: A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) by Courtenay John Kelley Robert E Editor - Johnson Samuel 1709-1784 Poetry

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Editor: Robert E. Kelley

THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY

John Courtenay

PUBLICATION NUMBER 133

WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

INTRODUCTION

The eighteenth century was an age addicted to gossiping about its literary figures. This addiction was nowhere better demonstrated than by the countless reflections, sermons, poems, pamphlets, biographical sketches, and biographies about Samuel Johnson. The most productive phase of this activity commenced almost immediately after Johnson's death in December, 1784, and continued into the next century.

If, then, Courtenay did not belong to the Johnson circle, he became, shortly after Johnson's death, a valued member of the Boswell circle. Courtenay must have met Boswell in the spring or early summer of 1785, about thirteen years after arriving in England from his native Ireland in the service of Viscount Townshend. Boswell's first reference to Courtenay occurs in his journal under 7 July 1785. It is clear from this entry that he had met Courtenay earlier, but subsequent references indicate that the acquaintance was a fresh one.

From the start Boswell enjoyed Courtenay's company. In the first place, Boswell appreciated Courtenay's talent in conversation. Although he seldom recorded specimens of Courtenay's talk, Boswell was generous in his praise of his wit. "Courtenay's wit," he wrote, "sparkles more than almost any man's." On 26 March 1788, Boswell described him as a "valuable addition" to a meeting of the Essex Head Club which he attended as Boswell's guest. "Indeed," Boswell continued, "his conversation is excellent; it has so much literature, wit, and at the same time manly sense, in it." An example of his "manly sense" that "struck home" to Boswell was Courtenay's remark that had Johnson been born to three thousand pounds a year his melancholy would have been at greater leisure to torment him.

Courtenay's high spirits and his ability to relieve Boswell's melancholy were all the more remarkable because Courtenay, with a wife and seven children to support, was poverty-stricken during most of this period. Boswell, lamenting the failure of the Whigs to provide financial assistance to one of the party's most active members, found Courtenay's "firmness of mind ... amazing" under such difficulties. No doubt Courtenay's resolve endeared him to Boswell, whose own financial and psychological problems were, of course, a great burden.

University of Iowa

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

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