small-pox in the winter of 1632, and entitled ‘Anthologia in Regis Exanthemata; seu gratulatio Musarum Cantab. de felicissime asservata Regis Caroli valetudine,’ Cambridge, 1633 (reprinted in Nichols's Collection of Poems, vii. 76–85). 3. Latin iambics in a similar collection congratulating the king on his safe return from Scotland in July 1633, entitled ‘Rex redux, sive Musa Cantabrigiensis, etc., de incolumitate et felici reditu Regis Caroli post receptam coronam comitiaque peracta in Scotia,’ Cambridge, 1633. 4. Latin iambics prefixed to ‘Senile Odium,’ by Peter Hausted [q. v.], 1633. 5. Latin elegiacs in another collection on the birth of the Duke of York on 15 Oct. 1633, entitled ‘Ducis Eboracensis Fasciæ a Musis Cantabrigiensibus raptim contextæ,’ Cambridge, 1633. 6. Latin stanzas in a like collection in honour of the birth of the Princess Elizabeth on 28 Dec. 1635, entitled ‘Carmen Natalitium ad cunas illustrissimæ principis Elizabethæ decantatum, intra nativitatis Domini solemnia, per humiles Cantabrigiæ musas, A.D. 1635.’ 7. Iambic Latin verses in another collection, which was entitled ‘Συνωδία, sive Musarum Cantabrigiensium concentus et congratulatio ad serenissimum Britanniarum Regem Carolum de quinta sua subole, clarissima Principe sibi nuper felicissime nata, A.D. 1637.’
On the intelligence of his death reaching Cambridge, King's fate was commemorated by members of the university in a series of effusions which clearly show that he had inspired among his friends no ordinary esteem and regard. These compositions appeared in two parts, both printed at the university press in 1638; the former containing twenty-three pieces in Latin and Greek, including one by Farnaby, was entitled ‘Justa Edovardo King naufrago ab amicis mœrentibus, amoris et mneias charin.’ The second part contains thirteen English poems, and is entitled ‘Obsequies to the Memorie of Mr. Edward King, Anno Dom. 1638.’ Of these Milton's ‘Lycidas’ is the last. Milton probably modelled his poem after an Italian eclogue entitled ‘Phyllis,’ in which Phyllis's death is bemoaned by a shepherd called Lycidas; the author, Actius Syncerus Sannazarius, was one of Milton's favourite poets.
[Masson's Life of Milton, vol. i.; information supplied from college documents by Dr. Peile, master of Christ's College; letter by Professor J. W. Hales in Athenæum, July 1891, pp. 159–160.]
KING, EDWARD (1735?–1807), miscellaneous writer, born about 1735, was the only son of Edward King of Norwich. He studied for a time at Clare Hall, Cambridge, as a fellow-commoner. On 18 Sept. 1758 he was admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar in Michaelmas term 1763 (Lincoln's Inn Register and Bar Book). An ample fortune bequeathed to him by his uncle, Mr. Brown, a wholesale linendraper of Exeter, rendered him independent of his profession, but he regularly attended the Norfolk circuit for some years, and was appointed recorder of King's Lynn. In his attendance on the circuit he defended a lady from a faithless lover, and afterwards married her. King was elected F.R.S. on 14 May 1767 (Thomson, Hist. of Roy. Soc. Append. iv. p. lii) and F.S.A. on 3 May 1770 (Gough, Chronological List of Soc. Antiq. 1798, p. 23). He contributed several papers to the ‘Archæologia,’ among which were ‘Remarks on the Abbey Church of Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk’ (iii. 311–14), reprinted separately in 1774, ‘Observations on Antient Castles,’ with four plates (iv. 364–413), and ‘A Sequel to Observations,’ with thirty-one plates (vi. 231–375), also issued separately in 1782. On the death of Jeremiah Milles [q. v.] in February 1784, King was elected his successor in the presidency of the Society of Antiquaries on the understanding that Lord De Ferrars (afterwards Earl of Leicester) would assume the office on the ensuing 23 April (Nichols, Illustr. of Lit. vii. 461). King, however, sought to obtain re-election, and that by the employment of ungenerous tactics, but was defeated by an overwhelming majority. His speech on quitting the chair was printed, and he subsequently printed a letter in vindication of his conduct and reflecting upon the earl, and thenceforward ceased to make any communications to the Society (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. viii. 57).
King's first separate work appeared in 1767 under the title of ‘An Essay on the English Constitution and Government,’ 8vo. In 1780 he issued, without his name, ‘Hymns to the Supreme Being, in Imitation of the Eastern Songs,’ 8vo, of which two editions were issued in 1795 and 1798. In 1785 he circulated, also anonymously, ‘Proposals for Establishing at Sea a Marine School, or Seminary for Seamen,’ &c., 8vo, in a letter addressed to John Frere, vice-president of the Marine Society. Jonas Hanway, in a report made to the society in July of that year, had proposed a large marine school on land. King pointed out objections to this scheme, and suggested the fitting up a man-of-war as a marine school (cf. Gent. Mag. vol. lv. pt. ii. pp. 904–5). In 1788 he published ‘Morsels of Criticism, tending to illustrate some few passages in the Holy Scriptures, upon philosophical principles
