the name of Vitalis has been incorrectly placed on his grave. Widmore, in his 'History of Westminster Abbey.' gives his epitaph, which says that
Pro mentis vitae dedit illi Laura nomen;
Detur ei vita Laurea pro meritis.
Sporley (MSS. Cott. Claud. A. viii. f. 44) says an image in marble was placed on his tomb. A statue of him is on the new north front of the abbey.
A pension of six marks was set aside for his anniversary. All writers unite in praise of his learning and abilities. That he was chosen a judge in various causes, and was a favourite with long, pope, and archbishop, is a sufficient testimony to his worth, fits, Bale, and Flete (in the manuscript history of the abbey) give long lists of his writings, but many of those are the work of his namesake of Durham. Some homilies intended for different seasons of the year and for the various festivals of the church, about a hundred in all, extant in the library of Balliol College, Oxford, are undoubtedly by the abbot (Coxe, Catalog. Codicum MSS. i. 70, Balliol 223, ff. 255, sec. xii.)
[Besides authorities given above see Hardy's Descriptive Catalogue, Bolls Ser. ii. 409-10; Bale, i. 196; Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 787; Dugdale's Monasticon, i. 269, ii. 186; Twysden's Script, col. 688; Dart's Hist, of Westminster Abbey, ed. 1723, vol. ii. p. xv; Neale and Brayley's Hist. 1818, i. 34; Sortees's Durham, i. 24; Stanley's Memorials of Westminster Abbey, pp. 355, &c]
LAWRENCE, ANDREW (1708–1747), engraver, known in France as André Laurent, was born in College Court, Westminster, in 1708. He was a natural son of Andrew Lawrence, apothecary to Queen Anne. While yet a child he showed a marked aptitude for art, and was placed under the tuition of Mons. Regnier, a drawing-master and printseller in Newport Street, Soho. He appears to have been a youth of ability, for besides painting in oil and drawing in crayons, he soon acquired a good knowledge of Latin, French, Italian, and German, and became proficient in music, especially on the violin and flute, and in every branch of science which could be of advantage to an artist. The death of his father placed him in possession of an ample fortune, but unfortunately he fell under the influence of one Riario, who induced him to experiment on the transmutation of the baser metals into gold. He soon lost his fortune, and left England a ruined man. He went first to Bologna, and thence to Paris, where he studied engraving under Philippe Le Bas, who employed him to etch plates for the scanty remuneration of thirty sous, or fifteenpence, a day. His etchings are executed with great taste, and among them are the 'Halte d'Officiers,' 'Les Sangliers forcés,' and 'Halte de Cavalerie' after Wouwerman, 'Le Soir' after Berchem, and 'Le Courrier de Flandres' after Both, which were finished, but not always improved, by Le Bas. He afterwards worked for Arthur Pond, the portrait-painter and engraver, and etched plates which were completed by Jean Auaran. One of these was 'La Moisson' after Wouwerman. He executed thirty-five works in all, of which 'Saul consulting the Witch of Endor,' after Salvator Rosa, was wholly engraved by him. He likewise etched 'Les Adieux' after Wouwerman, 'La Conversation.' 'L'Hiver,' and 'Le Joueur de Quilles' after Teniers, and also after Wouwerman 'The Death of the Staff.' which was finished by Thomas Major, who left in manuscript a memoir of Lawrence, written in 1785.
Lawrence died in Paris on 8 July 1747, and was buried in a timber-yard outside the Porte St.-Antoine, then the usual place of interment for heretics. Nagler (Künstler-Lexicon, vii. 334) and Le Blanc (Manuel de l'Amateur d'Estampes, ii. 605) are wrong in ascribing to this engraver 'La Bénédicité,' after Greuze, and some other plates, which are the work of Pierre Laurent.
[Athenæum, 1869, ii. 505; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers, ed. Graves, 1886–9; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of the English School, 1878; Basan's Dictionnaire des Graveurs, 1789, i. 312; Nagler's Monogrammisten, 1868–79, i. 364.]
LAWRENCE, CHARLES (d. 1760), governor of Nova Scotia, was appointed ensign in Colonel Edward Montague's foot (afterwards 11th Devon regiment) in 1727, and in 1741 was promoted to captain-lieutenant in Houghton's foot (then raising as the 54th, since the 46th foot, and now 1st Derby). He became captain in the regiment in 1742, and major in 1747. In some Irish lists of the period the name of Stringer Lawrence [q. v.] is wrongly inserted in his stead. He accompanied the 45th to Nova Scotia; was appointed a member of council on 19 Oct. 1749, and the year after commanded a small expedition to Chinecto, which built Fort Lawrence at the head of the bay of Fundy. Lawrence's journal of the expedition is in British Museum Addit. MS. 32821, f. 345. Parkman (Montcalm and Wolfe, vol. i.) relates Lawrence's subsequent troubles with the unhappy Acadians in much detail. He succeeded General Hopson in the government of the colony in 1753,
