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
thi