King, John Glen

, a learned English writer and antiquary, was born in the county of Norfolk in 1731. He was educated at Caius college, Cambridge, where he took his degrees of B. A. and M. A. in 1752 and 1763, and at | subsequent periods he was admitted to the degree of D. D. and received a member of the royal society, and of the society of antiquaries. lu 1764, he obtained the appointment of chaplain to the English factory at Petersburgh. In this situation he was led to inquire into the ceremonies of the Russian church, which he continually saw practised, and determined to give a faithful description of the same in his own language. He accordingly published, in 1772, in a handsome quarto, illustrated with engravings, a work, entitled “The Kites and Ceremonies of the Greek Church in Russia; containing an account of its doctrine, worship, and discipline.” In 1778, he wrote and published a letter to the bishop of Durham, containing some observations on the climate of Russia, and the northern countries, with a view of the flying-mountains at Zarsko Sello, near St. Petersburgh. Soon after his return to his native country, he was presented to the rectory of Wormley, in Hertfordshire, in 1783 and in 1786 he purchased Dr. John Warner’s chapel in Broad-court, Drury-lane, in which he officiated as preacher. While he resided at Petersburgh, the empress of Russia had appointed him her medallist, and he was engaged in a medallic work at the time of his death, which happened Nov. 2, 1787, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and was buried at Wormley. Besides the works already mentioned, Dr. King was author of “Observations on the Barberini Vase,” which are printed in the eighth volume of the Transactions of the Antiquarian Society. ¹