LOWTH, WILLIAM, D.D., was born in Lon don in 1661. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, whence he was elected to a scholarship at St. John's College, Oxford, in 1675, before he had completed his fourteenth year. He became M.A. in 1683, and B.D. in 1688. His first publication was a Vindication of the Divine authority of the O. and N. T., Lond. 1692, in answer to Le Clerc's attacks on the in spiration of Scripture. This brought him to the notice of Bishop Mew of Winchester, who made him his chaplain, and presented him with a pre bendal stall at Winchester in 1696, and the living of Buriton with Petersfield in 1699, which prefer ments he held till his death in 1732. He was less eminent than his son, the Bishop of London, but he was believed to have been the profounder scholar ; though such was his modesty that it is rather from his contributions to the works of others than from his own that the extent and depth of his reading are to be estimated. He had carefully read and annotated upon almost every Greek and Latin author, whether profane or ecclesiastical, and he dispensed his stores with a most liberal hand. The edition of Clentens Alexana'rinus, by Dr. (afterwards Archbishop) Potter ; that of Yosephits, by Hudson ; and the Ecclesiastical Historians, by Reading, were enriched with valuable notes from his pen, and many other scholars were indebted to his labours for important aid. In addition to the Vindication, of which a second edition ap peared in 1699, with an admirable dissertation on the objections against the Pentateuch then current, Lowth published in 17°8 Directions for the pro fitable reading of Holy Scripture, an excellent little work which has gone through many editions.
The work with which his name is chiefly connected is his Commentary on the Prophets, originally pub lished in separate portions, between 1714 and 1725, and afterwards collected in a folio volume as a continuation of Bishop Patrick's commentary on the earlier portion of the O. T., in which form it has been frequently reprinted, together with Whitby, Arnald, and Lowman on the N. T. The merits of his commentary were never very great, and it has been long since entirely superseded. Its tone is pious but cold, and he entirely fails to grasp the high spiritual and poetical character of the prophetical writings. Besides, his knowledge of Hebrew was far too small for such a work, his critical discernment was feeble, and in his zeal for Messianic interpretations he too often neglects the first historical sense of a passage. His method of unfolding the meaning of a passage, however, is simple, direct, and brief ; and his interpretations, if not always satisfactory, and often shallow, have the merit of being uniformly intelligible, and characterised by good sense.—E. V.