Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 31.djvu/174

King Sir Thomas Smyth, King's uncle. It was published in octavo at Dublin in 1732, a second volume being promised. Swift, after seeing the manuscript, declared that if he had read it when he was only twenty years of age he never would have written a satire. Hereupon ‘The Toast’ was completed in four books, inscribed to Swift, and printed in handsome quarto at London in 1736, with a frontispiece by H. Gravelot; it was reissued in 1747 (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. ii. 480, iii. 13, 4th ser. iv. 411, 5th ser. iii. passim). In his old age King regretted that he had not expunged many of the passages (Anecdotes, pp. 97–100), and at his death the remaining copies were burnt (, Lit. Anecd. viii. 241). The poem was reissued without the annotations in Almon's ‘New Foundling Hospital of Wit.’ A key to the characters is given in William Davis's ‘Second Journey round the Library of a Bibliomaniac,’ 1825, pp. 106–15, and an analysis of it in ‘Bentley's Miscellany’ for June 1857, pp. 616–25. About April 1737 King wrote a witty political paper called ‘Common Sense,’ in which he proposed a new scheme of government to the people of Corsica [i.e. Great Britain], advising them to make their king of the same stuff of which the Indians fashion their gods. He enclosed a copy in a letter to Swift, but both were intercepted at the post-office (, Works, ed. Scott, 1824, xix. 81). It seems to be identical with ‘Antonietti ducis Corseorum epistola ad Corseos de rege eligendo’ included in King's collected writings. Through King, Swift endeavoured in the ensuing July to arrange for the publication in London of his ‘History of the Four Last Years of the Queen.’ King remonstrated, and ultimately Swift abandoned the intention for a time (, Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, vii. 363). In January 1738–9 Swift entrusted King with a copy of the verses on his own death, that they might be published in London. King, alarmed at the satire upon Walpole and Queen Caroline, omitted more than a hundred lines, ‘in deference,’ he said, ‘to the judgment of Pope and other friends of Swift's,’ but greatly to Swift's annoyance (ib. viii. 444;, Works, xix. 176, 179). During the same year King met [q. v.] at Dr. Cheyne's house at Bath, and often acted as his amanuensis while he was translating Ramsay's ‘Travels of Cyrus’ (, Lit. Anecd. ii. 607). In this year also he issued his anonymous political satire entitled ‘Miltoni Epistola ad Pollionem’ (Lord Polwarth), 1738, fol., London, dedicated to Pope (Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. i. 255; Anecdotes, p. 151), of which a second edition appeared in 1740 (, Lit. Anecd. ii. 139). When honorary degrees were conferred upon the Duke of Hamilton, and Lords Lichfield and Orrery at Oxford in 1743, King delivered the Latin speeches, afterwards published as ‘Tres Oratiunculæ habitæ in Domo Convocationis Oxon.,’ 4to, London, Oxford (printed), 1743. The preface implies that he had been attacked by some anti-Jacobite canon. To keep up public interest in the affair, King himself wrote ‘Epistola Objurgatoria ad Guilielmum King, LL.D.,’ 4to, London, 1744, to which is attached a doggerel ‘Epistola Canonici reverendi admodùm ad Archidiaconum reverendum admodùm.’ Lastly appeared ‘A Letter to a Friend occasioned by Epistola Objurgatoria, &c., by S. P. Y. B.,’ 4to, London, 1744; the writer pretends to have been wrongly credited with the authorship of the ‘Epistola.’ The ‘Letter’ was doubtless by King, who thus in all probability created and wrote the whole controversy (Notes and Queries, 6th ser. xi. 33–4). Soon after the rebellion of 1745, King described the Duke of Cumberland as a man ‘qui timet omnia præter Deum.’ In 1748 he ridiculed [q. v.], who had published a guide to intending students, in ‘A Proposal for publishing a Poetical Translation, both in Latin and English, of the Reverend Mr. Tutor Bentham's Letter to a Young Gentleman of Oxford. By a Master of Arts,’ 4to, London, 1748 (another edit. 8vo, 1749).

At the opening of Radcliffe's Library, on 13 April 1749, King delivered a Latin speech in the Sheldonian Theatre, in which he adroitly contrived to express his Jacobitism. He introduced six times in his peroration the word ‘redeat,’ pausing each time for a considerable space, amid loud applause from a distinguished audience (, Life of Lord Shelburne, i. 35). Thomas Warton, in his poem ‘The Triumph of Isis,’ eulogises King's powers of oratory. The oration (printed in 1749, and again in 1750) gave rise to violent attacks. King was charged with barbarous Latin, Jacobitism, and propagation of sedition in the university. (1696–1771) [q. v.], cousin and patron of Edward Bentham, published some virulent ‘Remarks on Dr. K——'s Speech,’ by ‘Phileleutherus Londinensis,’ 1750. King retorted savagely in ‘Elogium Famæ inserviens Jacci Etonensis sive Gigantis; or, the Praises of Jack of Eton, commonly called Jack the Giant; collected into Latin and English Metre, after the Manner of Thomas Sternhold, John Hopkins, John Burton, and others. To which is added, a Dissertation on the Burtonian style. By a Master of Arts,’ 8vo, Oxford, 1750. The satire also