s emptiness. Johnson's view of our lot on earth was
always gloomy, and the circumstances, under which Rasselas was
composed, were calculated to add a deepened tinge of melancholy
to its speculations on human folly, misery, or malignity. Many
of the subjects discussed, are known to have been those which
had agitated Johnson's mind. Among them is the question,
whether the departed ever revisit the places that knew them
on earth, and how far they may take an interest in the welfare
of those, over whom they watched, when here. We shall elsewhere
have to contemplate the moralist, standing on the border
of his mother's grave, and asking, with anxious agony, whether
that dark bourn, once passed, terminated for ever the cares of
maternity and love[a]. The frivolous and the proud, who think
not, or acknowledge not, that there are secrets, in both matter
and mind, of which their philosophy has not dreamed, may smile
at what they may, in their derision, term such weak and idle
inquiries. But on them, the most powerful minds that ever
illuminated this world, have fastened, with an intense curiosity;
and, owning their fears, or their ignorance, have not dared to
disavow their belief[b].

It is not to be denied, that Rasselas displays life, as one unvaried
series of disappointments, and leaves the mind, at its
close, in painful depression. This effect has been considered an
evil, and regarded even as similar to that produced by the doctrines
of Voltaire, Bolingbroke, and Rousseau, who combined
every thing venerable on earth with ridicule, treated virtue and
vice, with equal contemptuous indifference, and laid bare, with
cruel mockery, the vanity of all mortal wishes, prospects, and
pursuits. Their motive, for all this, we need not pause, in this
place, to examine. But a distinction may be made between the
melancholy of the heart, and the melancholy of the mind: while
the latter is sceptical, sour, and misanthropic, the former is
passionate, tender, and religious. Those who are under the influence
of the one, become inactive, morose, or heedless: detecting
the follies of the wisest and the frailties of the best, they scoff at
the very name of virtue; they spurn, as visionary and weak, every
attempt to meliorate man's condition, and from their conviction
of the earthward tendency of his mind, they bound his destinies
by this narrow world and its concerns. But those whose hearts
are penetrated with a feeling for human infirmity and s