‘Epimenides often pretended that he rose from death to life.’

The above notes are sufficient to shew that he read the ancients with attention, and knew how to select the most curious passages, and most deserving the reader’s observation.

About the year 1711 the Dr. published a piece called the British Palladium, or a welcome of lord, Bolingbroke from France.  Soon after this, Dr. Swift, Dr. Friend, Mr. Prior, with some others of lord Bolingbroke’s adherents, paid a visit to Dr. King, and brought along with them, the key of the Gazetteer’s office, together with another key for the use of the paper office.  The day following this friendly visit, the Dr. entered upon his new post; and two or three days after waited on his benefactor lord Bolingbroke, then secretary of state.

The author of the Doctor’s life, published by Curl, has related an instance of inhumanity in alderman Barber, towards Dr. King.  This magistrate was then printer of the Gazette, and was so cruel as to oblige the Dr. to sit up till three or four o’clock in the morning, upon those days the Gazette was published, to correct the errors of the press; which was not the business of the author, but a corrector, who is kept for that purpose in every printing-office of any consequence.  This slavery the Dr. was not able to bear, and therefore quitted the office.  The alderman’s severity was the more unwarrantable, as the Dr. had been very kind in obliging him, by writing Examiners, and some other papers, gratis, which were of advantage to him as a printer.  Those writings at that juncture made him known to the ministry, who afterwards employed him in a state paper called the Gazettee.

About Midsummer 1712 the Dr. quitted his employ, and retired to a gentleman’s house on Lambeth side the water; where he had diverted himself a summer or two before:  Here he enjoyed his lov’d tranquility, with a friend, a bottle, and his books; he frequently visited lord Clarendon, at Somerset-house, as long as he was able.  It was the autumn season, and the Dr. began insensibly to droop:  He shut himself up entirely from his nearest friends, and would not so much as see lord Clarendon; who hearing of his weak condition, ordered his sister to go to Lambeth, and fetch him from thence to a lodging he had provided for him, in the Strand, over against Somerset-house where next day about noon he expired, with all the patience, and resignation of a philosopher, and the true devotion of a christian; but would not be persuaded to go to rest the night before, till he made such a will, as he thought would be agreeable to lord Clarendon’s inclinations; who after his death took care of his funeral.  He was decently interred in the cloisters of Westminster-Abbey, next to his master Dr. Knipe, to whom a little before, he dedicated his Heathen Gods.——­The gentleman already mentioned, who has transmitted some account of our author to posterity, delineates his character in the following manner.  ’He was a civilian, exquisitely well read; a skillful judge, and among the learned, an universal scholar, a critic, and an adept; in all sciences and languages expert; and our English.  Ovid, among the poets:  In conversation, he was grave and entertaining, without levity or spleen:  As an author, his character may be also summ’d up in the following lines.’