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© 2023
Proposal for Printing William Shaw, An Analysis of the Scotch Celtic Language
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By Johnson, Samuel

Samuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand

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PROPOSALS FOR PRINTING WILLIAM SHAW, AN ANALYSIS OF THE SCOTCH CELTIC LANGUAGE (1777)
[Editorial Introduction]
Johnson’s relationship with William Shaw (1749–1831) began in 1774. As Shaw himself relates in his early biography of Johnson (1785), the lexicographer encouraged the young man to publish his manuscript on Gaelic grammar and introduced him to the printer and publisher William Strahan.1 They decided on subscription publication; proposals were issued, and the book was printed in December 1777 (Bibliography, II.1345–46). Johnson’s composition of the proposals for Shaw’s book was the first of his several contributions to Shaw’s career. Most notably, Johnson assisted Shaw in defending his Enquiry into the Authenticity of the Poems Ascribed to Ossian (1781).2 A rare copy of the proposals in the John Johnson Collection at Oxford University provides the copy-text for this item.
[Proposal]
March 1777.
Proposals for printing by subscription, inscribed, by permission, to the Right Honourable the Earl of Eglinton:1 An Analysis of the Scotch Celtic Language. By William Shaw, native of one of the Hebrides. The book will be elegantly printed in one volume in quarto. Price half a guinea, to be paid at the time of subscribing.


Page 575

The books will be delivered in November 1777, by J. Murray, Fleet-Street, J. Donaldson, Arundel Street, Strand, and Richardson and Urquhart, No. 91, Royal Exchange, London; C. Elliot, Edinburgh, and Dunlop and Wilson, Glasgow, where subscriptions are also received.
Though the Earse2 dialect of the Celtic language has, from the earliest times, been spoken in Britain, and still subsists in the northern parts and adjacent islands, yet by the negligence of a people rather warlike than lettered, it has hitherto been left to the caprice and judgment of every speaker, and has floated in the living voice, without the steadiness of analogy or direction of rules. An Earse grammar is an addition to the stores of literature, and its author hopes for the indulgence always shewn to those that attempt to do what was never done before. If his work shall be found defective, it is at least all his own; he is not like other grammarians a compiler or transcriber; what he delivers, he has learned by attentive observation among his countrymen, who perhaps will be themselves surprized to see that speech reduced to principles, which they have used only by imitation.
The use of this book will however not be confined to the mountains and islands; it will afford a pleasing and important subject of speculation, to those whose studies lead them to trace the affinity of languages, and the migrations of the ancient races of mankind.
As this book is intended for the curious and the learned, a few copies more than what are subscribed for will be printed.3
The subscribers names will be printed.


Page 576

Editorial Notes
1 See Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Late Samuel Johnson, in Early Biographies, p. 174; cf. Life, III.106–7.
2 Life, IV.252–53; Bibliography, II.1537. SJ also tried to help Shaw with an appointment as chaplain (Letters, III.102), and he evidently urged him to become an Anglican clergyman after he encountered difficulties in the Church of Scotland (ODNB).
1 Archibald Montgomery, eleventh Earl of Eglinton (1726–96); for Eglinton’s connection with the project, see Life, III.107 and 488.
2 Earse: “The Gaelic of Scotland” (OED, s.v. Erse).
3 Three hundred and fifty copies were printed, of which 296 were sold by subscription (Bibliography, II.1344).
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Document Details
Document TitleProposal for Printing William Shaw, An Analysis of the Scotch Celtic Language
AuthorJohnson, Samuel
Creation Date1777
Publ. DateN/A
Alt. TitleN/A
Contrib. AuthorN/A
ClassificationSubject: Language; Subject: Scots; Subject: Gaelic; Subject: Celtic; Genre: Proposal; Genre: Preface
PrinterN/A
PublisherN/A
Publ. PlaceN/A
VolumeSamuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand
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