928-1934), XVIII, 22. See
also Boswell's letter to Edmond Malone dated 16 December 1790,
_Letters of James Boswell_, ed. C. B. Tinker (Oxford, 1924), II,
409-410. Courtenay and other intimates of Boswell were called "The
Gang" by Philip Metcalfe. See _Private Papers_, XVII, 52, 55; XVIII,
15.

[3] _Private Papers_, XVI, 106.

[4] _Ibid._, XVII, 80. For additional testimony to Courtenay's
reputation as a wit, see _Thraliana_, ed. Katharine C. Balderston
(Oxford, 1951), I, 486, and James Prior, _Life of Edmond Malone_
(London, 1860), 287-288.

[5] _Private Papers_, XVII, 86.

[6] _Ibid._, pp. 76-77.

[7] _Ibid._, XVI, 178. "M. C." is Mrs. Rudd.

[8] See Boswell's letters to Malone, _Letters_, II, 405, 427, and
_Private Papers_, XVIII, 100. Courtenay became alarmed over Boswell's
deepening melancholy, as seen in this passage from his letter to
Malone of 22 February 1791: "Poor Boswell is very low, & desperate &
... melancholy mad, feels no spring, no pleasure in existence, & is so
perceptibly altered for the worse that it is remarked everywhere. I
try all I can to revivify him, but he [turns?] so tiresomely &
tediously--for the same cursed trite commonplace topics, about death
&c.--that we grow old, and when we are old, we are not young--that I
despair of effecting a cure. Doctors Warren and Devaynes very kindly
interest themselves about him, but you wd be of more service to him
than anyone." Quoted from a MS at Yale University Library by James
Osborn, "Edmond Malone and Dr. Johnson," _Johnson, Boswell and Their
Circle: Essays Presented to Lawrence Fitzroy Powell in Honour of His
Eighty-fourth Birthday_ (Oxford, 1965), p. 16.

[9] _Letters_, II, 428, 425. Boswell tried to negotiate loans for
Courtenay, and made a successful application to Reynolds. See _Private
Papers_, XVII, 85-86, 101-102; XVIII, 120.

[10] _Private Papers_, XVIII, 171, 178, 184.

[11] See Frank Brady, _Boswell's Political Career_ (New Haven, 1965),
p. 169, and Frederick A. Pottle, _The Literary Career of James
Boswell, Esq._ (Oxford, 1929), p. 147.

[12] _Private Papers_, XVIII, 271. This entry is dated 31 March 1794,
not long before the journal ends and some thirteen months before
Boswell's death.

[13] _The Art of Biography in Eighteenth Century England_ (Princeton,
1941), p. 345.

[14] _Ibid._, p. 346.

[15] W. K. Wimsatt, Jr., in _The Prose Style of Samuel Johnson_ (New
Haven, 1941), pp. 135-138, argues against the notion that Joh