Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/236

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KEITH


KEYSEE


(Life and Letters of C. S. Keene, 1893, by G. S. Layard, p. 423). D. Jan. 4, 1891.

KEITH, George, tenth Earl Marischal. JB. about 1693. Ed. private tutors. He succeeded his father in the earldom in 1712, and held a commission in the army. Having joined the Pretender, he fled to France, then to Spain, and commanded the Spanish expedition to Scotland in 1719. Keith then went to Prussia, and he was appointed Prussian ambassador to Paris (1751-52). In 1759 he was Prussian ambassador in Spain. George II pardoned him, and he went back to Scotland ; but Frederick the Great induced him to return to Potsdam, where " neither priests nor attorneys " would trouble him (as Frederick wrote). The Earl was highly cultivated and a drastic Deist, a friend of Voltaire, Rousseau, and D Alembert. His recent biographer, Mrs. E. E. Cuthell, observes that " in almost every letter he writes there is a gibe against some sort or other of ecclesiastical lamas, as he called them " (The Scottish Friend of Frederick the Great, 2 vols., 1915). D Alembert, in an eloquent oration before the Berlin Academy, said that he was " a man of pure and classic morals, whom the best ages of Eoman probity might have envied of our time." D. May 28, 1778.

KEITH, James Francis Edward,

Marshal Keith, brother of the preceding. B. June 11, 1696. Ed. Aberdeen and Edinburgh. He studied law, but joined the army, and was, like George, exiled for aiding the Pretender. After some years of study in Paris, he served in the Spanish army (1719-26), then "in the Eussian army (1728-47), becoming a General and Governor of the Ukraine. From 1747 to 1758 he was a Field Marshal in the Prussian army, and one of Frederick s best generals. From the letters of Frederick and of Earl Marischal, and a poem addressed to Keith by Frederick, it is clear that he was a Deist like his brother. D. Oct. 14, 1758.

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KELLGREN, Johann Henrik, Swedish poet. B. Dec. 1, 1751. Ed. Abo Univer sity, Finland. Kellgren was literary colla borator for many years to the poet-king Gustav III. He then developed advanced ideas and joined the staff of the Stockholms Posten, the organ of the " Young Swedes " of the time. He had a passion for religious and political freedom, and published in the Posten some very fine poems of revolt. D. Apr. 20, 1795.

KENRICK, William, LL.D., writer. B. about 1725. He was brought up as a manual labourer, but he had ability, and became a hack writer in London. In 1751 he published, under the pseudonym " Ontologos," a tract in which he proved that the soul is not immortal ; and in the following year he cynically published a refutation of it. His Epistles, Philosophical and Moral (1756) is an openly sceptical poem. Kenrick translated several works of Eousseau, Voltaire, and Buffon. D. June 10, 1779.

KEY, Ellen Karolina Sofia, Swedish writer. B. Dec. 11, 1849. Ed. privately. Miss Key is a daughter of the Countess S. Posse, but her father lost his fortune and she became a teacher. She taught in a school at Stockholm from 1880 to 1900, and lectured at the Workers Institute from 1883 to 1903. Her numerous works on social questions have won for her a remarkable influence in Scandinavia and a high reputation in other lands. Of her thirty volumes seven have been translated into English between 1909 and 1914. She is a Monist, and writes for the organ of Prof. Haeckel s League. L. Nystrom s Ellen Key (1913) gives a good account of her work and career.

KEYSER, Professor Cassius Jackson,

A.M., Ph.D., American mathematician. B. May 15, 1862. Ed. Michigan, Ann Arbor, Kenton, and Columbia Universities. He was the principal of various schools from 1885 to 1890, instructor in mathematics at 400