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William Shaw (Gaelic Scholar)
William Shaw (1749–1831) was a Scottish Gaelic scholar, writer, minister and Church of England cleric. He is known also as friend and biographer of Samuel Johnson. His 1781 paper on the Ossian controversy is still considered a good survey of critical points. Life Shaw was born on 3 February 1749 at Clachaig in the parish of Kilmorie on the Isle of Arran. He was educated at Ayr and at the University of Glasgow, where he graduated M.A. in 1772. On leaving university he went to London, where he was employed by a merchant as a tutor. He became acquainted with Dr. Samuel Johnson, and was one of the literary coterie which met at Bolt Court and Streatham Park. Entering the ministry of the Church of Scotland, Shaw was presented by the Duke of Gordon, in July 1779, to the parish of Ardclach in the presbytery of Nairn; but resigned the charge 1 August 1780. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London on 17 May 1781. Induced by Johnson, he took holy orders in the Churc ...
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Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709  – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' calls him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford until lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London and began writing for ''The Gentleman's Magazine''. Early works include ''Life of Mr Richard Savage'', the poems ''London'' and ''The Vanity of Human Wishes'' and the play ''Irene''. After nine years' effort, Johnson's '' A Dictionary of the English Language'' appeared in 1755, and was acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". Later work included essays, an annotated ''The Plays of William Shakespeare'', and the apologue ''The History of R ...
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Highland Society Of London
The Highland Society of London is a charity registered in England and Wales, with "the view of establishing and supporting schools in the Highlands and in the Northern parts of Great Britain, for relieving distressed Highlanders at a distance from their native homes, for preserving the antiquities and rescuing from oblivion the valuable remains of Celtic literature, and for promoting the improvement and general welfare of the Northern parts of Great Britain". History The Society was founded in 1778 by Highland gentlemen resident in London and was incorporated by Act of Parliament on 21 May 1816. Within a year of its foundation, its members had come to include a number of notable Scots:Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster Bt., ''An Account of the Highland Society of London'' (London, 1813)Appendix II/ref> * Lord Macleod * Sir Harry Monro * Hon Archibald Fraser of Lovat * Archibald Macdonald * Hon. General Fraser (President) * Lord Adam Gordon * The Earl of Eglinton * John Macpherso ...
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18th-century Scottish Episcopalian Priests
The 18th century lasted from January 1, 1701 ( MDCCI) to December 31, 1800 ( MDCCC). During the 18th century, elements of Enlightenment thinking culminated in the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions. During the century, slave trading and human trafficking expanded across the shores of the Atlantic, while declining in Russia, China, and Korea. Revolutions began to challenge the legitimacy of monarchical and aristocratic power structures, including the structures and beliefs that supported slavery. The Industrial Revolution began during mid-century, leading to radical changes in human society and the environment. Western historians have occasionally defined the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work. For example, the "short" 18th century may be defined as 1715–1789, denoting the period of time between the death of Louis XIV of France and the start of the French Revolution, with an emphasis on directly interconnected events. To historians who expand ...
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Scottish Lexicographers
Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish identity and common culture *Scottish people, a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland *Scots language, a West Germanic language spoken in lowland Scotland *Symphony No. 3 (Mendelssohn), a symphony by Felix Mendelssohn known as ''the Scottish'' See also *Scotch (other) *Scotland (other) *Scots (other) *Scottian (other) *Schottische The schottische is a partnered country dance that apparently originated in Bohemia. It was popular in Victorian era ballrooms as a part of the Bohemian folk-dance craze and left its traces in folk music of countries such as Argentina ("chotis"Span ... * {{disambiguation Language and nationality disambiguation pages ca:Escocès ...
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People From The Isle Of Arran
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, or legal responsibility. The defining features of personhood and, consequently, what makes a person count as a person, differ widely among cultures and contexts. In addition to the question of personhood, of what makes a being count as a person to begin with, there are further questions about personal identity and self: both about what makes any particular person that particular person instead of another, and about what makes a person at one time the same person as they were or will be at another time despite any intervening changes. The plural form "people" is often used to refer to an entire nation or ethnic group (as in "a people"), and this was the original meaning of the word; it subsequently acquired its use as a plural form of per ...
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1831 Deaths
Events January–March * January 1 – William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing '' The Liberator'', an anti-slavery newspaper, in Boston, Massachusetts. * January 10 – Japanese department store, Takashimaya in Kyoto established. * February–March – Revolts in Modena, Parma and the Papal States are put down by Austrian troops. * February 2 – Pope Gregory XVI succeeds Pope Pius VIII, as the 254th pope. * February 5 – Dutch naval lieutenant Jan van Speyk blows up his own gunboat in Antwerp rather than strike his colours on the demand of supporters of the Belgian Revolution. * February 7 – The Belgian Constitution of 1831 is approved by the National Congress. *February 8 - Aimé Bonpland leaves Paraguay. * February 14 – Battle of Debre Abbay: Ras Marye of Yejju marches into Tigray, and defeats and kills the warlord Sabagadis. * February 25 – Battle of Olszynka Grochowska (Grochów): Polish rebel forces divide a Ru ...
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1749 Births
Events January–March * January 3 ** Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont. ** The first issue of ''Berlingske'', Denmark's oldest continually operating newspaper, is published. * January 21 – The Teatro Filarmonico, the main opera theater in Verona, Italy, is destroyed by fire. It is rebuilt in 1754. * February – The second part of John Cleland's erotic novel ''Fanny Hill'' (''Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure'') is published in London. The author is released from debtors' prison in March. * February 28 – Henry Fielding's comic novel ''The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling'' is published in London. Also this year, Fielding becomes magistrate at Bow Street, and first enlists the help of the Bow Street Runners, an early police force (eight men at first). * March 6 – A "corpse riot" breaks out in Glasgow after a body disappears from a churchyard in the Gorbals district. Suspicion fa ...
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Hannah More
Hannah More (2 February 1745 – 7 September 1833) was an English religious writer, philanthropist, poet and playwright in the circle of Johnson, Reynolds and Garrick, who wrote on moral and religious subjects. Born in Bristol, she taught at a school her father founded there and began writing plays. She became involved in the London literary elite and a leading Bluestocking member. Her later plays and poetry became more evangelical. She joined a group opposing the slave trade. In the 1790s she wrote Cheap Repository Tracts on moral, religious and political topics, to distribute to the literate poor (as a retort to Thomas Paine's Rights of Man). Meanwhile, she broadened her links with schools she and her sister Martha had founded in rural Somerset. These curbed their teaching of the poor, allowing limited reading but no writing. More was noted for her political conservatism, being described as an anti-feminist, a "counter-revolutionary", or a conservative feminist. Early life B ...
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Thomas Osborne (publisher)
Thomas Osborne (bapt. April 1704? – 21 August 1767) was an English publisher and bookseller noted for his association with author Samuel Johnson and his purchase of the library of Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford. Early life His father, also named Thomas Osborne, was a bookseller and stationer based in Gray's Inn, London. Osborne himself was probably the Thomas Osborne, son of Thomas and Brilliana Osborne, who was baptised on 13 April 1704 in the church of St Andrew's in Holborn. Osborne probably took up a major role in his father's business sometime before 1728, when he was made a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers. In 1729, the firm also issued its first catalogue, a practice for which Osborne would become famous. Osborne the elder died in 1744, leaving the business and several properties to his son. Career Osborne was well known for buying large libraries and offering the books for sale at fixed prices listed in catalogues. Most famou ...
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Thomas Davies (bookseller)
Thomas Davies (c. 1713 – 1785) was a Scottish bookseller and author. He studied at the University of Edinburgh and was for some years on the stage; but having been ridiculed by Churchill in ''The Rosciad'' he gave up acting and opened a bookshop in Covent Garden. It was here that in 1763 he introduced Boswell to Dr. Johnson, who was his close friend and to whom he dedicated his edition of the works of Massinger. He wrote a successful ''Life of Garrick'' (1780), which passed through four editions, and ''Dramatic Miscellanies'' (three volumes, 1783–4). Life He was born about 1713, and was educated at the University of Edinburgh (1728 and 1729). In 1736 he appeared in George Lillo's '' Fatal Curiosity'' at the Haymarket, then under Henry Fielding's management. He then tried bookselling, but failed and returned to the stage. On 24 January 1746 he attempted the part of Pierre in '' Venice Preserved'', which was performed for his benefit at Covent Garden. He next became a tr ...
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John Clark (Gaelic Scholar)
John Clark (died 1807) was a Scottish land agent, Gaelic scholar and writer. Life Clark was a Highlander, who was drawn into the controversy over the Ossian poems written by James Macpherson, by a chance meeting. He worked for two decades in Wales, in particular on developing the road system, and was the steward of Viscount Hereford. He died at Pembroke in 1807. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Works Clark published: *''Works of the Caledonian Bards'', Edinburgh, 1778, collection of supposed translations of Highland poems *''An Answer to Mr. Shaw's Inquiry into the Authenticity of the Works of Ossian'', Edinburgh, 1781, against William Shaw, who claimed that Clark had admitted to him that his ''Works'' was faked. *In the ''General View of Agriculture'' county surveys, reports on Brecknockshire, Radnorshire and Herefordshire for the Board of Agriculture, each in 1794. The Herefordshire survey commented on the prevalence of sunken lane A sunken la ...
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Ossian
Ossian (; Irish Gaelic/Scottish Gaelic: ''Oisean'') is the narrator and purported author of a cycle of epic poems published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson, originally as ''Fingal'' (1761) and ''Temora'' (1763), and later combined under the title ''The Poems of Ossian''. Macpherson claimed to have collected word-of-mouth material in Scottish Gaelic, said to be from ancient sources, and that the work was his translation of that material. Ossian is based on Oisín, son of Fionn mac Cumhaill (anglicised to Finn McCool), a legendary bard in Irish mythology. Contemporary critics were divided in their view of the work's authenticity, but the current consensus is that Macpherson largely composed the poems himself, drawing in part on traditional Gaelic poetry he had collected. The work was internationally popular, translated into all the literary languages of Europe and was highly influential both in the development of the Romantic movement and the Gaelic revival. Macpherson's f ...
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