Item NN/3/40 - A poetical history of the heathen gods and heroes

KING, WILLIAM, son of Ezekiel King, Clerkenwell, London, and Elizabeth, dau. of Nicholas Backhouse, St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, London; b.; adm.; KS 1678; elected to Christ Church, Oxford 1681, matr. 16 Dec 1681, aged 18, Westminster Student 19 Dec 1681 – Dec 1693, Faculty Student from 23 Dec 1693; BA 1685; MA 1688 (incorp. Cambridge 1705); BCL and DCL 1692; adm. advocate, Doctors’ Commons 12 Nov 1692; Vicar-General, Armagh 1692; Judge of Admiralty Court (I) 1701; Writer of Gazette Dec 1711 – c. Jul 1712; an able but indolent man, of strong Tory and High Church views, a moderate poet and a witty miscellaneous writer; known by contemporaries as “King of the Commons”; according to Johnson, “though his life had not been without irregularity, his principles were pure and orthodox, and his death was pious” (Lives of the Poets, ed. G. B. Hill, ii, 31); author of an attack upon Bentley entitled Dialogues of the Dead, 1699, and other books and pamphlets; a collection of his Original Works, ed. Nichols, was published in 1776; d. 25 Dec 1712. Buried North Cloister, Westminster Abbey. DNB.