DONALDSON, JOAN WILLIAM, was b. in London, June 10, 1811. His father, Stuart Donaldson, a wealthy merchant, was descended from an old Scotch family; his mother was daughter of J. dundall, esq, of Snail Green, Lancashire. He was educated first at the university of London, and afterwards at Trinity college, Cambridge. He graduated as B.A. in the year 1834, and obtained the second place in the first class of the classical tripos. The year following, he was elected fellow. His first work was a volume, entitled The Theater of the Greeks, partly original and partly compiled, which, having been carefully revised and improved in six successive editions, still holds its place as a school and college class-book. He was still resident at Cambridge, holding the office of assistant-tutor of Trinity, when he published the first edition of his New Cratylus (1839), a work remarkable for its research, erudition, and boldness, and as being the first attempt, on a large scale, to familiarize Englishmen with the principles of comparative philology, as established by the great scholars of Germany—Pott, Bopp, Grimm, and' others. Availing himself largely, but not servilely, of the labors of these men, he developed their principles, and continued their researches, with a special application to the history, structure, and etymology of the Greek language. The New Cratylus, in its latest, largest, and most improved form, is still the most important work which has been written in English upon the subject. Mr. D. soon after married the daughter of sir John Mortlock of Stapleford, and accepted the post of head-master of the grammar school of Bury St. Edmunds, having previously taken holy orders. Notwithstanding the engrossing nature of his duties as head-master, he found time to prosecute and extend his linguistic studies, embracing in their wide range Hebrew and Arabic, and most of the dialects of modern Europe. In the Varranianus, of which the first edition appeared in 1844, he undertook to accomplish for Latin philology what in the New Cratylus he had done for Greek. He dedicated the work to the bishop of St. Davids (Dr. Thirlwall), in grateful recognition of the benefits derived from his Cambridge teaching.
Among his other works of this period may be mentioned an edition of Pindar, of the Antigone of Sophocles (with a verse translation), Maskil le Sopher (a treatise on Hebrew grammar), and finally Jash-ar, a -book written in Latin, and published at Berlin, the object of which was, by critical tests, to distinguish the fragments of the lost book of Jasliar imbedded in the Pentateuch. This book was violently assailed by the so-called "religious press," which did not prevent its undaunted author from issuing a second edition.
Soon afterwards lie resigned his place at Bury St. Edmunds, and returned to Cam bridge, where he gave a course of lectures on Latin synonyms, and occupied himself with tuition. Here he wrote a volume. entitled Christian Orthodoxy. Some critics vehemently disputed its right to the title. A smaller volume on classical scholarship followed. He had previously issued a Greek Grammar and a Latin Grammar for the use of schools. These, during his residence at Cambridge, he recast and enlarged, so as to rival in pro fundity and copiousness any other works on the same subjects. In 1856, he was appointed one of the classical examiners in the university of London, an honor which he owed chiefly to the strenuous report of Mr. Grote, the historian of Greece.
He was engaged in superintending the compilation of a new Greek Lexicon, when his health, for the first time, began to show symptoms of failure. A tour in Germany during the summer of 1860 did not produce any change for the better. Incipient disease of the brain, the result of overwork, showed itself first by neuralgic pains, and afterwards by more alarming symptoms. He removed to London, and died in his mother's house, after some weeks of great suffering, borne with calm and patient cour age, on the 10th of Feb., 1861. In private life, he was distinguished by kindness of heart, ready wit, unfailing vivacity, and varied conversational powers. It ought, per haps, to be mentioned that a little work, published anonymously under the title of Phile leutherus Anglicanus, which made no small sensation at the time of its appearance, has been very generally attributed to Dr. Donaldson.