John Leng (1665–1727) was an English churchman and academic,bishop of Norwich from 1723.^[1]

He was born atThornton le Dale, nearPickering, inYorkshire. He received his early education atSt. Paul's School, and obtained an exhibition atCatharine Hall, Cambridge, where he was admitted as asizar 26 March 1683. He graduated B.A. in 1686. His subsequent degrees were M.A. 1690, B.D. 1698, D.D. 1716.^[2]

He was elected fellow of his college 13 September 1688, and subsequently became known as a tutor and Latinist. scholar. At the consecration of the new chapel of his college bySimon Patrick,bishop of Ely, in 1701, he preached the sermon. In 1708 he was presented by his old pupil, Sir Nicholas Carew, to the rectory ofBeddington,Surrey, which he heldin commendam to his death.

In 1717 and 1718 he delivered theBoyle Lectures, which were published the following year, his subject beingThe Natural Obligations to believe the Principles of Religion and Divine Revelation. He became chaplain in ordinary to George I, and in 1723 was appointed bishop of Norwich. He was consecrated atLambeth by ArchbishopWilliam Wake on 3 November of the same year. He held the see barely three years, having died in London ofsmall-pox, caught at the coronation of George II, 26 October 1727. He was buried inSt. Margaret's, Westminster, where a mural tablet was erected to his memory in the south aisle of the chancel.

In 1695 he published thePlutus and theNubes ofAristophanes, with a Latin translation, and in 1701 he edited the Cambridge edition ofTerence, adding a dissertation on the metres of the author. He also published a revised edition ofSir Roger L'Estrange's translation ofCicero'sDe Officiis.

Leng published fourteen single sermons, preached on public occasions, among them one preached before theSociety for the Reformation of Manners atBow Church, 29 December 1718. His Boyle Lectures went to a second edition.

Leng was twice married. By his first wife he had no children. By his second, Elizabeth, daughter of a Mr. Hawes of Sussex, he had two daughters, Elizabeth and Susanna.

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: "Leng, John".Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

• 1665 births
• 1727 deaths
• Bishops of Norwich
• Fellows of St Catharine's College, Cambridge
• English classical scholars
• English male writers
• 18th-century Church of England bishops
• 17th-century Anglican theologians
• 18th-century Anglican theologians

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