Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/411

 ‘Dreamland; or Poets in their Haunts.’ He welcomed Longfellow to England in a poem which appeared in ‘The Times,’ 3 July 1868. A collected edition of Kent's ‘Poems’ was published in 1870.

Kent's literary acquaintance was large. It early included, besides Charles Dickens, Leigh Hunt, both the first and the second Lord Lytton, Charles Reade, Robert Browning, George Meredith, and Matthew Arnold. He caused Leigh Hunt's line, ‘Write me as one that loves his fellow-men,’ to be placed on Hunt's tomb at Kensal Green. Dickens wrote a letter to Kent within an hour of the novelist's death (8 June 1870), and Kent presented it to the British Museum in 1879. The first letter which he received from the second Lord Lytton (4 July 1866) he also presented to the Museum in 1887.

His later years were largely devoted to preparing popular complete editions of the works of great writers. The collected works of Burns appeared in 1874. In 1875 he brought out a centenary edition of Lamb's works with a memoir which contained among other new facts an authentic record of Lamb's relations with Frances Maria Kelly, the actress, the information coming from Miss Kelly herself. There succeeded editions of Thomas Moore (1879), Father Prout (1881), besides ‘Leigh Hunt as an Essayist’ (1888), the miscellaneous works of the first Lord Lytton (12 vols. Knebworth edition), ‘The Wit and Wisdom of Lord Lytton’ (1883), and ‘The Humour and Pathos of Charles Dickens,’ 1884. A literary curiosity called ‘Corona Catholica. De Leonis XIII assumptione, epigramma in 50 linguis’ (sm. 4to, 1880), supplied translations of an English epigram into fifty languages; among the many eminent scholars who supplied the translations were Max Müller, who turned the epigram into Sanskrit, Prof. Sayce, who turned it into Assyrian, and Prince Lucien Bonaparte who rendered it in Basque. The MS. of this compilation is now in the British Museum.

Kent received a civil list pension of 100l. on 14 Jan. 1887. In his last years he was a frequenter of the Athenæum Club, which he joined in 1881. He was a contributor to this Dictionary, writing among other articles those on Chatterton and Charles Reade. He died on 23 Feb. 1902 at his house at Campden Hill, and was buried at St. Mary's catholic cemetery, Kensal Green.

He married in 1853 Ann (1824–1911), eldest daughter of Murdo Young of Ross, N.B. She wrote in youth several novels: ‘Evelyn Stuart’ (3 vols. 1846); ‘Maud Hamilton’; ‘The Gilberts of Ashton,’ and was a contributor to the press until 1906. She died in London on 16 Aug. 1911. She was received into the Roman catholic church in 1851. She had issue five sons and two daughters.

 KENYON, GEORGE THOMAS (1840–1908), politician, second son of Lloyd Kenyon, third baron Kenyon, by his wife Georgina, daughter of Thomas de Grey, fourth baron Walsingham, waa born in London on 28 Dec. 1840. He was educated at Harrow (1854–60), entered Christ Church, Oxford, in 1860, graduated B.A. with second class honours in law and history in 1864, and proceeded M.A. in 1870. In 1869 he became a barrister of the Middle Temple. He contested the Denbigh boroughs unsucoessfully as a conservative in 1874 and 1880, but won the seat in 1885 and held it until 1895, and again from 1900 to 1905. In 1897 he stood unsuccessfully for East Denbighshire at a bye-election. He promoted the Wrexham and Ellesmere railway and was its first chairman (1891-1908). In 1873 he published a life of his ancestor, the first baron Kenyon (1732-1802). His chief interest was the promotion of secondary and higher education in Wales, and to his enlightened zeal was largely due the passing of the Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889, which established the present comprehensive system of secondary schools in Wales. The bill was introduced by Stuart (afterwards Lord) Rondel, the leader of the Welsh liberal members. But the conservatives were in power, and it was Kenyon's influence which secured its passage, with some slight changes. Kenyon took an active part in the establishment of the University of Wales and was its junior deputy-chancellor from 1898 to 1900. He died on 26 Jan. 1908, at his seat of Llanneroh Panna, near Ellesmere. On 21 Oct. 1875 he married Florence Anna, daughter of J. H. Leche, of Garden Park, Chester. He left no issue. There is a portrait by E. Miller at Llannerch Panna.

 KENYON-SLANEY, WILLIAM SLANEY (1847–1908), colonel and politician, born on 24 Aug. 1847 at Rajcot in India, where his father was serving in the