finished, are some vigorous lines. His poems are not below mediocrity; nor have I found much in them to be praised.

With the Wit he seems to have shared the diffolutenefs of the times; for fome of his compofitions are fuch as he must have reviewed with deteftation in his later days, when he published thofe Sermons which Felton has commended.

Perhaps, like fome other foolish young men, he rather talked than lived viciously, in an age when he that would be thought a Wit was afraid to fay his prayers; and whatever might have been bad in the first part of his life, was furely condemned and reformed by his better judgment.

In 1683, being then mafter of arts, and fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge, he wrote a poem on the marriage of the Lady Anne with George Prince of Denmark.

He took orders; and being made prebendary of Gloucester, became a proctor in convocation

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convocation for that church, and chaplain to Queen Anne,

In 1710, he was presented by the bishop of Winchester to the wealthy living of Witney in Oxfordshire, which he enjoyed but a few months. On February 10, 1710-11, having returned from an entertainment, he was found dead the next morning. His death is mentioned in Swift's Journal,

KING.

WILLIAM

ILLIAM KING was born in London in 1663; the fon of Ezekiel King, a gentleman. He was allied to the family of Clarendon.

From Westminster-fchool, where he was à fcholar on the foundation under the care of Dr. Busby, he was at eighteen elected to Chrift-church, in 1681; where he is faid to have profecuted his ftudies with fo much intenseness and activity, that, before he was eight years standing, he had read over, and made remarks upon, twenty-two thousand odd hundred books and manufcripts. The S 2 books

books were certainly not very long, the manuscripts not very difficult, nor the remarks very large; for the calculator will find that he dispatched feven a-day, for every day of his eight years, with a remnant that more than fatisfies moft other ftudents. He took his degree in the most expensive manner, as a grand compounder; whence it is inferred that he inherited a confiderable fortune.

In 1688, the fame year in which he was made master of arts, he published a confutation of Varillas's account of Wicliffe; and, engaging in the ftudy of the Civil Law, became doctor in 1692, and was admitted advocate at Doctors Commons.

He had already made fome translations from the French, and written fome humorous and fatirical pieces; when, in 1694, Molesworth published his Account of Denmark, in which he treats the Danes and their monarch with great contempt; and takes the opportunity of infinuating those wild principles, by which he supposes liberty to be established, and by which his adversaries fufpect

fufpect that all fubordination and government is endangered.

This book offended prince George; and the Danish minifter prefented a memorial against it. The principles of its author did not please Dr. King, and therefore he undertook to confute part, and laugh at the rest. The controverfy is now forgotten; and books of this kind seldom live long, when interest and refentment have ceased.

In 1697 he mingled in the controverfy between Boyle and Bentley; and was one of those who tried what Wit could perform in oppofition to Learning, on a question which Learning only could decide.

In 1699 was published by him A Journey to London, after the method of Dr. Martin Lifter, who had published A Journey to Paris. And in 1700 he fatirised the Royal Society, at least Sir Hans Sloane their prefident, in two dialogues, intituled The Tranfactioneer.

Though he was a regular advocate in the courts of civil and canon law, he did not