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 sorrow, are benevolent and active; considering man, as the victim of sin, and woe, and death, for a cause which reason cannot unfold, but which religion promises to terminate, they sooth the short-lived disappointments of life, by pointing to a loftier and more lasting state. Candide is the book of the one party, Rasselas of the other. They appeared nearly together; they exhibit the same picture of change, and misery, and crime. But the one demoralized a continent, and gave birth to lust, and rapine, and bloodshed; the other has blessed many a heart, and gladdened the vale of sorrow, with many a rill of pure and living water. Voltaire may be likened to the venomous toad of eastern allegory, which extracts a deadly poison from that sunbeam which bears health, and light, and life to all beside: the philosopher, in Rasselas, like some holy and aged man, who has well nigh run his course, in recounting the toils and perils of his pilgrimage, may sadden the young heart, and crush the fond hopes of inexperience; but, while he wounds, he presents the antidote and the balm, and tells, where promises will be realized, and hopes will no more be disappointed. We have ventured to detain our readers thus long from Rasselas itself, because, from its similar view of life with the sceptical school, many well-intentioned men have apprehended, its effects might be the same. We have, therefore, attempted briefly to distinguish the sources whence these different writings have issued, and, we trust, we have pointed out their remoteness from each other. And we do not dwell on the subject, at greater length, because Johnson's writings, in various parts, will require our attention on this particular head.