KHOSRU I. or Nushirwan (Noble soul), called Chosroes by the Greek writers, a powerful Persian monarch, was the third son of Kobad, and succeeded him on the throne in 521. Shortly after his accession he concluded a peace with Justinian, against whom his father had for some time waged war, on the payment by the emperor of ten thousand pounds of gold. Having thus provided for the external security of his dominions, Khosru proceeded to confirm the stability of his throne after the oriental custom, by the murder of his two elder brothers with their families and adherents. He made various important reforms in the government, and exercised a vigilant superintendence over all his subordinate officers. The peace which Justinian purchased from the Persian monarch was to be "endless;" but the rapid conquests of Belisarius excited the jealousies and fears of Khosru, and in violation of the treaty he suddenly invaded Syria in 540 at the head of a powerful army, plundered and laid waste the country, and took Antioch after a short but vigorous resistance. In the following year, however, his ambitious projects were baffled and his conquests checked by Belisarius, who with a far inferior force compelled the Persian monarch hastily to repass the Euphrates. But in 543 Belisarius was recalled to Constantinople and deprived of his employments by an ungrateful court; and the incompetent generals who succeeded him were easily overthrown by the Persians. At length, after long delay and many negotiations, a treaty of peace was concluded in 562 for fifty years, on the annual payment by Justinian of thirty thousand pieces of gold. The peace, however, lasted only ten years, and in 572 a new war broke out between the Romans and the Persians; but the latter were everywhere successful, and the Byzantine court was fain to conclude a peace for three years. Hostilities were renewed in 578; and at length Justinian, the lieutenant of the Emperor Tiberius, inflicted a total defeat on Khosru in 578, at Melitene, a town in the eastern part of Cappadocia. The Persian king died in the spring of the following year, after a reign of forty-eight years. The government of Khosru was not free from the cruelty and other vices of oriental despotism; but his virtues, his encouragement of agriculture and literature, and especially his justice, are still celebrated among the natives of the East. He caused the most celebrated Greek and Sanscrit works to be translated into the Persian language, and despatched a physician named Barzûyeh to Hindostan to procure a transcript of the celebrated fables of Pilpay, which through this channel found their way to Europe.—J. T.
KHOSRU II., grandson of the preceding, was raised to the throne of Persia on the deposition of his father, Hormisdas, in 590. He was compelled, however, soon after, by the rebellion of a general named Bahram, to abandon his native country, and to take refuge in the dominions of Maurice the emperor of Constantinople, who received him with great kindness, espoused his cause, and assisted him with a powerful army to regain his throne. On the dethronement and assassination of Maurice by Phocas in 602, Khosru invaded Mesopotamia on the plea that he meant to avenge the death of his benefactor, defeated the imperialists in several battles, and conquered a large extent of territory. The forces of Khosru advanced to the banks of the Bosphorus, and pitched their camp for ten years in the vicinity of Constantinople. The Greek empire seemed on the brink of ruin. At this crisis the emperor Heraclius displayed unexpected energy, rejected the ignominious terms of peace offered by the Persian monarch, defeated the invaders in a series of decisive victories (622-27), recovered the provinces which he had lost, and reduced the Persian monarch to the greatest extremity. Khosru, deeply mortified by his reverses, proposed to abdicate in favour of his son Merdaza. But his eldest son, Siroes, indignant at this proposal, prevented its execution by dethroning and murdering his father in 628.—J. T.
KIARAN (Saint), was born in Ireland about 516. Ware says he was the son of a carpenter, and thence commonly called Mac-Steir. He is said to have been baptized by Saint Patrick. His memory is held in great and deserved veneration as the founder of the abbey of Drum Tipraid, the ruins of which, under the name of Clonmacnoise, are perhaps the most interesting ecclesiastical remains in Ireland. Various princes added nine churches for sepulture within the inclosure. It was a Culdean establishment for the training in literature and theology of the sons of the nobility, as some think its name imports. Its fame spread over the continent of Europe, and Charlemagne sent to it, through Alcuin, a present of fifty shekels. Kiaran died at Clonmacnoise on the 9th of September, 549; nine years according to some authorities, but, as Ware thinks, one year after the foundation of the abbey.—J. F. W.
KIDD, John, an English mineralogist and chemist, born in 1775. He became professor of chemistry at Oxford, and librarian to the Radcliffe library; published several works upon mineralogy, geology, &c., and was the author of one of the Bridgewater treatises. Died in 1851.—W. B—d.
KIDD, Samuel, an English missionary and orientalist, was born at Hull in 1801; and having turned his attention to subjects connected with the East, was engaged by the London Missionary Society, who sent him to Malacca, where an Anglo-Chinese college had been established. He took with him a printing-press, which for some time he superintended, and became the principal of the college. This post he retained for several years. On his retirement from it he returned to England, and was appointed to the professorship of Chinese in the new university of London, where he continued till his death, which occurred in 1843. As an oriental scholar he was distinguished, and as an author he is known by his "Illustrations of the Symbols, &c., of China," which came out in 1841.—B. H. C.
KIDDER, Richard, a learned English prelate, was born most probably in Suffolk about the year 1630; but neither the date nor the place of his birth is exactly known. He entered Emmanuel college, Cambridge, in 1649, and graduated in 1652 and 1656. In 1655 he was chosen a fellow of his college, and was soon after presented by the society to the college living of Stanground in Huntingdonshire. He was then a commonwealth man; and when the act of uniformity passed in 1662, he was unable for some time to conform, and lost his living in consequence. But having overcome his scruples not long after, he was received again into the church, and obtained from Arthur, earl of Essex, in 1664, the rectory of Raine. Here he continued for ten years, occupying much of his time with biblical studies, and especially devoting himself to Hebrew learning, for proficiency in which he had early acquired considerable reputation. In 1674 he was presented to the benefice of St. Martin's Outwich, London, and in 1681 he obtained a stall in the cathedral of Norwich. He favoured the principles of the Revolution of 1688, and found his reward in his speedy promotion to the high places of the Revolution-church. In 1689 he was made dean of Peterborough, and in 1691 he was consecrated bishop of Bath and Wells in room of Bishop Ken, who had declined to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy to William and Mary. In 1693 he delivered the Boyle lecture, being the second preacher who had been appointed on that foundation. His sermons on that occasion were directed to prove the Messiahship of Jesus Christ in opposition to Jewish infidelity, and were afterwards incorporated in his "Demonstration of the Messias," a work in three parts published between 1694 and 1700. In 1694 he published "A Commentary on the Five Books of Moses," to which he prefixed a "Dissertation concerning the author of the said books," in which he learnedly defended the Mosaic authorship against the objections raised, among others, by Le Clerc. He had previously published a good deal on the Popish controversy, but nothing of importance or of permanent value. It was not in that field that his strength lay. He was more formidable against the unbelieving Jew than the credulous Romanist. He died at Wells, 27th November, 1703, being killed in his bed by the fall of a stack of chimneys thrown down by a violent storm.—P. L.
KIDDERMINSTER. See Kydermynster.
KIEN-LOONG, otherwise called Khien-Loung, Chin-Lung, &c., Emperor of China, was born in 1709, and succeeded to the throne in 1735. During the earlier portion of his reign he appears mainly occupied with the arrangement of national affairs, the distribution of offices of government, the administration of justice, and the consolidation of his power. As a member of the Tartar dynasty he probably found such a course politic, for the Chinese have never been completely reconciled to their foreign masters. About 1753 he undertook the subjection of some Tartar tribes, whom he eventually conquered, and by this means considerably extended his territories to the north-west. In 1768 he was engaged in hostilities with Ava. In 1770 he received into his territories, and under his government, the Mongolian Turguts from the banks of the Volga, who had seceded from Russia. A few years later he subdued the Miao-tse, a savage tribe of mountaineers who had been hitherto independent. When the rajah of Nepaul invaded Tibet in 1790
