In 1760, under the name of Smith, he appeared in Samuel Foote's comedy of The Minor, relying on his good looks, which were prematurely dulled by his excesses.
He married, and was next, for a short time, tutor to the young Philip Stanhope in succession to the notorious William Dodd.
[2] Shaw made a verbal assault on the satirist Charles Churchill, by whose work he was influenced, with Robert Lloyd, George Colman and William Shirley, in The Four Farthing Candles (London, 1762).
(1766), in which living poets contend for pre-eminence in fame by running, with a portrait of Samuel Johnson (republished in The Repository, 1790, ii.
He published a Monody to the Memory of a Young Lady who died in Childbed, with a poetical dedication to Lord Lyttelton, (1768) after his wife's death.
Next year he found utterance in Corruption, a Satire, inscribed to Richard Grenville, Earl Temple, and subsequently (1770) in An Elegy on the Death of Charles Yorke, the Lord Chancellor, which was generally tho thought have been suppressed by the family making a payment to the author.
During the final years of his life Shaw contributed to The Freeholder's Magazine and other periodicals, with caustic comments on persons and current events.