Life and Works oj Henry King. 251 



Zanies, in respect of those that lived in the Primitive Church"; 

 or — "No more have those once glorious dayes, now any difference 

 in our memory or esteeme. They lie promiscuously raked up in 

 the dust of time, without any monument set over them, to tell they 

 once were : no Rubrick, or capitall letter inserted, to distinguish them 

 from the common heape of dayes piled up in the Almanacke." Again, 

 in his Lenten Sermon at Whitehall (Mar. 3, 1626), pp. 11— 13, the 

 paragraph on the testimony of creation to the truth that the hand 

 that made it is divine, is rather a splendid "purple patch." Again, 

 in his Spital Sermon (Easter Monday, 1626), pp. 2—5, there is a 

 striking paragraph on "He," beginning: "It is no flat or low ex- 

 pression to discipher God by a Pronoune rather than a Name, but 

 the most eminent forme of speech that may be." His Inauguration 

 Anniversary sermon (Mar. 27, 1640) is analyzed below,^ and his fun- 

 eral sermon over Bishop Duppa (Apr. 24, 1662) has been commen- 

 ded above ^ and is quoted below.^ So, finally, but one more need be 

 mentioned, as a specimen of his latest work, namely the Anniversary 

 sermon in commemoration of King Charles' martyrdom (Jan. 30, 

 1665). Now it was apparently mandatory, well into the Eighteenth 

 Century, that this subject be treated every year on this date, in every 

 pulpit,* and hence it is not to be wondered at that all natural and 

 proper ideas or expressions were soon exhausted and nothing re- 

 mained except repetition or exaggeration ; but Henry King's sermon 

 is free from these blemishes, and in depth, power, and conviction is far 

 above the hollow rhetorical extravagances or dull commonplaces of 

 the various other sermons on this subject examined for purposes of 

 comparison.^ In general it must of course be frankly admitted that 

 he is not capable of supreme flights of oratory ; but at his best he 

 is dignified and impressive, frequently trenchant, and at intervals 

 soberly eloquent. 



* P- 259. 



2 p. 243, sup. ; this sermon shows marked distinction and forceful 

 solemnity throughout, quite in the "grand manner," with at least one passage 

 (on the " Pretiousness " of Death) in a really exalted strain of true though 

 formal eloquence. It was preached "to the great content of the auditory." 

 ("Athen. Oxon.," Ill, 543). ^ pp. 256, 257. 



* An examination of numerous collections of Sermons, in the Bodleian, 

 for the period 1660 — 1730, leads to this conclusion. 



^ Pepys, ed. H. B. Wheatley, 1892, makes the following spiteful comment 

 on this sermon, under date of Mar. 12, 1665; "I sat down and read over 

 the Bishop of Chichester's sermon upon the anniversary of the King's death, 

 much cried up, but, methinks, what a mean sermon." This sermon contains 



