“I have now,” he writes, “the painful task of informing you that my dear brother expired this morning at two o’clock: we have both lost a kind and affectionate friend, and I shall never have such another. He has suffered a great deal during his illness, which has lasted five weeks, but not much in his last moments.” Boswell died in his house in Great Portland Street, on the 19th May, 1795. He had reached his fifty-fifth year. In the June number of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ his friends, Messrs. Courtenay and Malone, presented estimates of his character. Mr. Courtenay wrote thus:— “Good nature was highly predominant in his character. He appeared to entertain sentiments of benevolence to all mankind, and it does not seem to me that he ever did or could injure any human being _intentionally_. His conversational talents were always pleasing and often fascinating. He was a Johnson in everything but _manner_; and there were few of Dr. Johnson’s friends that were not very ready to dispense with _that_. His attachment to the Doctor for so long a period was a meritorious perseverance in the desire of knowledge.” Admitting that his social habits had shortened his life, Mr. Courtenay adds,—“As his belief in Revelation was unshaken, and his religious impressions were deep and recurring frequently, let us hope that he has now attained that state from which imperfection and calamity are alike excluded.” From the misrepresentations of a journalist Mr. Malone vindicated the memory of his friend in these words:— “The most important misrepresentation is that Mr. Boswell was convivial without being _social_ or _friendly_,—a falsehood which all who knew him intimately can peremptorily contradict. He had not only an inexhaustible fund of good humour and good nature, but was extremely warm in his attachments, and as ready to exert himself for his friends as any man.” After claiming for Boswell “considerable intellectual powers,” he concludes,—“He will long be regretted by a wide circle of friends, to whom his good qualities and social talents always made his company a valuable accession; and by none more sincerely than by the present vindicator of his fame.” In the same number of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, a correspondent, subscribing himself “M. Green,” states that Boswell contemplated the publication of a quarto volume, to be embellished with plates on the controversy occasioned by the _Beggar’s Opera_. “With this particular view,” he adds, “he lately paid several visits to the present truly humane ‘governor of Newgate,’ as he ordinarily styled Mr. Kirby.”