an artificer whose business is to make bows; in which sense bowyers were distinguished from fletchers, who made arrows.

William, the most learned printer of his age, was born at Whitefriars, London, in December 1699. His father, whose name was also William, had been eminent in the same profession; and his maternal grandfather, Icubod Dawks, was employed in printing the celebrated Polyglot Bible of Bishop Walton. He received his early education under Mr Ambrose Bonwicke, a nonjuring clergyman at Headly, near Leatherhead, in Surrey; and in 1716 was admitted a sizar at St John's College, Cambridge. After leaving the university he entered into business with his father, who was an eminent printer. The attainments which Bowyer brought into the printing office had long been unusual in such establishments; and he was thus enabled to issue many important works in a style that elicited universal commendation, and placed his name in the foremost ranks of scholarship.

One of his most valuable contributions to literature was an excellent edition of the Greek Testament, published in 1763, in 2 vols. 12mo, entitled Novum Testamentum Graecum; ad fidem Graecorum solam Codicum MSS. nunc primum impressum, adstipulante Joanne Jacobo Wetsteinio, juxta Sectiones Jo. Alberti Bengelii divisionis: et nova interpretatione sapienti illustratum: Accessere in altero volume, Emendationes Conjecturales eorumque doctorum undecunque collectae. New editions of these conjectural emendations appeared in 1772, 1782, and 1812.

In 1774 he corrected a new edition of Schrevelius's Greek Lexicon; to which he added a number of words, which he himself had collected in the course of his studies. Considerable manuscript additions were also made by him to the lexicons of Hederic and Buxtorf, the Latin ones of Faber and Littleton, and the English dictionary of Bailey; and he left behind him many other proofs of his critical skill in the learned languages. In 1774 was published The Origin of Printing, in two Essays. The original idea of this valuable tract was Bowyer's, but it was completed by Nichols.

His death took place in November 1777, when he had nearly completed his seventy-eighth year. For more than half a century he was unrivalled as a learned printer, and many of the most masterly productions of this kingdom issued from his press. To his literary and professional abilities he added an excellent moral character, inflexible probity, and an uncommon alacrity in relieving the necessities. (Nichols' Anecdotes Literary and Biographical of William Bowyer.)