Castell, Edmund

CASTELL, EDMUND: English Orientalist; b. at East Hatley (12 m. s.w. of Cambridge), Cambridgeshire, 1606; d. at Higham Gobion (10 m. s.s.e. of Bedford), Bedfordshire, 1685. He studied at Emmanuel and St. John's colleges, Cambridge (B.A., 1625; M.A., 1628; B.D., 1635; D.D., 1661). He assisted Walton on his Polyglot (1657), contributing the editions of the Samaritan, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions, and other (unacknowledged) portions, and also spent freely of his own fortune for the work. In 1669 he brought out in two volumes, folio, at London, his Lexicon Heptaglotton, Hebraicum, Chaldaicum, Syriacum, Samaritanum, Æthiopicum, Arabicum, conjunctim; et Persicum separatim, specially prepared to supplement the Polyglot. This work was the result of eighteen years of the most unremitting labor, cost the author £12,000, and left him ruined in fortune and health. His work was enthusiastically received on the Continent, but neglected in England. Late in life he received some favor from the king, was appointed chaplain in ordinary in 1666, prebendary of Canterbury and professor of Arabic at Cambridge 1667, and was successively vicar of Hatfield Peverell, Essex; rector of Wodeham Walter, Essex; and rector of Higham Gobion.

Bibliography: A. à Wood, Athenæ Oxonienses, ed. P. Bliss, iii. 883, 4 vols., London, 1813–20; twenty-three of his letters appear in J. Lightfoot, Whole Works, ed. J. R. Pitman, 13 vols., London, 1822–25. Consult DNB, ix, 271–272.