s period. Boswell, lamenting the failure of the Whigs to provide
financial assistance to one of the party's most active members, found
Courtenay's "firmness of mind ... amazing" under such difficulties.[9]
No doubt Courtenay's resolve endeared him to Boswell, whose own
financial and psychological problems were, of course, a great burden.

This is not to say that relations between the two men were always
cordial. Courtenay was evidently a non-believer, and the two men often
differed on religious matters. Boswell condemned Courtenay's "wild
ravings" in favor of the French revolution, and once confessed his
deep regret about quarreling with so close a friend on this
subject.[10] They also differed on the question of slavery, and
Boswell good-naturedly chided Courtenay and William Windham as
abolitionists in his poem, _No Abolition of Slavery; or the Universal
Empire of Love_ (1791).[11] It is clear, too, that as Boswell's
depression grew, Courtenay's power to brighten his spirits waned
considerably. Their friendship, nevertheless, seems to have ended on a
happy note, for Boswell's final mention of Courtenay in his journal
includes the remark that with Courtenay he had spent a "good day."[12]

Courtenay's _Poetical Review_, characterized by Donald A. Stauffer as
an embodiment of the "vice-and-virtue philosophy" in biography, was
one of the most spirited pieces of Johnsoniana to appear.[13] The
poem begins with disdain, but at line sixty-one reverses direction and
becomes vigorously commendatory. Courtenay did not attempt to add
fresh information about Johnson's life and career. Consequently, the
unfavorable portion of the poem is a conventional catalog of Johnson's
often publicized foibles and prejudices, just as the favorable section
is in part a commonplace survey of his artistic achievement.

This contrast, as Stauffer remarks, renders Courtenay's praise more
powerful.[14] More important, the play between scorn and praise
reflects the ambivalence which colors contemporary accounts of
Johnson. We are now accustomed to the notion of great art as the
product of a flawed life. But in the eighteenth century, an age
largely devoted to the idea of discreet biography which concealed or
minimized the subject's weaknesses, a man like Johnson presented
formidable problems to the biographer and his readers. Although
Courtenay merely versified material which other writers had discussed
in much more detail, his poem is important bec