LAURA, in Ecclesiastical History, a name given to a collection of little cells at some distance from one another, in which the hermits in ancient times lived together in a wilderness or desert place.

These hermits did not live in community, but each monk provided for himself in his own distinct cell. The most celebrated lauras mentioned in ecclesiastical history were in Palestine; as the laura of St Euthymus, four or five leagues distant from Jerusalem; the laura of St Saba, near the brook Kedron; and the laura of the Towers, near the river Jordan.

Poet-LAUREATE, an officer of the household of the kings of Britain, whose business consists only in composing an ode annually on his majesty’s birth-day, and the new year; and sometimes also, though rarely, on occasion of any remarkable victory. Of the first institution of poets laureate, Mr Wharton has given an account in his History of English Poetry. “Great confusion,” says he, “has entered into this subject, on account of the degrees in grammar, which included rhetoric and versification, anciently taken in our universities, particularly at Oxford, on which occasion a wreath of laurel was presented to the new graduate, who was afterwards usually styled Poeta Laureatus. These scholastic laureations, however, seem to have given rise to the appellation in question. I will give some instances at Oxford, which at the same time will explain the nature of the studies for which our academical philologists received their rewards. About the year 1470, one John Watson, a student in grammar, obtained a concession to be graduated and laureated in that science, on condition that he composed one hundred Latin verses in praise of the university, and a Latin comedy. Another grammarian was distinguished with the same badge, after having stipulated that at the next public act he would affix the same number of hexameters on the great gates of St Mary’s Church, that they might be seen by the whole university. This was at that period the most convenient mode of publication. About the same time one Maurice Byrchensaw, a scholar in rhetoric, supplicated to be admitted to read lectures, that is, to take a degree in that faculty; and his petition was granted, with a provision that he should write one hundred verses on the glory of the university, and not suffer Ovid’s Art of Love, and the Elegies of Pamphilius, to be studied in auditory. Not long afterwards, one John Bulman, another rhetorician, having complied with the terms imposed, of explaining the first book of Tully’s Offices, and likewise the first of his Epistles, without any pecuniary emolument, was graduated in rhetoric, and a crown of laurel was publicly placed on his head by the hands of the chancellor of the university. About the year 1489 Skelton was laureated at Oxford, and in the year 1493 was permitted to wear his laurel at Cambridge. Robert Whittington affords the last instance of a rhetorical degree at Oxford. He was a secular priest, and eminent for his various treatises on grammar, and for his facility in Latin poetry. Having exercised his art many years, and submitting to the customary demand of a hundred verses, he was honoured with the laurel in the year 1512.

“With regard to the poet-laureate of the kings of England, he is undoubtedly the same that is styled the hing s versifier, and to whom 100 shillings were paid as his annual stipend in the year 1251. But when or how that title commenced, and whether this officer was ever solemnly crowned with laurel at his first investiture, I will not pretend to determine, after the searches of the learned Selden on this question have proved unsuccessful. It seems most probable that the barbarous and inglorious name of versifier gradually gave way to an appellation of more elegance and dignity; or rather, that at length those only were in general invited to this appointment who had received academical sanction, and had merited a crown of laurel in the universities for their abilities in Latin composition, particularly Latin versification. Thus the kings laureate was nothing more than a graduated rhetorician employed in the service of the king. That he originally wrote in Latin, appears from the ancient title versificator ; and may be moreover collected from the two Latin poems which Baston and Gülielmus, who appear to have respectively acted in the capacity of royal poets to Richard I. and Edward II. officially composed on Richard’s crusade, and Edward’s siege of Stri-veling Castle.

“Andrew Bernard, successively poet-laureate of Henry VII. and VIII. affords a still stronger proof that this officer was a Latin scholar. He was a native of Thoulouse, and an Augustine monk. He was not only the king’s poetlaureate, as it is supposed, but his historiographer, and preceptor in grammar to Prince Arthur. He obtained many ecclesiastical preferments in England. All the pieces now to be found which he wrote in the character of poet-laureate are in Latin. These are, An Address to Henry VIII. for the most auspicious beginning of the tenth year of his reign, with an Epithalamium on the marriage of Francis the dauphin of France with the king’s daughter; A New Year’s Gift for the year 1515; and Verses wishing prosperity to his majesty’s thirteenth year. He has left some Latin hymns; and many of his Latin prose pieces, which he wrote in the quality of historiographer to both monarchs, are remaining.

“I am of opinion that it was not customary for the royal laureate to write in English, till the reformation of religion had begun to diminish the veneration for the Latin language; or, rather, till the love of novelty, and a better sense of things, had banished the narrow pedantries of monastic erudition, and taught us to cultivate our native tongue.”