books, but the commander of armies, and the deliverer of nations, will
easily outlive all noisy and popular reputation: he may be celebrated
for a time by the public voice, but his actions and his name will soon
be considered as remote and unaffecting, and be rarely mentioned but by
those whose alliance gives them some vanity to gratify by frequent
commemoration. It seems not to be sufficiently considered how little
renown can be admitted in the world. Mankind are kept perpetually busy
by their fears or desires, and have not more leisure from their own
affairs than to acquaint themselves with the accidents of the current
day. Engaged in contriving some refuge from calamity, or in shortening
their way to some new possession, they seldom suffer their thoughts to
wander to the past or future; none but a few solitary students have
leisure to inquire into the claims of ancient heroes or sages; and names
which hoped to range over kingdoms and continents shrink at last into
cloisters and colleges. Nor is it certain that even of these dark and
narrow habitations, these last retreats of fame, the possession will be
long kept. Of men devoted to literature very few extend their views
beyond some particular science, and the greater part seldom inquire,
even in their own profession, for any authors but those whom the present
mode of study happens to force upon their notice; they desire not to
fill their minds with unfashionable knowledge, but contentedly resign to
oblivion those books which they now find censured or neglected."

The most remarkable of Johnson's utterances upon his favourite topic of
the Vanity of Human Wishes is the story of _Rasselas_. The plan of the
book is simple, and recalls certain parts of Voltaire's simultaneous but
incomparably more brilliant attack upon Optimism in _Candide_. There is
supposed to be a happy valley in Abyssinia where the royal princes are
confined in total seclusion, but with ample supplies for every
conceivable want. Rasselas, who has been thus educated, becomes curious