SOMNER (William), an eminent English antiquary in the 17th century, was born in 1606. His first treatise was that on the Antiquities of Canterbury (his native city), dedicated to archbishop Laud. He then applied himself to the study of the Saxon language; and having made himself master of it, he perceived that the old glossary prefixed to Sir Roger Twysden's edition of the laws of king Henry I. printed in 1644, was faulty in many places; he therefore wrote notes and observations, large and learned, on that edition, with a very useful glossary. His Treatise of Gavelkind was finished about 1648, though not published till 1660. Our author was zealously attached to king Charles I. and in 1648 he published a poem on his sufferings and death. His skill in the Saxon tongue led him to inquire into most of the European languages ancient and modern. He assisted Dugdale and Dodsworth in compiling the Monasticon Anglicanum. His Saxon Dictionary was printed at Oxford in 1659. He died in 1669.