this |