JOHNSON, Samuel - COURTENAY, John; WOLCOT, John.

£375 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the Late Samuel Johnson, with Notes; [bound with] Bozzy and Piozzi, or, the British Biographers, a Town Eclogue. First Dublin editions of these two long poems issued shortly after the death of Samuel Johnson in 1784; the first a sympathetic biography from an admirer, the second a biting work of satire, mocking "Bozzy" Boswell for setting out to write the Life (1791) and Hester Thrale Piozzi for writing Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson (1786).John Wolcot (bap. 1738, d.1819) became immensely popular for his satires, which he published under the pseudonym Peter Pindar. "Exuberantly vituperative in print as Peter Pindar, Wolcot was of an attractive and sympathetic character" in person; on his occasional meetings with Samuel Johnson, he "had too great an apprehension of [Johnson's] powers of conversation to attempt disputing with the giant of the day" (ODNB).According to Boswell, the work by his friend John Courtenay (1738-1816) is "a performance of such merit, that had I not been honoured with a very kind and partial notice in it, I should echo the sentiments of men of the first taste loudly in its praise" (Life, I, p. 173).Bozzy and Piozzi is stated fourth edition on the title page. Both works were first published in London earlier in the same year, and the 1786 editions are scarce in commerce.

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