Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. By Samuel Johnson. Edited, with Introduction
and Notes, by George Birkbeck Hill, D.C.L. (The Clarendon Press.)—This is in every way an excellent edition. Every- thing that Dr. Hill does for Johnson is done as a labour of love, with such care and so thorough an appreciation of the great man, that it cannot fail to be done well. In this volume, we have a brief life of Johnson,—perhaps Dr. Hill is a little hard in it on Mrs. Thrale. There is a special account of the circumstances under which Rasselas was produced,—very pathetic circumstances they were. His mother was dead ; and he had been too poor to go and see her in her last hours. The money earned by Rasselas was partly used to bury her. He wrote it in the evenings of a week. This would give more than there is in a number of the Spectatar, no inconsiderable achievement if the mere penmanship is considered. The edition before us is handsomely bound, but there is one of plainer aspect for school use.
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