- Roman History from the Settlement of the Empire by Augustus Cæsar to the Removal of the Imperial Seat by Constantine the Great … Vol. II. For the use of His Highness the Duke of Gloucester,’ 1698, 8vo. This history was completed in five volumes, but Echard wrote the first two only, the other three being written, as he states in the preface to the third volume, ‘by one whose person is unknown to me;’ they, however, appear to have been revised by him. A number of editions of each volume were published, and the sets are made up of different editions.
- ‘An Abridgment of Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World in Five Books,’ &c., 1700, 8vo.
- ‘A General Ecclesiastical History from the Nativity of our blessed Saviour to the First Establishment of Christianity by Humane Laws under Emperour Constantine the Great,’ &c., 1702, fol.; second edition, 1710, 8vo, 2 vols.; third, 1712, 8vo; sixth, 1722, 8vo.
- ‘The Works of Lucian, translated from the Greek by several eminent hands,’ 1710?–11, 8vo, 4 vols. The only piece attributed in the contents to Echard is ‘The Auction of Philosophers,’ iii. 323–44.
- ‘The Classical Geographical Dictionary, revised, with a recommendatory preface by Laurence Echard,’ 1715, 12mo.
- ‘Maxims and Discourses, Moral and Divine: taken from the Works of Arch-Bishop Tillotson and Methodiz'd and Connected,’ 1719, 8vo.
- ‘The History of the Revolutions in England under the Family of the Stuarts, from the year 1603 to 1690. … By F. J. D'Orleans of the Society of Jesus. Translated from the French original printed at Paris. To which is prefixed an Introduction to this History, by Laurence Echard.’ The second edition, 1722, 8vo.
- ‘The History of the Revolution and the Establishment of England in the year 1688. Introduc'd by a necessary Review of the Reign of King Charles and King James the Second. In three books,’ 1725, 8vo; another edition, Dublin, 1725, 8vo.
[Biog. Brit. (1793), v. 532–5; Chalmers's Biog. Dict. (1814), xiii. 15–18; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England (1806), iii. 106–8; Cunningham's Lives of Eminent Englishmen (1835), iv. 416–18; Graduati Cantabr. (1823), p. 150; European Mag. (1806), xlix. 418–19; Davy's Suffolk Collections, vol. lii. (Addit. MS. 19128); Birch's Biog. Anecd. (Addit. MS. 4222; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
ECHLIN, ROBERT (d. 1635), bishop of Down and Connor, was second son of Henry Echlin, laird of Pittadro in Fifeshire (who was in Edinburgh Castle during the famous siege of 1573), and Grizel, daughter of Robert Colvile of Cleish, Kinross. Robert studied at the university of St. Andrews, where in 1596 he took the degree of A.M. In 1601 he was inducted by the presbytery of Dunfermline in the second congregation of Inverkeithing on the coast of his native county. Not much is known of his ministry here. In the ‘Register of the Privy Council of Scotland’ (vii. 654) there is a record of the following ‘caution’ under date of September 1606: ‘Mr. James Wode of Dunune for Andro Wode in Rossyth, 1,000l., not to harm Mr. Robert Echline, minister at Innerkeithing.’ Forbes's ‘Certaine Records’ (p. 455) mentions a visit which ‘Mr. Robert Eklin, minister at Ennerkeithing,’ paid on 9 Jan. 1606 to the ministers imprisoned at Blackness. During his incumbency of Inverkeithing he married Jane, daughter of James Seton of Latrisse. On 4 March 1612–13 he was appointed by James I of England to the bishopric of Down and Connor. It is said that the king was induced to give him this see ‘calling to mind the memory and merit of the laird of Pittadro, his father, and his long sufferings’ (MS. Memoirs of the Echlin Family, compiled by George Crawfurd). Several Scotchmen were about this time designedly put into Ulster bishoprics, the ‘plantation’ consisting largely of Scots. The property of this diocese had been much deteriorated by Echlin's predecessor, James Dundas (also a Scotchman), who, though he died in the year of his appointment (1612), ‘lived long enough to commit great wastes on his bishopric by fee-farms and other long leases at inconsiderable rents’ (Ware, History of the Bishops of Ireland). In 1615 Echlin, bent on repairing these wastes, went to London, and representing to the king ‘the great decay and unconscionable concealments and usurpations of the temporalities, tithes, advowsons, and other spiritualities’ (ib.), got a commission appointed to inquire into the facts of the case, and also received permission to hold in commendam any one dignity or prebend in the diocese when void, ‘that he might be better enabled to maintain the dignity of his place,’ a permission in virtue of which in 1618 he took the precentorship of his cathedral, exchanging it for the treasurership in the following year. A return of the state of his diocese, which he drew up in 1622, is preserved among the manuscripts of Trinity College, Dublin.
The main interest of Echlin's life arises from his connection with the early presbyterian ministers of the north of Ireland, the first of whom, Edward Brice, settled in co. Antrim almost contemporaneously with the bishop's arrival, and was, along with others of the presbyterian clergy of that day, received and acknowledged by the bishop, who
