The Life of Samuel Johnson

In April of 1758, Johnson starts a new periodical, The Idler, which appears every Saturday for two years. The essays continue the style of The Rambler, but now with “more variety of real life, and greater facility of language” (234). Although Boswell says that the new work contains some of Johnson’s most profound thoughts, he also criticizes a few pieces for inconsistency with Johnson’s stated principles and apparent copying of an earlier poet’s ideas. In this critique, Boswell shows an even greater willingness to admit literary flaws in his hero.

Johnson’s mother dies in January 1759 at the age of 90, and the death affects Johnson deeply. Partly in order to pay for his mother’s funeral and defray her debts, Johnson writes Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, an apologue or allegorical novel. Johnson professed to have composed the book in one week, sending portions of it to the press as they were completed.

Rasselas covers similar ground to The Vanity of Human Wishes, but this time in the context of a philosophical fable about an eastern prince’s search for happiness. Superficially similar to Voltaire’s Candide, which was written at the same time and to which it is often compared, Rasselas affirms “the unsatisfactory nature of things temporal, to direct the hopes of man to things eternal” (242).