Eldest son of Bishop John King, a native of Wornall, Buckinghamshire, educated at Christ Church, Oxford, became Archdeacon of Colchester, Residentiary of St. Paul’s, Canon of Christ Church, and Chaplain to James I.; Dean of Rochester, 1638; Bishop of Chichester, 1641. He published a number of “Sermons,” 1621–65; an “Exposition of the Lord’s Prayer,” 1628, ’34, 4to; the “Psalms in Meter,” 1651, ’71, 12mo; and some Latin, Greek, and English Poems. His “Poems, Elegies, Paradoxes, and Sonnets” were published in 1657, sm. 4to; with a new title-page, 1664, 8vo; again—with the name of Ben Jonson as the author—1700, 8vo. A new edition of his “Psalms and Poems—edited, with Biographical Notices, Notes, &c., by Dr. John Hannah”—was published by Pickering in 1843, 12mo.

Personal

  A man generally known by the Clergy of this nation, and as generally noted for his obliging nature.

  The epitome of all honours, virtues and generous nobleness, and a person never to be forgotten by his tenants, and by the poor.

  King’s amiability endeared him to his friends. Among these were Ben Jonson, George Sandys, Sir Henry Blount, and James Howell. His friendship with Izaak Walton began about 1624, and continued till death. He was on terms of closest intimacy with John Donne, who appointed him one of his executors, and bequeathed to him the gold medal struck in commemoration of the synod of Dort. An elegy by King is prefixed to the 1633 edition of Donne’s poems.

General

  But that which afforded me most entertainment in those Miscellanies, was Doctor Henry King’s Poems, wherein I find not only heat and strength, but also an exact concinnity and evenness of fancy.

  The greater part of his poetry (which was either written at an early age, or as a relaxation from severer studies) is neat, and uncommonly elegant.

  His monody on his wife, who died before her twenty-fifth year, is beautiful and tender, containing the germ of some famous passages by modern poets.