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Laurence mouth was said to bear a striking resemblance to that of a shark. His 'Poetical Remains,' published with those of his brother Richard [q.v.], archbishop of Cashel (Dublin, 1872, 8vo), include some odes (one of which, on the 'Witches and Fairies' of Shakespeare, written as a school exercise in his sixteenth year, was much admired by Warton), and a few sonnets and some translations from the Greek, Latin, and Italian. Laurence was also a frequent contributor to the 'Gentleman's Magazine.' His dabblings in divinity appeared as 'Critical Remarks on Detached Passages of the New Testament, particularly the Revelation of St. John,' Oxford, 1810, 8vo, edited by his brother. They are wholly worthless.

[Memoirs prefixed to Epistolary Corresp. and Poetical Remains; Coote's Cat. of English Civilians; Cat. of Oxford Graduates; Brougham's Statesmen of the Reign of George III; Life and Letters of Sir Gilbert Elliot, first Earl of Minto, i. 139; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, ii. 638; Gent. Mag. 1809, pt. i. p. 282; European Mag. 1809, pt. i. p. 241; Ann. Reg. 1809, p. 664.]  LAURENCE, JOHN (d. 1732), writer on gardening, a native of Stamford Barnard, Northamptonshire, entered at Clare Hall, Cambridge, 20 May 1685, and graduated B.A. in 1668. He became fellow of Clare Hall, prebendary of Sarum, and chaplain to the Bishop of Salisbury. He was rector of Yelvertoft, Northamptonshire, and afterwards became rector of Bishop's Wearmouth, where he died 18 May 1732. A copperplate of Laurence, by Vertue, is prefixed to his 'Clergyman's Recreation.' He left one son, John, rector of St. Mary, Aldermanbury, and three daughters. His brother Edward is separately noticed.

Laurence's chief works apart from sermons were: 1. 'The Clergyman's Recreation, shewing the Pleasure and Profit of the Art of Gardening,' 1714; 4th edit. 1716. 2. 'New System of Agriculture, being a Complete Body of Husbandry and Gardening,' 1726; the ordering of fish ponds, brick-making, and other employments of rural economy are treated at length. 3. 'On Enclosing Commons,' 1732. 'Paradice Regain'd, or the Art of Gardening, a Poem,' 1728, a poor piece of versifying, is doubtfully attributed to Laurence.

[Works; information kindly supplied by L. Ewbank, esq.; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. viii. 298, ix. 585; Gent. Mag. 1732, p. 775.]  LAURENCE, RICHARD (1760–1838), archbishop of Cashel, born at Bath in 1760, was younger brother of French Laurence [q.v.]. He was educated at Bath grammar school and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 14 July 1778 with an exhibition. After graduating B.A. in 1782 (M.A. in 1785), he in 1787 became vicar of Coleshill, Berkshire, where he took pupils. He also contributed to the 'Monthly Review' and undertook the historical department of the 'Annual Register.' Shortly afterwards he held the vicarage of Great Cheverell, and the rectory of Rollstone, Wiltshire. In June 1794 he took the degrees of B.C.L. and D.C.L. as a member of University College. Upon his brother's appointment to the regius professorship of civil law, in 1796, he was made deputy professor, and again settled in Oxford. In 1804 he delivered the Bampton lectures, 'An Attempt to illustrate those Articles of the Church of England which the Calvinists improperly consider Calvinistical,' 1805; 2nd edit. 1820; 3rd edit. 1838. The Archbishop of Canterbury presented him in 1805 to the rectory of Mersham, Kent; and in 1811 he was collated to the valuable rectory of Stone, near Dartford, in the same county.

From youth Laurence read widely in theology and canon law, and in later life he studied oriental languages. Accordingly in 1814 he was appointed regius professor of Hebrew and a canon of Christ Church, Oxford. In 1822, after the death of his wife, he reluctantly accepted the archbishopric of Cashel, Ireland. He resided at Cashel until the Church Temporalities Act of 1833 annexed the dioceses of Waterford and Lismore to that of Cashel and Emly, when he selected Waterford as the future place of residence for himself and his successors.

Laurence governed his dioceses with ability and tact. He died on 28 Dec. 1838 in Merrion Square, Dublin, and was buried in the vaults of Christ Church Cathedral there, in the choir of which a marble tablet was erected to his memory. The clergy of Cashel also erected a handsome monument to him in their cathedral; and in that of Waterford a small slab records the fact that it was owing to Laurence that Waterford remained the home of a resident bishop.

Laurence's wife was Mary Vaughan, daughter of Vaughan Prince, merchant, of Faringdon, Berkshire. Henry Cotton [q.v.], dean of Lismore, was his son-in-law.

Laurence's writings are models of exactness and judicious moderation. His erudition is well illustrated by the three volumes in which he printed, with Latin and English translations, Ethiopic versions of apocryphal books of the bible. The first, the 'Ascensio Isaiæ Vatis' (8vo, Oxford, 1819), which he dated A.D. 