Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 12.djvu/45

* LAWBENCE. 33 LAWRENCE. passed tliird in tlio examination for the Bengal Presidency cadetship. His first years in the In- dian civil service were sjjent in Delhi and the neighborhood. On the annexation of the Punjab Lawrence was appointed Commissioner, and after- wards Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab. The restless Sikhs iiecanie so attached to his firm and beneficent rule that at the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny Lawrence was enalded to send troops to the relief of Delhi and elsewhere, and thus was instrumental in maintaining British dominion in India. On his return to England he received the thanks of Parliament, with the grant of a pen- sion of £1000 a year. He was made a baronet in 1858 and a privy councilor in 1S.59. In 1801 Lawrence was nominated one of the knights of the 'Star of India.' At the close of 1803 he was a]i|iointed to .succeed Lord Elgin as Viceroy of India, and was made a member of the India Council. His administration lasted until 1860, in which year he was raised to the House of Peers. At the first election of the London School Board in 1870, Lord Lawrence was elected chairman, a post he subsequently resigned. He died .lune 26. 1879, and was buried in West- minster Abbev. Consult biogi'aphies bv Smith (London, 188.3); Temple (London, ' 1889) ; Aitehison (London, 1892). LAWRENCE, S.int, the Deacon. One of the most celeliratcd martyrs of the early Church, the subject of many ancient panegyrics, and of one of the most elaborate of the hymns of Pruden- tius. He was one of the deacons of Kome, in the Pontificate of .Sixtus II. (257-2.58), and as such was especially charged with the care of the poor and the orphans and widows. In the persecution of Valerian, being summoned, according to the legend, before the praetor as a Christian, and I)e- ing called on to deliver up the treasures of the Church, he mockingly produced the poor and sick of his charge, declaring that 'those were his treasures': and on his persisting in his refusal to sacrifice, being condemned to be roasted on a gridiron, he continued throughout his tortures to mock his persecutors. Many of the details of his martyrdom are probably due to the imagina- tion of the poetical narrator; but the martyrdom is unqucstionaldy historical, and dates from the year 258. His fea-st is celebrated on August loth. The ground plan of the Escorial (q.v. ) is supposed to be that of a gridiron in reproduction of the instrument of the martyr's death. It was erected in his honor, because on his day, August 10, 1557, the forces of Philip II. of Spain won a great victory over the French at Saint-Quentin. LAWRENCE, Sir Thomas (1709-18.30). An English portrait painter. He was born at Bristol, !May 4. 1709. llis fatJier, who had been edu- cated for the law, was an actor and afterwards an inn-keeper. At the age of ten he portrayed the notables of Oxford in crayon, and when his father removed to Bath, his son's studio, although he was but twelve years old, was a favorite resort of beauty and fashion. In his seventeenth year he began to pnint in oils, and in 1787 he went to London, exhibiting a numlier of paintings and portraits at the Academy, the schools of which he entered. His attractive manner and appear- ance won his way info high society, and in 1789 he had attained Court patronage, and in the following year his painting, "An Actress." attracted 7nuch attention. In 1791 Oeorge III. induced the Acadeniv to elect him an associate. against its own rules, since lie was only twenty- one — an honor never since repeated. In 1792 he succeeded Sir .Joshua Keynolds as painter to the King, whose portrait he painted in the same year. He was in high favor with George I'., who kuighted him in 1815. In 1817 lie was sent to Aix-la-Chapelle to jior- tray the European sovereigns and nobles there assembled, including the Emperors of .-Vustria and Russia, the King of Prussia, and Prince Jletternich. At Rome he was leceived as a sec- ond Raphael and assigned apartments in the Quirinal, where he painted two of his best por- traits, those of Pius VII. and Cardinal Gonsalvi. He was made a member of the Academies of Rome and Florence, and on the evening of his return to England, in 1820, he was elected president of the Royal Academy. In 1825 he was sent to Paris to portray the King and the Dauphin. He possessed one of the finest collections of drawings of the old masters ever in private hands; part of which is now in the ^luseum of Oxford. He died in London, .January 7. 1830. Sir Thomas was the most celebrated painter of his day, but in the reaction against former ex- travagant praises, scant justice is now done him. He had an unusually acute perception of the graces of society — the elegant airs of the men, and the gracious smiles of the ladies. His execu- tion was facile, his composition and draughts- manship were good, but his portraits lacked character, and his color, though brilliant, was often hard and glassy. His most perfect works are his drawings in crayon and pencil. His few historical pieces were of little value, but some of his portraits, like those of ilrs. Siddons, and "An Actress," probably Miss Farren, are very beautiful. Among the most notable are the scries of the participants in the congress of Aix-la- Chapelle, noticed above, in Waterloo Gallery, Windsor Castle. The National Gallery possesses those of Angerstein, Benjamin West, Mrs. Sid- dons, Sir Samuel Romilly. Jliss Caroline Fry. and "Child with a Kid." besides others on loan. In the South Kensington Sluseum are those of Princess Caroline and Sir C. E. Carrington : in the National Portrait Gallery, George IV.. Prin- cess Caroline, Lord Thurlow. Lord Eldon. Wil- liam Windham, .lames Mackintosh. Wilberforce, Warren Hastings, Samuel Rogers. Thomas Camp- bell, and Elizabeth Carter. Consult : D. E. Williams, Life and Correxpond- eiLce of iS'iV Tlwmas Lnirrence (London, 1831); Lewis, Imitations of Sir Thomas Lawrence's Fin- rf,t Drairinr/s (London, 1839). LAWRENCE, Sir Wii.Ll.xc (1783-1807). A distingufshed English .surgeon, born at Cirences- ter in Gloucestershire. He was apprenticed in London in 1800 to ilr. Aberncthy. by whom he was appointed demonstrator of anatomy at Saint Bartholomew's Hospital in 1803. He was made surgeon to the hospital, and was chosen fellow of the Royal Society in 1813. In 1815 he became one of the professors of anatomy -to the Royal College of Surgeons; and in 1828-29 succeeded his teacher, Abernethy, as lecturer on surgery at Saint Bartholomew's. Taking frora this period onward an active share in questions of reform, Lawrence made innumerable enemies, though his reputation as a surgeon and the importance of his position as a medical practitioner, together with his fame as a valuable contributor to medical lit- erature, continued to bring him into recognition