Scottish Dictionary

Dr John Jamieson, the well-known antiquary and compiler of the Scottish Dictionary, was pastor of the Anti-
burgher congregation of Forfar from 1780 to 1797, when he left for Edinburgh. He laboured at Forfar for the
small sum of 50 pounds a year, and before leaving for tlse metropolis had made himself popular by the publication of
Sermons on the heart,” Reply to Dr Priestly,” and other works.

While at Forfar he had the good fortune to become acquainted with George Dempster of Dunnichen, at whose table he was a frequent guest, and it was there
that the happy idea of the Scottish Dictionary was; first suggested to him. This origiuated with Grim Thorkelim.
the learned professor of antiquities at Copenhagen, before meeting with whom Jamieson had looked upon tlse Scottish language merely as a species of jargon, or at must a corrupt dialect of the English and Anglo-Saxon. The Professor having spent a few mouths in Scotland before meeting with Mr Jamieson, had noted some hundreds of purely Gothic words then in cummon use in the shires of Forfar and Sutherland. ‘these, he believed, were unknown to the Anglo-Saxon, though familiar to
the Icelandic tongue; ansi it was this hint which induced Jamieson to collect the more singular words and expressinns of the inhabitants of Angus, and gave rise to his Scottish Dictionary, one of the most remarkable monuments of industry and learning of which any country or age can boast.

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