Castell, Edmund

Castell, Edmund, a learned English divine, was born at Hatley, Cambridgeshire, 1606, and was educated at Immanuel and St. John's colleges, Cambridge. While at the University he compiled his Lexicon Heptaglotton, Dictionary of Seven Languages (Lond. 1669, 12 vols. fol.), after seventeen years' labor on it. The publication cost him £12,000, and ruined him. He had, however, previously been appointed king's chaplain (1666) and Arabic professor at Cambridge, to which were afterwards added a prebend of Canterbury and the livings of Hatfield Peverell and Wodeham Walter. He died in 1685 rector of Higham Gobion, Bedfordshire. His Lexicon is one of the greatest monuments of industry known in literature. He was aided in its preparation by Dr. Murray, bishop Beveridge, and Dr. Lightfoot. Besides his vast labors on the Lexicon, he was eminently useful to Walton in the preparation of his Polyglot Bible. Walton acknowledges his services, but not adequately. — New General Biograph. Dictionary, 3:194; Bibl. Repository, 10:11; Todd, Life of Walton, vol. 1, ch. 5; Horne, Introduction, 5:252 (9th ed.).