nation to think as he thought of the Duke of Marlborough and his
adherents.

In 1711, competence, if not plenty, was again put into his power.
He was, without the trouble of attendance or the mortification of a
request, made Gazetteer. Swift, Freind, Prior, and other men of the
same party, brought him the key of the Gazetteer's office. He was
now again placed in a profitable employment, and again threw the
benefit away. An Act of Insolvency made his business at that time
particularly troublesome; and he would not wait till hurry should be
at an end, but impatiently resigned it, and returned to his wonted
indigence and amusements.

One of his amusements at Lambeth, where he resided, was to mortify
Dr. Tenison, the archbishop, by a public festivity on the surrender
of Dunkirk to Hill; an event with which Tenison's political bigotry
did not suffer him to be delighted. King was resolved to counteract
his sullenness, and at the expense of a few barrels of ale filled
the neighbourhood with honest merriment.

In the autumn of 1712 his health declined; he grew weaker by
degrees, and died on Christmas Day. Though his life had not been
without irregularity, his principles were pure and orthodox, and his
death was pious.

After this relation it will be naturally supposed that his poems
were rather the amusements of idleness than efforts of study; that
he endeavoured rather to divert than astonish; that his thoughts
seldom aspired to sublimity; and that, if his verse was easy and his
images familiar, he attained what he desired. His purpose is to be