of “A Journey to London.”’ A poem, ‘The Furmetory,’ was published in 1699, and others were circulated in manuscript. In 1700 King published anonymously ‘The Transactioner, with some of his Philosophical Fancies, in two Dialogues,’ a satire upon Sir Hans Sloane, who edited the ‘Transactions’ of the Royal Society. In 1701 King defended his friend the Earl of Anglesea in an action for separation brought by the countess. He is said to have shown ability in spite of his usual indolence. Directly afterwards he was appointed judge of the admiralty court in Ireland, and, as appears by a letter in the British Museum (Add. MS. 28887, f. 369), was in Ireland by 13 Nov. 1701. He probably obtained his post through the influence of the Earl of Rochester, lord-lieutenant from 1700 to February 1703, or of Pembroke, then lord high admiral, to whose son he afterwards dedicated his ‘Miscellanies.’ On 10 Jan. 1703 King wrote to John Ellis, M.P., begging that an order might be sent to swear him, delay being caused by the obstinacy of a Scottish lord mayor, in whose hands was his commission. King also asked Ellis to support his request for the post (which he obtained) of vicar-general of Armagh (ib. 28890, f. 17). King was likewise sole commissioner of the prizes, but appears to have neglected all his duties. While idling at Mountown, near Dublin, the house of his friend Judge Upton, he wrote ‘Mully of Mountown,’ Mully being the red cow that furnished him with milk. It was surreptitiously published in 1704, together with another poem, ‘Orpheus and Eurydice,’ as the ‘Fairy Feast.’ King reprinted the poems, asserting that they had no hidden meaning, and added ‘Some Remarks on the Tale of a Tub.’
In 1705, or a little later, King published a collection of ‘Miscellanies.’ On 19 June 1707 he was appointed keeper of the records in the Birmingham Tower at Dublin Castle, but resigned on 28 Nov. (Lascelles, Liber Munerum Publicorum Hiberniæ, 1824, pt. ii. p. 78). Probably King returned to England at the close of 1707. It seems that he had by this time spent his private fortune, and had nothing to rely upon except his studentship at Christ Church. In February 1708 Lintot paid him 32l. 5s. for ‘The Art of Cookery, in imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry; with some Letters to Dr. Lister and others, occasioned principally by the title of a book published by the Doctor, being the Works of Apicius Cælius, concerning the Soups and Sauces of the Ancients.’ It was published in the following month without date (Daily Courant, 13 March 1708). Two spurious editions of this amusing poem, perhaps his best work, appeared, and it was coarsely attacked in ‘A Letter to Dr. W. King, occasioned by his Art of Cookery.’ In February 1709 Lintot paid King 32l. 5s. for ‘The Art of Love,’ in imitation of Ovid, but dealing with ‘innocent and virtuous’ love, if not always within modern bounds of propriety.
In 1709 appeared also the amusing ‘Useful Transactions in Philosophy and other sorts of Learning,’ which were ‘to be continued monthly, as they sell.’ Three parts appeared, for each of which King received only 5l. These ‘Transactions’ are a parody of the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ and the third part again satirises Sloane. The ‘Memoirs of Martin Scriblerus’ probably owe some hints to this book.
King supported the high church party in the Sacheverell controversy by several pamphlets, including ‘A Friendly Letter from honest Tom Boggy to the Rev. Mr. Goddard, Canon of Windsor;’ ‘A Second Letter to Mr. Goddard, occasioned by the late Panegyric given him by the Review,’ 1710; ‘A Vindication of the Rev. Dr. Sacheverell,’ 1711 (in which King was assisted by Charles Lambe of Christ Church, and probably by Sacheverell himself); ‘Mr. Bisset's Recantation, in a Letter to the Rev. Dr. Henry Sacheverell,’ 1711; and ‘An Answer to a second scandalous Book that Mr. Bissett is now writing, to be published as soon as possible.’ King contributed to the early numbers of the ‘Examiner,’ started in August 1710, but it is not known that he had any connection with the paper after Swift undertook the management of it in November.
At the end of 1710 King published his ‘Historical Account of the Heathen Gods and Heroes,’ a compilation which was used in schools for many years, and for which the author was paid 50l. In 1711 he wrote a bitter attack upon the Duke of Marlborough, which was published late in the year, with the date 1712, entitled ‘Rufinus, or an Historical Essay on the favourite Ministry under Theodosius and his son Arcadius,’ with a poem, ‘Rufinus, or the Favourite,’ annexed. In December 1711 King, on Swift's recommendation, was appointed to succeed Steele in the post of gazetteer. King had been in great difficulties. Gay, writing earlier in the year, says, in ‘The Present State of Wit,’ that King deserved better than to ‘languish out the small remainder of his life in the Fleet Prison.’ Swift, in the ‘Journal to Stella’ (19 Dec.), speaks of King as a ‘poor starving wit;’ but on 31 Dec. mentions the appointment to the ‘Gazette,’ which he values at 200l. a year. He afterwards (8 Jan. 1711–12) tells Archbishop King ‘that it will be worth 250l.
