Robert Shiels (also Shiells or Shields) (died 1753) was an English literary compiler.

Life

He was born in Roxburghshire around the end of the seventeenth century, and came to London as a journeyman printer. Samuel Johnson approved of him as a Jacobite, and gave him a place on the team of six helpers he used on his '' Dictionary''. Shiels died of consumption in May's Buildings, London, on 27 December 1753.

Works

Shiels was recommended to

Ralph Griffiths Ralph Griffiths (c.1720 – 28 September 1803) was an English journal editor and publisher of Welsh extraction. In 1749, he founded London's first successful literary magazine, the ''Monthly Review'' (1749–1845), and remained its editor un ...

and employed on the ''Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift'' (London, 5 vols. 1753), to which the name of

Theophilus Cibber Theophilus Cibber (25 or 26 November 1703 – October 1758) was an English actor, playwright, author, and son of the actor-manager Colley Cibber. He began acting at an early age, and followed his father into theatrical management. In 1727, Alex ...

was attached. The compilation was mainly based on work of

Gerard Langbaine Gerard Langbaine (15 July 1656 – 23 June 1692) was an English dramatic biographer and critic, best known for his ''An Account of the English Dramatic Poets'' (1691), the earliest work to give biographical and critical information on the playwrig ...

and Giles Jacob, with the help of Thomas Coxeter's. Any fresh research used was due to Shiels, with Cibber's role being revision. The later volumes are ascribed on the title-page to Cibber ‘and other hands.’ Apart from his compilations, Shiels wrote a didactic poem on ‘Marriage’ in blank verse (London, ‘at the Dunciad in Ludgate Street,’ 1748), and another piece in praise of Johnson's ‘Irene,’ called ‘The Power of Beauty’ (printed in George Pearch's ‘Collection,’ i. 186). Shiels venerated his countryman James Thomson, on whose death he published an elegy, ‘Musidorus’ (London, 1748).

References

External links

Robert Shiels
at th
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)
;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Shiels, Robert Year of birth missing 1753 deaths 18th-century Scottish writers 18th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in England