GREENFIELD, WILLIAm, was born in Lon don 1st April 1799. He received the elements of his education in Scotland, to which his family ori ginally belonged, but in his thirteenth year he be came apprentice to a London bookseller. Whilst but a child his talent and desire for learning lan guages shewed itself, and whilst engaged in his duties as a bookseller's apprentice he found means to gratify this tendency. Beginning with Hebrew, which he thoroughly mastered, he proceeded to the other Semitic dialects, from them to Greek and Latin, and then to French and other modern western tongues. These acquirements were all made whilst he was labouring in his master's service from six in the morning till six, and sometimes eight, in the evening, with the interval of meal hours. In 1822 he submitted to an eminent publisher, hlr. Bagster, the prospectus of a I'olyglott grammar, of nearly thirty languages, on the principles of com parative grammar. This led to Ids being employed to edit the Comprehensive Bible issued by that firm in 1826. In 1828-9 he was engaged in carrying through the press an edition of the Syriac New Testament for their Polyglott serics, and in 183o he prepared his revised translation of the N. T.
into Hebrew. He now became regularly engaged in connection with Messrs. Bagster's Biblical pub lications ; and, besides editing several works for them, lie prepared a lexicon of the Greek N. T., followed by an abridgment of Schmidt's Greek Concordance. In 1S3o he was appointed editor of foreign versions to the British and Foreign Bible Society, an appointment which exposed him to nnich obloquy on the part of some who sought to find occasion against the Society by attacking the notes in the ComprehensivP Bible as heretical and Leologian. Ife defended himself by collecting and publishing in a consecutive form the notes and prefaces of the book, leaving them to speak for themselves ; which they did to the full satisfaction of all competent judges. To the Bible Society his services were invaluable; but the excessive labour which these services and his devotion to literature imposed upon him overmastered his strength, and he sank into a premature grave on the 5th Nov.1831. He was a member of the Royal Asiatic Society, having been elected to this honour in compliment to his extensive Oriental acquirements.—W. L. A.