Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/44

 36 K E N K E N other authors, but the part from Charles I. to Queen Anne was written by himself. The Life of Bishop White Kennet, by the Rev. &quot;William Kennet, appeared in 1730. See also Nicol s Literary Anecdotes, Dibdiu s Quarrels of Authors, and Disraeli s Calamities of Authors. KENNICOTT, BENJAMIN (1718-1783), an eminent Hebraist, was born at Totnes, Devonshire, on April 4, 1718. His father was parish clerk and master of a charity school, in which latter situation Benjamin was chosen to succeed him at an early age. His talents and acquirements interested some rich friends in his behalf, and by their liberality he was provided with the means of studying at Oxford. Entering himself of Wadham College in 1744, he soon distinguished himself in Hebrew and divinity; and while still an undergraduate published two dissertations, On the Tree of Life in Paradise, with some Observations on the Fall of Man, and On the Oblations of Cain and Abel, which came to a second edition in 1747, and procured him the honour of a bachelor s degree before the statutable time. Shortly afterwards he was elected fellow of Exeter College, and in 1750 he took his degree of M.A. In 1767 he was appointed keeper of the Radcliffe library, and made D.D. He was also canon of Christ Church and rector of Culham in Oxfordshire, and was subsequently presented to the living of Mynhenyote, Cornwall, which however, being unable to visit it, he resigned two years before his death. He died of a lingering illness at Oxford, on September 18, 1783, The great work with which his name continues to be associated in the annals of Biblical scholarship is the Vctus Testamentum Hcbraicum cum variis Lcctionibus, 2 vols. fol., Oxford, 1776-80. The course of the studies which resulted in it may be gathered from the nature of the publications by which it was preceded. Two dis sertations entitled The State of the Printed Hebrew Text of the Old Testament considered, piiblished respectively in 1753 and 1759, were expressly designed to combat the then current ideas as to the &quot; abso lute integrity &quot; of the received Hebrew text. The first contains &quot;a comparison of 1 Chron. xi. with 2 Sam. v. and xxiii., and observa tions on seventy MSS., with an extract of mistakes and various readings &quot; ; the second defends the claims of the Samaritan Penta teuch, assails the correctness of the printed copies of the Chaldee paraphrase, gives an account of Hebrew MSS. of the Bible known to be extant, and catalogues one hundred MSS. preserved in the British Museum and in the libraries of Oxford and Cambridge. His labours provoked severe animadversion in some quarters, and even from such men as Warburton and Home; but they at least had the effect of drawing public attention to the subject to which they related, and in 1760 he issued his proposals for collecting all Hebrew MSS. of date prior to the invention of printing which could be dis covered either at home or abroad. Subscriptions to the amount of nearly 10,000 were obtained, and many learned men addressed themselves to the work of collation, Brans of Helmstadtmaking him self specially useful as regarded MSS. in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Between 1760 and 1769 ten &quot; annual accounts &quot; of the pro gress of the work were given; in its course six hundred and fifteen MSS. and fifty-two printed editions of the Bible were either wholly or partially collated, and use was also made (but often very perfunctorily) of the quotations in the Talmud. The materials thus collected, when properly arranged and made ready for the press, extended to 30 vols. fol. The text finally followed in printing was that of Van der Hooght, unprinted however, the points having been disre garded in collation, and the various readings were printed at the foot of the page. The Samaritan Pentateuch stands alongside the Hebrew in parallel columns. The Dissertatio Generalis, appended to the second volume, contains an account of the MSS. and other authorities collated, and also a review of the Hebrew text, divided into periods, and beginning with the formation of the Hebrew canon after the return of the Jews from the exile. Kennicott s greafrwork was in one sense a failure. It yielded no materials of value for the emendation of the received text, and by disregarding the vowel points overlooked the one thing in which some result (gram matical if not critical) might have been derived from collation of Massoretic MSS. But the negative result of the publication and of the Varies, Lcctio-aes of Do Rossi, published some years later, was im portant. It showed that the Hebrew text can be amended only by the use of the versions aided by conjecture. KENOSHA, chief city of Kenosha county, Wisconsin, U.S., is situated in a fertile district on Lake Michigan, about 30 miles south of Milwaukee, with which it is connected by rail. It contains numerous schools, and carries on the manufacture of hardware, wooden wares, machines, and carriages. There are also in the city breweries, foundries, tanneries, planing mills, and other industrial establishments. It possesses a good harbour, and carries on trade in its manufactures and in country produce. The population in 1880 was 5039. KENSINGTON, a western suburb of London in the parish of Kensington, parliamentary borough of Chelsea, and county of Middlesex, a mile and a half west of Hyde Park Corner. The parish includes the suburbs of Brompton, Earl s Court, part of Little Chelsea, the Gravel Pits, Net ting Hill, and part of Kensal Green. Kensington palace and Kensington gardens, however, lie in the parish of St Margaret s, Westminster. The suburb of Kensington, which has developed out of the village of Kensington, lies to the west of Kensington gardens, and consists principally of a long and in places narrow street, the modern improve ments of which with the surrounding additions have almost entirely obliterated all traces of the &quot;old court suburb &quot; associated with the distinguished personages of former times. From the High street others branch off at intervals, and the elevated ground to the north is almost wholly occu pied with villas embosomed in woods. To the south of the High street is Kensington square, where at one time were the residences of many of the principal attendants on the court. The principal public buildings in the suburb are the parish church in the Decorated style, erected in 1860 at a cost of 35,000, the elegant new town-hall, the vestry hall, the grammar school, the Roman Catholic college, opened in 1874, several monasteries and convents, and various schools and charities. The site of Old Gore House, at one time the residence of Mr Wilberforce and afterwards of the Countess of Blessington, is now occupied by the Royal Albert Hall and the gardens of the Horticultural Society. These as well as Kensington gardens and the South Kensington museum with its national training schools fall to be noticed under the article LONDON. Kensington palace, a plain and irregular brick structure, originally surrounded by grounds extending to about 350 acres, was at one time the residence of Lord Chancellor Finch, afterwards earl of Nottingham, of whom it was bought by William III. Additions were made to it by William III., George I., George II., and the duke of Sussex. The palace was the birthplace of Queen Victoria. Kensington house, which stood near the palace gate, and was at one time the residence of the duchess of Portsmouth, mistress of Charles II., was pulled down in 1873 to make way for the mansion of Baron Albert Grant. The popu lation of the registration subdistrict in 1871 was 91,664, which in 1881 had increased to 120,125. The population of the parish in 1881 was 162,924. The manor of Kensington, which is written in Domesday book Chcncsitun, has an area of 1140 acres. Some trace the origin of the word to the old Saxon name for king, others to a family of the name of Chenesi, others to &quot; Caen,&quot; the old name for wood. The manor was originally occupied by the great Middlesex forest, the trees of which were abundant in the time of Henry VIII. In Domesday it is mentioned as being held by Aubrey de Vere of the bishop of Coutances. Soon after this it became the absolute pro perty of the De Veres, who were afterwards created earls of Oxford. In the reign of Elizabeth it passed into the possession of the Argylls, by whom it was sold to Sir Walter Cope, whose daughter married Henry Rich, earl of Holland. Holland House, in the Elizabethan style, the original mansion of the manor of Kensington, was erected by Sir Walter Cope in 1697, and enlarged and adorned by the third Lord Holland (see vol. xii. p. 100). The manor is at present held by Lord Kensington. See Faulkner, History and Antiquities of Kensington, 1820 ; Leigh Hunt, The Old Court Suburb. KENT, a maritime county in the south-eastern corner Plate of England, lies between 50 54 and 51 31 N. lat., and between 3 W. long, and 1 27 E. long. It is bounded on the N. by the estuary and mouth of the Thames, E.