250 Lawrence Mason, 



point on which Jolni King was most highl}- jiraised. The opening 

 clause of Wood's summary, adapted from Fuller, has been given 

 above,^ and the citation may now be completed: "When he was 

 elder, he [Henry King] applied himself to oratory and philosophy, 

 and in his reduced age fixed on divinity ; in which faculty he became 

 eminent, as his sermons partly shew, which remained fresh in the 

 minds of his auditors many years after his death." ^ While King's 

 reference to his "course in study" in Letter i, below,* perhaps justifies 

 the statement about his application to philosophy, the relegation 

 of "divinity" to his old age is absurd, for a letter quoted by Nichols^ 

 shows that his first sermon was delivered in 1617, before he was 26 

 \-ears old, and the Bibliography of his theological works is an added 

 overwhelming refutation.^ The verdict passed on his first serfnon 

 was this: "He did reasonably well, but nothing extraordinary, 

 nor near his father, being rather slow of utterance, and orator paruni 

 vehemens."^ This criticism supplies another explanation for his 

 failure to be appointed Public Orator of the University during his 

 college career,' and indicates that his abilities were slow in maturing. 

 But if he did not equal his father in pulpit effectiveness, in the judg- 

 ment of his contemporaries (though Wood says that he "became a 

 most florid preacher"^), at least posterity will to some extent justify 

 Fuller's encomium by preferring Henry King's sermons to John 

 King's, considered as literary productions. The son is less ponderous, 

 more incisive, more vital, though the two are \'ery closeh' alike in 

 style, in method, and in attitude. 



In support of Henry King's pretensions as preacher, a few notable 

 passages may be instanced. In the sermon vindicating his father's 

 orthodoxy (Nov. 25, 1621), there is a fine passage on p. 9, beginning : 

 "The words of dying men are precious even to strangers ; but when 

 the voyce of one we love, cals to us from the death-bed," etc. Other 

 fine portions of the same sermon are the paragraph on Persecution 

 by slander, pp. 45—7 ; the two paragraphs of transition to the sub- 

 ject of his personal loss, p. 49 ; and the restrained but moving des- 

 cription of his father's last hours, pp. 62—73, with the admirably 

 dignified and appealing peroration, pp. 74—77. Nor are there 

 wanting happy touches in detail, such as — "We are but Impes and 



^ p. 233, footnote 3. 



2 At the close Wood greatly moderates the extravagant laudation of the 

 good Fuller, who asserts that King's sermons "will report him to all poste- 

 rity." 



3 Appendix B, p. 2S7. ^ Op. cit., Ill, 445. ^ pp. 275—77, inf. 

 ® Nichols, ibid. ' p. 223, sup. ^ "Athen. Oxon.," Ill, 839. 



