Produced by Chris Curnow, Stephanie Eason, Joseph Cooper and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY John Courtenay A POETICAL REVIEW OF THE LITERARY AND MORAL CHARACTER OF THE LATE _SAMUEL JOHNSON_ (1786) _Introduction by_ ROBERT E. KELLEY PUBLICATION NUMBER 133 WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES 1969 GENERAL EDITORS William E. Conway, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_ George Robert Guffey, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Maximillian E. Novak, _University of California, Los Angeles_ ASSOCIATE EDITOR David S. Rodes, _University of California, Los Angeles_ ADVISORY EDITORS Richard C. Boys, _University of Michigan_ James L. Clifford, _Columbia University_ Ralph Cohen, _University of Virginia_ Vinton A. Dearing, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Arthur Friedman, _University of Chicago_ Louis A. Landa, _Princeton University_ Earl Miner, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Samuel H. Monk, _University of Minnesota_ Everett T. Moore, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Lawrence Clark Powell, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_ James Sutherland, _University College, London_ H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., _University of California, Los Angeles_ Robert Vosper, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_ CORRESPONDING SECRETARY Edna C. Davis, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_ EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Mary Kerbret, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_ 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. 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.