hanc meam admirandâ planè varietate conftare fatearis. Subito ad Batavos proficifcor lauro ab illis donandus. Prius vero Pembrochienfes voco ad certamen Poeticum.

Vale.

Illuftriffima tua deofculor crura.

E. SMITH.

DUKE.

DUKE.

F Mr. RICHARD DUKE I can find

Femme Boris. He was bred at Weltminf

ter and Cambridge; and Jacob relates, that he was fome time tutor to the duke of Richmond.

He appears from his writings to have been not ill qualified for poetical compofitions; and being confcious of his powers, when he left the university he enlifted himself among the wits. He was the familiar friend of Otway; and was engaged, among other popular names, in the translations of Ovid and Juvenal. In his Review, though unfinished, are fome 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 fome of his compofitions are fuch as he must have reviewed with deteftation in his later days, when he published those Sermons which Felton has commended.

Perhaps, like fome other foolish young men, he rather talked than lived viciously, in an age when

he

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 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 prebendary of Gloucester, became a proctor in convocation for that church, and chaplain to Queen Anne.

In 1710, he was prefented 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.

KING.

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

From Westminster-fchool, where he was a scholar on the foundation under the care of Dr. Busby, he was at eighteen elected to Christ-church, in 1681; where he is faid to have profecuted his ftudies with so much intenfenefs and activity, that, before he was eight years standing, he had read over, and made remarks upon, twenty-two thoufand odd hundred books and manufcripts. The books were certainly not very long, the manufcripts not very difficult, nor the remarks very large; for the calculator will find that he difpatched feven a-day, for every day of his eight years, with a remnant that more than fatisfies most other ftudents. He took his degree in the most expenfive manner, as a grand compounder; whence VOL. II.

it

it is inferred that he inherited a confiderable for tune.

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 tranflations from the French, and written fome humorous 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 thofe wild principles, by which he fuppofes liberty to be established, and by which his adversaries fufpect that all fubordination and government is endangered.

This book offended prince George; and the Danifh 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 reft. The controverfy is now forgotten; and books of this kind seldom live long, when intereft and refentment have ceafed.

In 1697 he mingled in the controverfy between Boyle and Bentley; and was one of thofe 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 fatirifed the Royal Society, at least Sir

Hans