Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3a.pdf/42

KEY a priest by Lugidus, and lived a life of great piety. Retiring to the seclusion of the romantic valley of Glendalough, he founded a religious establishment there, Having himself for a time a hermit life apart from the brotherhood. He died on the 2nd of June, 618. St. Kevin was a contemporary of St. Columba, and held intercourse with him and other holy men of his day, and was the author of two works, "De Brittaniorum Origine" and "De Hebero et Hermone." After his death a cathedral church was built at Glendalough, which became the seat of a bishop.—J. F. W.  * KEY,, known chiefly as a philologist and philosophical grammarian, was born at Southwark in 1799. He received his later education at Cambridge, where he was elected a scholar of St. John's and of Trinity college, successively. After studying medicine at Cambridge and in London, he became in 1824 professor of pure mathematics in the university of Virginia, U.S. He returned to England in 1827, and in 1828 was appointed professor of Latin in the new university of London. In 1843 he became one of the two head-masters of the junior school in connection with University college, and was appointed its sole head-master in 1844, when he resigned his professorship. Mr. Key has been a copious and original contributor of papers on philology and the philosophy of grammar to various "journals of education," to the publications of the Philological Society, and to other works. Between 1843 and 1846 he published his Latin grammar, the distinctive feature of which was that it was based on what he called "crude forms." He pointed the attention of the learner to the primal form of the word, whether substantive or verb, stripped of its inflexional adjuncts. A second edition of the Latin grammar appeared in 1858. In 1858, and in conjunction with "Alexander W. Williamson," he published a pamphlet entitled "Invasion invited by the defenceless state of England; the facts drawn from and sanctioned by the best naval authorities."—F. E.  KEYING, a Chinese statesman of the imperial house, is remembered as the chief negotiator with Sir Henry Pottinger of the treaty of Nankin (signed August, 1842). His conduct during the negotiations left on the Europeans with whom he came into contact a strong belief in his intelligence and good faith. After the ratification of the treaty. Keying, to whom was committed the government of Canton, remained distinguished by the conciliatory character of his policy towards Europeans. Indeed, on the accession of Hien-Fung, in 1850, to the throne of China, he was disgraced as too friendly to foreigners; but after the breaking out of the great rebellion he was again employed. When Lord Elgin was negotiating a new treaty at Tien-Tsin in 1853, he was surprised by the appearance of Keying on the scene as an independent commissioner, seemingly sent as a spy on his colleagues. The other Chinese commissioners looked coldly on him, and he was evidently now as hostile to the English as he had formerly been friendly. Disgusted with his reception, and with the favourable progress of the negotiations for a peace. Keying suddenly quitted Tien-Tsin without orders, was disgraced, and condemned by the emperor to drink poison.—F. E.  KEYSER,, a celebrated Dutch architect, was born at Utrecht in 1565. He was appointed in 1594 architect to the city of Amsterdam, which he enriched with several fine buildings, particularly the Bourse, the Haarlem Gate, and two or three churches. The Stadthouse at Delft, and buildings in other towns in the Netherlands were erected by him. He also designed some monuments, and among the rest the well-known bronze statue of Erasmus in the Great market of Rotterdam. He died in 1621.—J. T—e.  * KEYSER,, one of the leading painters of Belgium, was born in 1813 at Sandvliet in the province of Antwerp, and studied in the Antwerp academy under Van Brée and Jacobs. One of the earliest of his pictures which attracted attention was a "Christ on the Cross," painted in 1834 for a Roman catholic church at Manchester. Since then he has painted many religious subjects of great merit, including a "Calvary;" "Jephtha's Daughter;" "St. Elizabeth giving Alms," painted for King Leopold; also numerous historical and genre pieces, as the "Battle of Woringen," for the national palace at Brussels; "Dante in the Atelier of Giotto;" "The Antiquary;" and several portraits. De Keyser is director of the Antwerp academy, and is generally regarded as the head of the new Antwerp school of painting.—J. T—e.  KEYSER,, son of Hendrik, was born apparently at Amsterdam, though some accounts mention Utrecht, about the year 1595. He was particularly distinguished for his full length portraits in small, in the style of the ordinary Dutch genre painters. His execution was exact and elaborate. Like that of his birth, the year of his death is uncertain, but he died somewhere about 1660 at Amsterdam.—R. N. W.  KEYSLER,, a German antiquary, born at Thurnau in 1689. Travelling as tutor to the two grandsons of Baron Bernstorff, he came to England, and was admitted fellow of the Royal Society. He wrote on Northern and Celtic antiquities, and some volumes of travels. He died in 1743.—P. E. D.  KHALED or CALED, one of the bravest of Mahommed's generals, known among the Arabs as "the Sword of God," was born at Emesa in 582, and died there in 642. He hesitated at no cruelty to advance the religion of the prophet, and even put the garrison of Damascus to death after granting their liberty. <section end="42H" /> <section begin="42I" />KHALLIKAN. See. <section end="42I" /> <section begin="42J" />KHEMNITZER,, a Russian poet and fabulist, was born in 1744, and was destined for the medical profession by his father, a German, and the director of an hospital at St. Petersburg. Young Khemnitzer, however, could not conquer his repugnance to anatomical operations, and entered the army. Experience in the Prussian and Turkish campaigns taught him, that to exchange the dissecting-room for the battlefield was not to avoid scenes of horror. He quitted the army, and procured a post in the mining cadet corps where he soon won the regard of his superiors. In 1776 he travelled through Germany, France, and Holland. Three years later he resigned his office in the mining corps for another, and in 1784 was appointed consul-general at Smyrna. This last change was fatal to his health, and he died in March, 1784. His "Fables and Tales" were first printed with his name in 1799. The last edition is in 3 vols., St. Petersburg, 1819.—R. H. <section end="42J" /> <section begin="42K" />KHERASSKOV,, a voluminous Russian writer of the eighteenth century, the dawning period of Russian literature. He was born in 1733, the son of an officer in the czar's bodyguard, and having been educated in the corps of cadets, entered the army as a lieutenant. He soon exchanged the military for the civil service, and rose rapidly in the bureaucratic hierarchy, until he was made curator of the university of Moscow in 1778. He retired from the public service in 1802 with his full share of crosses, ribbons, and other honours; and died in 1807, aged seventy-four. He has written stories in prose and in verse; dramas; epic, didactic, and narrative poems; anacreontic and moral odes. There is no remarkable genius in these productions, yet they exercised a beneficial influence upon a nascent literature. "Vladimir," an epic poem in eighteen cantos, and "The Rossiad," a versified account of the expulsion of the Tartars, are his most esteemed works.—R. H. <section end="42K" /> <section begin="42Lnop" />KHONDEMIR,, a Persian historian who merits more attention than he has yet received in Europe, was born at Herat in the second half of the fifteenth century. He was the son of Mirkhond, or Emirkhond, with whom he is indeed sometimes confounded—as by D'Herbelot, who says that Khondemir was the surname of Mirkhond, a mistake which has led him to ascribe to the son what belongs more properly to the father. M. Petit de la Croix has accurately distinguished them in his account of the authors from whom he derived his history of Genghis Khan. Khondemir himself informs us that his true name was Gaiatheddin Mohammed ben Hamameddin. From an early period he applied himself to the reading and study of history, and in collecting all that he found useful and agreeable in the writings of historians. Through the favour of the emir, Ali Shir, the friend and protector of literary men, he was employed to collect a valuable library, of which he was made the conservator. He undertook the compilation of a general history, which he called "Khelassat al akhbar si beian ahual alakhiar," or The Book which contains that which is most pure and exact in authentic and certain history. This work, was an abridgment of the Rouzat al Safa of his father, in six books, to which he added a seventh on the life of the Sultan Housein Bahadour. It is divided into ten narratives, a preface, and a conclusion. The author commences with the creation of the world, and ends with 1471. He also wrote another and still more important work, entitled "Habib alseir afrad albashar oue akhbar afrad," or The Friend of biographies and great men. This work comes down to 1523, and is a valuable repository of information, but like the other, has been too much overlooked. Khondemir is supposed to have died about 1530.—B. H. C. <section end="42Lnop" />