Transcribed from the 1889 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
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RASSELAS
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA
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BY
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CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
LONDON, PARIS & MELBOURNE.
1889.
RASSELAS was written by Samuel Johnson in the year 1759, when his age was
fifty. He had written his _London_ in 1738; his _Vanity of Human Wishes_
in 1740; his _Rambler_ between March, 1750, and March, 1752. In 1755 his
_Dictionary_ had appeared, and Dublin, by giving him its honorary LL.D.,
had enabled his friends to call him “Doctor” Johnson. His friends were
many, and his honour among men was great. He owed them to his union of
intellectual power with unflinching probity. But he had worked hard,
battling against the wolf without, and the black dog within—poverty and
hypochondria. He was still poor, though his personal wants did not
exceed a hundred pounds a year. His wife had been seven years dead, and
he missed her sorely. His old mother, who lived to the age of ninety,
died poor in January of this year, 1759. In her old age, Johnson had
sought to help her from his earnings. At her death there were some
little debts, and there were costs of burial. That he might earn enough
to pay them he wrote _Rasselas_.
_Rasselas_ was written in the evenings of one week, and sent to press
while being written. Johnson earned by it a hundred pounds, with
twenty-five pounds more for a second edition. It was published in March
or April; Johnson never read it after it had been published until more
than twenty years afterwards. Then, finding it in a chaise with Boswell,
he took it up and read it eagerly.
This is one of Johnson’s letters to his mother, written after he knew
that her last illness had come upon her. It is dated about ten days
before her death. The “Miss” referred to in it was a faithful friend.
“Miss” was his home name for an affectionate step-daughter, Lucy Porter:—
“The account which Miss gives me of your health pierces my heart.
God comfort and preserve you, and save you, for the sake of Jesus
Christ.
“I would have Miss read to you from time to time the Passion of our
Saviour; and sometimes the sentences in the Communion Service
beginning—’Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest.’
“I have just now read a physical book which inclines me to think that
a strong infusion of the bark would do you good. Do, dear mother,
try it.
“Pray, send me your blessing, and forgive all that I have done amiss
to you. And whatever you would have done, and what debts you would
have paid first, or anything else that you would direct, let Miss put
it down; I shall endeavour to obey you.