Sheridan, and Sir William Jones, the Orientalist. At this time he lived with Miss Williams, the blind orphan daughter of a man of learning, and a Mr. Levett, “an obscure practiser in physic.” It is unnecessary to detail the events of the remaining twenty-two years, as they were passed in comparative indolence. His friendship with Henry Thrale began about 1759, and the Thrales’ fine house at Streatham Park became, until 1782, Johnson’s chief asylum. The Thrales, he said, “soothed twenty years of a life radically wretched.” On 16 May, 1768, he met Boswell. The famous journey to the Highlands was made in 1773, and in 1774 he visited Wales, and the next year Paris. After 1782 his health rapidly declined, and he died after an attack of dropsy on 13 December, 1784, in Bolt Court, Fleet Street. His chief works are as follows: A translation of Lobo’s _Voyage to Abyssinia_, 1735. _London_, 1738. _Life of Savage_, 1744. _Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth_, 1745. _The Vanity of Human Wishes_, 1749. _Irene_, 1749. _A Dictionary of the English Language_, 1755. _The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia_, 1759. _A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland_, 1775. _Lives of the English Poets_, 1779. See Boswell, Johnson’s Letters, ed. by Birkbeck Hill, Essay on Life and Genius by Arthur Murphy, Anecdotes by Madame Piozzi, Diary and Letters of Madame d’Arblay, Life and Correspondence of Hannah More, also _Johnson and his Critics_ by Birkbeck Hill. CHAPTER I DESCRIPTION OF A PALACE IN A VALLEY Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope, who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow, attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. Rasselas was the fourth son of the mighty emperor, in whose dominions the Father of Waters begins his course; whose bounty pours down the streams of plenty, and scatters over half the world the harvests of Egypt. According to the custom which has descended from age to age among the monarchs of the torrid zone, Rasselas was confined in a private palace, with the other sons and daughters of Abyssinian royalty, till the order of succession should call him to the throne. The place which the wisdom or policy of antiquity had destined for the residence of the Abyssinian princes, was a spacious valley in the kingdom of Amhara, surrounded on every side by mountains, of which the summits overhang the middle part. The only passage by which it could be entered, was a cavern that passed under a rock, of which it has long been disputed whether it was the work of nature or of human industry. The outlet of the cavern was concealed by a thick wood, and the mouth which opened into the valley was closed with gates of iron, forged by the artificers of ancient days, so massy that no man could without the help of engines open or shut them.