. . .language scarcely to be paralleled; it is written in a style refined to a degree of immaculate purity, and displays the whole force of turgid eloquence." One cannot but smile at this encomium. Rasselas, is, undoubtedly, both elegant and sublime. It is a view of human life, displayed, it must be owned, in gloomy colours. The author's natural melancholy, depressed, at the time, by the approaching dissolution of his mother, darkened the picture. A tale, that should keep curiosity awake by the artifice of unexpected incidents, was not the design of a mind pregnant with better things. He, who reads the heads of the chapters, will find, that it is not a course of adventures that invites him forward, but a discussion of interesting questions; reflections on human life; the history of Imlac, the man of learning; a dissertation upon poetry; the character of a wise and happy man, who discourses, with energy, on the government of the passions, and, on a sudden, when death deprives h. . . Read More