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.
One item of Johnsoniana which seems to have been neglected, perhaps because Birkbeck Hill did not include it in his Johnsonian Miscellanies, is A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the Late Samuel Johnson, L.L.D., with Notes. This poem of three hundred and four lines was written by John Courtenay (1741-1816). First published in the spring of 1786 by Charles Dilly, the poem went through three editions in the same year. Its popularity was determined less by Courtenay's poetic talent than by public interest in the Johnsoniana that flooded the market. Courtenay's literary output, though scanty, was diverse; he wrote light verse, character sketches, and essays, including two controversial pieces in support of the French Revolution.[1] It is apparent, however, that for him writing was hardly more than an avocation.
Despite his notoriety as a controversial member of Parliament, as a first-rate wit, and as an intimate friend of Boswell, Courtenay remains a shadowy figure. References to him occur often in the last volumes of Boswell's journal, but few of them are particularly revealing. Courtenay evidently never met Johnson; indeed, the anonymous author of A Poetical Epistle from the Ghost of Dr. Johnson to His Four Friends: The Rev. Mr. Strahan. James Boswell, Esq. Mrs. Piozzi. J. Courtenay, Esq. M.P. (1786) censures Courtenay for writing about a man whom he did not know. Although a member of the Literary Club, Courtenay did not join this group until four years after Johnson died. He was proposed on 9 December 1788, by Sir Joshua Reynolds (Boswell seconded), and elected two weeks later, on 23 December, during the same meeting at which it was decided to erect a monument to Dr. Johnson in Westminster Abbey.[2]
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.[3] 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."[4] 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."[5] 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.[6]
But there was a greater reason for Courtenay's intimacy with Boswell. The period following Johnson's death was for Boswell a time of intense anxiety. By 1786 Courtenay and Edmond Malone had become Boswell's closest confidants. Boswell relished the long walks and the dinners he took with Courtenay. Throughout his journal he confessed to the therapeutic value of Courtenay's company; "I am," he admitted, "quite another Man with M. C., Malone, Courtenay."[7]
Moreover, Boswell often solicited Courtenay's advice in various crises. Courtenay, together with Malone, helped him out of scrapes with Alexander Tytler and Lord Macdonald, induced him to lighten his published attacks on Mrs. Piozzi and helped make him aware of the merit of her edition of Johnson's correspondence, and advised him to cancel some questionable passages in the Life on William Gerard Hamilton. From time to time he also cautioned Boswell not to expect political preferment when he did not deserve it. It appears, too, that he took part in the prolonged deliberations over Johnson's monument in Westminster Abbey. Concerned that Boswell's drinking might impede his work on the Life, Courtenay made him promise to quit drinking from December 1790, to the following March, a promise which, as far as he was able, Boswell kept.[8]
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.[9] No doubt Courtenay's resolve endeared him to Boswell, whose own financial and psychological problems were, of course, a great burden.
This is not to say that relations between the two men were always cordial. Courtenay was evidently a non-believer, and the two men often differed on religious matters. Boswell condemned Courtenay's "wild ravings" in favor of the French revolution, and once confessed his deep regret about quarreling with so close a friend on this subject.[10] They also differed on the question of slavery, and Boswell good-naturedly chided Courtenay and William Windham as abolitionists in his poem, No Abolition of Slavery; or the Universal Empire of Love (1791).[11] It is clear, too, that as Boswell's depression grew, Courtenay's power to brighten his spirits waned considerably. Their friendship, nevertheless, seems to have ended on a happy note, for Boswell's final mention of Courtenay in his journal includes the remark that with Courtenay he had spent a "good day."[12]
Courtenay's Poetical Review, characterized by Donald A. Stauffer as an embodiment of the "vice-and-virtue philosophy" in biography, was one of the most spirited pieces of Johnsoniana to appear.[13] The poem begins with disdain, but at line sixty-one reverses direction and becomes vigorously commendatory. Courtenay did not attempt to add fresh information about Johnson's life and career. Consequently, the unfavorable portion of the poem is a conventional catalog of Johnson's often publicized foibles and prejudices, just as the favorable section is in part a commonplace survey of his artistic achievement.