King, Edward

, an excellent youth, whom we here mention rather with a view to gain than to give information, was a fellow of Christ’s-college, Cambridge, in 1632 and 1633. He was unfortunately drowned August 10, 1637, in his passage from Chester to the Irish seas; a circumstance which gave birth to the admirable “Lycidas” of Milton. How well

"He knew

Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme,"

may be see by the admirable specimens exhibited in the “Collection” which furnishes this brief memorial. It is not easy to determine whether his hexameters, his Alcaic odes, or his iambics, have the greatest share of merit. Even his epigrams, allowing the method of them to be truly epigrammatic, shew the hand of a master; and the whole of his performances prove him to be possessed of a genius which was by no means over-rated by the attention and the friendship of Milton. ²