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.  To be restless and weary of the dull details and incomplete enjoyments of life, is common to all lofty minds.  Frederick of Prussia sought, in the bosom of a cold philosophy, to chill every generous impulse, and each warm aspiration after immortality; but he painfully felt, how inefficient was grandeur, or power, to fill the heart, and plaintively exclaimed to Maupertuis, “Que notre vie est peu de chose;” all is vanity.  The philosophy of Rasselas, however, though it pronounces on the unsatisfactory nature of all human enjoyments, and though its perusal may check the worldling in his mirth, and bring down the mighty in his pride, does