oden 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.

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DUK E.

F Mr. RICHARD DUKE I can find few memorials. He was bred at Westminster* 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 enlisted himself among the Wits. He was the familiar friend of Otway; and was engaged, among other popular names, in the tranflations 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.

* He was admitted there in 1670; was elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1675; and took his master's degree in 1682. N.

They make part of a volume published by Tonfon in 8vo. 1717, containing the poems of the earl of Rofcommon, and the duke of Buckingham's Effay on Poetry; but were first publifhed in Dryden's Mifcellany, as were moft, if not all, of the poems in that collection. H.

With the wit he feems 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 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 judgement.

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 then took orders; and, being made prebendary of Gloucefter, became a proctor in convocation for that church, and chaplain to Queen Anne.

In 1710, he was prefented by the bishop of Winchefter 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.

ILLIAM KING was born in London in

W 1663; the Son of Ezekiel King, a gen

tleman.

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 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 ftanding he had read over, and made remarks upon, twenty-two thousand 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 dispatched feven 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 fame year in which he was made mafter of arts, he publifhed a confutation of Varillas's account of Wickliffe; 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 supposes liberty to be established, and by which his adverfaries fufpect that all fubordination and government is endangered.

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 reft. The controverfy is now forgotten: and books of this kind feldom live long, when intereft and refentment 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 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 leaft 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 his pro

4

feffion,