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 4 written some humorous and satirical 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 insinuating those wild principles, by which he supposes liberty to be established, and by which his adversaries suspect that all subordination and government is endangered'. This book offended prince George3; and the Danish minister 5 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 6 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 7 method of Dr. Martin Lister, who had published A Journey to Paris'. And in 1700 he satirised the Royal Society, at least been discovered in Varillas's book.' For the correction of the statement that 'two Stephens succeeded the sons of William the Conqueror,' Varillas is referred to 'the man who shows the kings at Westminster.' King's Works, i. 5, 13. See also ante, DRYDEN, 124. * Robert Molesworth, afterwards first Viscount Molesworth. * Steele praised the book in The Plebeian, No. 1. Addison's Works, v. 245; post, ADDISON, 95. Swift addressed to Molesworth the fifth Drapier Letter. In it he says:—' I have buried at the bottom of a strong chest your Lordship's writings, under a heap of others that treat of liberty, and spread over a layer or two of Hobbes, Filmer, Bodin, and many more authors of that stamp.' Works, vi. 484. Gibbon, in his Memoirs, p. 17, quotes one of Molesworth's speeches to 'show the temper, or rather the intemperance, of the House of Commons.' 3 The husband of Princess (afterwards Queen) Anne. In Animadversions on a Pre tended Account of Denmark, King's Works, i. 35. King became Secretary to the Princess Anne in Jan. 1694. Ath. Oxon. iv. 666. Post, SWIFT, 28; Monk's Bentley, i.99, 130, 137, 264; Macaulay's Atterbury, Misc. Writings, 1871, p. 344. King published Dialogues of the Dead, relating to the present Controversy concerning the Epistles of Phalaris. Works, i. 133. 7 Lister was a physician and naturalist; he contributed largely to the Phil. Trans. of the Royal Society. Ib. i. 189. King, in his travesty, which he pretended to be a translation from Sorbière (post, SPrat, 6), constantly quotes Lister's words, putting them within quotation marks, Sir Hans Sloane their president, in two dialogues, intituled The Transactioneer 1. 8 Though he was a regular advocate in the courts of civil and canon law he did not love his profession, nor indeed any kind of business which interrupted his voluptuary dreams or forced him to rouse from that indulgence in which only he could find delight. His reputation as a civilian was yet maintained by his judgements in the courts of Delegates, and raised very high by the address and knowledge which he discovered in 1700, when he defended the earl of Anglesea against his lady, afterwards dutchess of Buckinghamshire3, who sued for a divorce, and obtained it *. 9 The expence of his pleasures and neglect of business had now lessened his revenues; and he was willing to accept of a settlement in Ireland, where, about 1702, he was made judge of the admiralty, commissioner of the prizes, keeper of the records in Birmingham's tower, and vicar-general to Dr. Marsh the primate 6. 10 But it is vain to put wealth within the reach of him who will not stretch out his hand to take it. King soon found a friend as idle and thoughtless as himself in Upton, one of the judges, who had a pleasant house called Mountown, near Dublin, to which as in the following passage :-""The cellar windows of most houses are grated with strong bars of iron," to keep thieves out; and Newgate is grated up to the top, to keep thieves in." Which must be a vast expense." King's Works, i. 192. 1b. ii. 1. Horace Walpole wrote on Feb. 14, 1753:-'Sir Hans Sloane is dead, and has made me one of the trustees to his museum, which is to be offered for £20,000 to the King, the Parliament,' &c. Letters, ii. 320. With money raised by lottery 'the Crown purchased the collection and Harleian MSS., together with Montagu House. Such was the commencement of the British Museum.' Ib. n. 'All appeals from the Ecclesiastical and Admiralty Courts are determined by a Court of Delegates, consisting of three Common Law Judges and five Civilians. Dr. King made an excellent judge as often as he was called to that Bench.' King's Works, Preface, p. 14; Remains, p. 15. See also Blackstone's Comm. iii. 66. 3 Post, SHEFFIELD, I n. 4 Post, SHEFFIELD, 20. The Earl was the grandson of the Earl mentioned ante, MILTON, 143. See Collins's Peerage, 1756, ii. 403. 5'Sole Commissary of the Prizes.' King's Remains, p. 13. 6 King's Works, Pref. p. 17. The salary of the keeper was onlyДioa year. Ib. p. 18. For King's successor, Addison, it was raised to £300. Post, ADDISON, 29. Swift wrote of the primate :-"That which relishes best with Marsh is mixed liquor and mixed company; and he is seldom unprovided with very bad of both.' Swift's Works, ix. 269. See also ib. viii. 283, where Swift speaks of 'very signal and lasting acts of public charity' done by the primate. King frequently retired; delighting to neglect his interest, forget his cares, and desert his duty 1. Here he wrote Mully of Mountown, a poem; by which, though 11 fanciful readers in the pride of sagacity have given it a political interpretation, was meant originally no more than it expressed, as it was dictated only by the author's delight in the quiet of Mountown 2. In 1708, when Lord Wharton was sent to govern Ireland 3, 12 King returned to London with his poverty, his idleness, and his wit; and published some essays called Useful Transactions*. His Voyage to the Island of Cajamai is particularly commended 3. He then wrote the Art of Love, a poem remarkable, notwithstanding its title, for purity of sentiment; and in 1709 imitated Horace in an Art of Cookery, which he published, with some letters to Dr. Lister". In 1710 he appeared, as a lover of the Church, on the side of 13 Sacheverell; and was supposed to have concurred at least in the projection of The Examiner. 'King's Remains, p. 13. King and Savage had much in common. Post, SAVAGE, 335. • Works, i. 211; iii. 203. 'He made it upon the happiness of being buried alive with Mully, the red cow that gave him milk; which the critics would have imposed upon the world for a political allegory.' King's Remains, p. 14. 3 Post, ADDISON, 29. Useful Transactions in Philosophy and other sorts of Learning. Works, ii. 57. In The Present State of Wit (1711), attributed to Gay, the writer, referring to the Transactions, says:-Though Dr. King has a world of wit, yet, as it lies in one particular way of raillery, the town soon grew weary of his writings; though I cannot but think that their author deserves a much better fate than to languish out the small remainder of his life in the Fleet Prison.' Swift's Works, vi. 154. 5 King's Works, ii. 132. 'It is a burlesque upon Hans Sloane's Voyage to Jamaica. Gent. Mag. 1779, p. 595. • King's Works, iii. 103. 7 Ib. iii. 41. A Vindication of Dr.Sacheverell, &c., King's Works, ii. 179. "Sacheverell was a clergyman of His eyes were open to all narrow intellects and an over-heated imagination. He had acquired some popularity among High Churchmen, and took all occasions to vent his animosity against the Dissenters.' For two sermons he was impeached at the bar of the House of Lords by the Commons. His trial lasted three weeks, during which all other business was suspended. The Queen's sedan was beset by the populace, exclaiming "God bless your Majesty and the Church. We hope your Majesty is for Dr. Sacheverell." The mob destroyed several meeting-houses, and plundered the dwelling-houses of eminent Dissenters. They even proposed to attack the Bank. The train-bands of Westminster continued in arms during the whole trial. Being found guilty he was prohibited from preaching for three years, and his two sermons were ordered to be burnt by the common hangman.' Smollett's Hist. of Eng. ii. 174-82. See also ante, DRYDEN, 109; post, SPRAT, 17; Halifax,9; ADDISON, YALDEN, 3; SWIFT, 27. 14,; It was a weekly paper, published 'to defend the measures' of the Tory ministry. Among its early contributors were St. John, Atterbury, and the operations of Whiggism; and he bestowed some strictures upon Dr. Kennet's adulatory sermon at the funeral of the duke of Devonshire 1. 14 The History of the Heathen Gods, a book composed for schools, was written by him in 17112. The work is useful; but might have been produced without the powers of King. The same year he published Rufinus, an historical essay3, and a poem, intended to dispose the nation to think as he thought of the duke of Marlborough and his adherents. 15 In 1711 competence, if not plenty, was again put into his power. He was, without the trouble of attendance or the mortification of a request, made gazetteer. Swift, Freind, Prior, and other men of the same party brought him the key of the gazetteer's office. He was now again placed in a profitable employment, and again threw the benefit away. An Act of Insolvency made his business at that time particularly troublesome; and he Prior. King is thought to have written Nos. II and 12. Swift wrote every number from 13 to 45. Swift's Works, iii. 185, 251-509; King's Works, Preface, p. 21; post, PRIOR, 22; SWIFT, 39. The Duke died in 1707. The adulation mainly lay in Kennet's praise of the Duke as a patriot. Measured by the standard of the day the sermon was not adulatory. Kennet, writes Hearne, 'had published a History full of whiggism, trifling Grub Street matter, and base reflections out of his way.' Hearne's Remains, i. 114. In his Ecclesiastical Synods, &c., 'he had,' says Burnet, 'laid Atterbury open in a thread of ignorance that run through his whole book' on Convocation. Hist. of my own Time, iii. 310. In 1718 he was rewarded with the Bishopric of Peterborough. For his description of Swift at court see post, POPE, 107. Some years after Kennet's death birth and place Indue a peer with honour, truth and Look in that breast, most dirty Yet still not heeding what your heart can teach, You go to church to hear these flatt'rers preach.' Imit. Hor. Epis. ii. 2. 220. It was this third Duke whom Johnson praised for his 'dogged veracity.' Boswell's Johnson, iii. 186, 378. "An Historical Account of the Heathen Gods and Heroes. 1710. 3 Rufinus, or an Historical Essay on the Favourite Ministry, Works, ii. 280. 4 Rufinus, or The Favourite. Imitated from Claudian, ib. iii. 218. 5 King's Remains, p. 161. Swift wrote on Jan. 8, 1711-12:-'I have got poor Dr. King to be Gazetteer, which will be worth £250 per annum to him, if he be diligent and sober, for which I am engaged.' Works, xv. 487. See also ¿b. ii. 444. 'The Gazetteer is one of the low appendices to the Secretary of State's office; and his business is to write the Government's newspaper, published by authority.' WARBURTON, Pope's Works, iv. 302. Warburton quotes Steele, who had held the post, as saying that 'the rule observed by all ministers was to keep the paper very innocent and very insipid.' Barber, the printer of the Gazette, 'obliged him to sit up till three or four in the morning of those days it would not wait till hurry should be at an end, but impatiently resigned it, and returned to his wonted indigence' and amusements. One of his amusements at Lambeth, where he resided, was to 16 mortify Dr. Tennison, the archbishop, by a publick festivity, on the surrender of Dunkirk to Hill; an event with which Tennison's political bigotry did not suffer him to be delighted. King was resolved to counteract his sullenness, and at the expence of a few barrels of ale filled the neighbourhood with honest merriment 3. In the Autumn of 1712 his health declined; he grew weaker 17 by degrees, and died on Christmas-day. Though his life had not been without irregularity his principles were pure and orthodox, and his death was pious". After this relation it will be naturally supposed that his poems 18 were rather the amusements of idleness than efforts of study; that he endeavoured rather to divert than astonish; that his thoughts seldom aspired to sublimity; and that, if his verse was easy and his images familiar, he attained what he desired. His purpose is to be merry; but perhaps, to enjoy his mirth, it may be sometimes necessary to think well of his opinions❝. was published to correct the errors of the press. The Act [10 Anne, c. 20] discharged many thousand prisoners. There were single advertisements that contained 700 names, every one of which paid one shilling at least.' King's Remains, p. 162. By the Act of 1737 each debtor had to give notice in the Gazette of his intention to take the benefit of the Act, 'for which he shall pay one penny to the printer. Gent. Mag. 1737, p. 367. În 1748, 'at the Quarterly Sessions for Surrey alone 460 prisoners were discharged by the late Insolvent Act.' lb. 1748, p. 330. For these Acts see Blackstone's Comm. ii. 484. ''Patrick is gone to the burial of an Irish footman, who was Dr. King's servant; he died of a consumption, a fit death for a poor starving wit's footman. The Irish servants always club to bury a countryman.' SWIFT, Works, ii. 434. 2 John Hill, brother to Mrs. Masham, the Queen's favourite. On the news 'that Mr. Hill had taken possession of Dunkirk a universal joy spread over the kingdom; this event being looked on as the certain forerunner of a peace.' SWIFT. Ib. v. 196. In this joy Tenison, as a Whig, did not share. King, hearing the Archbishop had ordered his gates to be shut, gave the watermen and others of Lambeth two or three barrels of beer in Three Cony Walk.' King's Remains, p. 164. * ' I remember,' writes Pope, 'Dr. King would write verses in a tavern three hours after he could not speak.' Pope's Works (E. & C.), x. 207. King's Remains, p. 166. • Hearne recorded a few days after King's death :-'He was a man of excellent natural parts, which he employed in writing little trivial things to his dying day, insomuch that though he had a good estate, was student of Christ Church formerly, and a few years since Judge Advocate in Ireland, yet he was so addicted to the buffooning way, that he neglected his proper business, grew very poor, and so died in a sort of contemptible manner.' Hearne's Remains, i. 271. |