A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) — Context and Discussion

Heroic Couplets and the Weight of Johnson's Prose

Courtenay adopts the closed heroic couplet, the meter of Johnson's The Vanity of Human Wishes. The verse moves through balanced antitheses: 'His genius, learning, virtue, all conspire / To raise the poet's, and the patriot's fire.' Yet the poem's energy often lies in its extensive footnotes. One note reproduces Johnson's meditation on his wife's death: 'I returned home, but could not settle my mind. At last I read a chapter. Then went down about six or seven, and eat two cross-buns.' The mundane detail—'two cross-buns'—contrasts sharply with the elevated couplets. Another note records Johnson's failed resolutions: 'To rise at eight.—Oct. 3d. Of all this I have done nothing.' Courtenay lets Johnson's self-accusation stand without comment, trusting the reader to measure the gap between moral aspiration and daily practice.

The Editor's Frame: Kelley on the Johnsoniana Market

Robert E. Kelley's introduction situates Courtenay's poem within the 'countless reflections, sermons, poems, pamphlets, biographical sketches, and biographies about Samuel Johnson' that appeared after 1784. Kelley notes that the poem's popularity 'was determined less by Courtenay's poetic talent than by public interest in the Johnsoniana that flooded the market.' This framing invites the reader to consider the poem as a commodity as much as a tribute. Kelley also observes that Courtenay 'remains a shadowy figure' despite his notoriety as a wit and Boswell's intimate. The introduction thus establishes a tension between the public appetite for Johnson and the relative obscurity of his elegist.

Notes as Counterpoint: Johnson's Voice Intrudes

The poem's apparatus includes a letter from Dr. Adams of Oxford, who denies having encouraged publication of Johnson's Prayers and Meditations. Adams writes: 'Dr. Adams never saw a line of these compositions, before they appeared in print, nor ever heard from Dr. Johnson, or the editor, that any such existed. Had he been consulted about the publication, he would certainly have given his voice against it.' This inserted protest disrupts the poem's eulogistic surface. Another note quotes Seneca's epigram on preferring life under torture to annihilation, then reports that Johnson 'in his last illness, is said to have declared ... that he would prefer a state of existence in eternal pain to annihilation.' The note does not confirm the anecdote, but its placement next to Seneca's lines creates a grim echo. Courtenay's poem thus becomes a contested space where praise, doubt, and Johnson's own recorded struggles coexist.

Readers approaching this edition should attend to the interplay between verse and footnote. Courtenay's couplets offer conventional praise, but the notes—drawn from Johnson's private writings and contemporary disputes—introduce a more troubled figure. The poem's value lies less in its literary merit than in the documentary texture it preserves: Johnson's failed resolutions, his wife's death, the controversy over publishing his prayers. Kelley's introduction provides essential context for understanding why this minor poem went through three editions in one year.

There’s something touching about how John Courtenay gently weighed Johnson’s flaws alongside his brilliance, not to judge, but simply to understand him whole. I felt that same careful patience leafing through The Vision and Creed of Piers Ploughman, Volume 2 — Reading Notes, where old voices are treated with such quiet tenderness. Some books stay with you less for what they argue, and more for the warmth they leave behind.