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 diffoluteness of the times; for some of his compositions are such as he must have reviewed with detestation in his later days, when he published those Sermons which Felton has commended. Perhaps, like some other foolish young men, he rather talked than lived viciously, in an age when he that would be thought a Wit was afraid to say his prayers; and whatever might have been bad in the first part of his life, was surely condemned and reformed by his better judgment. In 1683, being then master 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 preben dary of Gloucester, became a proctor in VOL. II. convocation S 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. K fuspect that all fubordination and government is endangered. : IN G. W 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-school, where he was a scholar 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 studies with so 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 manuscripts. The books S2 books were certainly not very long, the manuscripts not very difficult, nor the remarks very large; for the calculator will find that he dispatched seven a-day, for every day of his eight years, with a remnant that more than fatisfies most other students. 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 same year in which he was made master of arts, he published a confutation of Varillas's account of Wicliffe; and, engaging in the study of the Civil Law, became doctor in 1692, and was admitted advocate at Doctors Commons. He had already made some translations from the French, and written some humerous and fatirical pieces; when, in 1694, Molefworth 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 This book offended prince George; and the Danish minister presented 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 controversy is now forgotten; and books of this kind seldom live long, when interest and resentment have ceased. In 1697 he mingled in the controversy between Boyle and Bentley; and was one of those who tried what Wit could perform in opposition 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 love S 3 |