Greenfield, William

Greenfield, William, a celebrated linguist, was born in London April 1, 1799. In his thirteenth year he was apprenticed to a London bookseller. His love of the study of languages was so great that, while laboring all day in his master's service, he acquired successively Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and several modern languages. In 1822 he submitted to Mr. Bagster, a publisher in London, the prospectus of a Polyglot Grammar of nearly thirty languages, on the principles of comparative grammar. He was employed to edit the Comprehensive Bible issued by Bagster in 1826. In 1828-9 he edited an edition of the Syriac New Testament, and in 1830 he prepared a revised translation of the N.T. into Hebrew, both for Bagster's Polyglot. He prepared a Lexicon of the Greek N.T., followed by an abridgment of Schmidt's Greek Concordance. In 1830 he was appointed editor of foreign versions to the British and Foreign Bible Society. His excessive labor overmastered his strength, and he died November 5, 1831. — Kitto, Cyclop. page 178; Allibone, Dict. of Authors, 1:734; Imperial Magazine, January and February 1834.