" Lastly, Mr. Wilson makes no
allusions to matter contained in the manuscripts which had not been
reproduced in the pages of Prescott. He is careful, indeed, to tell us
very little of the contents of these works; but he talks _about_ them
with the most gratifying candor, and in his choicest phraseology. He
informs us, that "Sarmiento's History of the Peruvian Incas altogether
surpasses that of Dr. Johnson's Rasselas and the Happy Valley." The
history of Dr. Johnson's "Rasselas" is related, we believe, by Boswell.
The great moralist composed his beautiful and philosophical, but
somewhat gloomy romance, in the evenings of a single week, in order to
obtain the means of defraying the expenses of his mother's funeral. The
story is a touching one; but Mr. Wilson's comparison is so inapt, that
we cannot help suspecting him of having had in his mind, not the history
of Johnson's "Rasselas," but Johnson's history of Rasselas. We think it
rather hard, that, having, in general, such a limited amount of meaning
to express, Mr. Wilson should have followed the maxim of Talleyrand, and
employed language chiefly as a means of concealing his thoughts.
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