Lije and Works of Henry King. 245 



counted for partly by the prevailing fashions of the day and partly by 

 the Hkelihood that the eldest brother's work would serve as model 

 for the younger to imitate. 



Henry King's little volume of verse seems to have failed of winning 

 contemporary appreciation, for the original edition was twice re- 

 issued with a new title-page in a vain attempt to dispose of the un- 

 sold copies ; ^ but it would be unjust to argue from this that the volume 

 possesses Httle merit, for in the first place Vaughan's "Silex Scin- 

 tillans" underwent precisely the same experience (the unsold sheets 

 of the 1650 printing having been re-issued in 1655, with a new title- 

 page), and in the second place immediate popularity is of course 

 no criterion of absolute value. Furthermore this contemporaneous 

 neglect was only apparent, not actual, as the following facts show : 

 King's gratulatory or elegiac occasional pieces were given the place 

 of honor in the various volumes in which they originally appeared ; ^ 

 there are extant almost countless copies of various single poems 

 by him in the innumerable MS. collections and commonplace books 

 of the day,3 and thus he enjoyed a very considerable circulation 

 regardless of the fate of the piratical printed pubHcation ; and fin- 

 aUy there are some grounds for believing that this twice re-issued 

 original edition may not have been the only printed collection of 

 his poems, after all.^ These facts, hitherto unnoticed or unconsidered, 

 seem to show that Henry King was highly esteemed as an author, in 

 many quarters,^ and that he hit the taste of his time truly enough 

 to be considered a satisfactory representative of the minor poets 

 of the period. 



Under the year 1669 this entry appears in the Register of Burials, 

 at Chichester: "The Reverend Father in God Henry King Lord 



^ Cf. Bibliog., p. 263, inf. ; also 266. 



2 Cf. "Jonsonus Virbius," 1638, p. 16; Donne's "Poems," 1633, 1635, 

 1639, etc.; "The Swedish IntelUgencer," 1633, poetical appendix to the 

 Third Part; and George Sandys' "Paraphrase upon the Divine Poems," 

 1638, prefixed pages of commendatory verse. 



3 It may be stated further that, in addition to the MS. volumes noticed 

 below in the Bibhography, Harl. MS. 6917 is practically another such collec- 

 tion, for over 20 of King's poems appear in it, together with many others by 

 or about his family. Other MSS. almost as markedly given up to King's 

 work are Addit. MSS. 25, 303 and 25, 707, and perhaps Sloane MS. 1446,— 

 all in the British Museum. 



^ Cf. Bibliog., p. 267, inf. 



5 Cf., e. g., Howell's "Familiar Letters," ed. Jacobs, 1892, II, 40S, under 

 date of 3. Feb., 1637. 



