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KIS
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KIT

few plays, much inferior to those of his brother Karoly; and many legends.—P. E. D.

KISFALUDY, Karoly, the most popular of Hungarian dramatic poets, brother of Sandor, born 19th March, 1790; died at Pesth, 21st November, 1831. In youth he took service in the Austrian army, but left it at the age of twenty, and returned home where he fell into disgrace on account of a love affair distasteful to his parents. He then went to Vienna, and earned a miserable subsistence by painting, while prosecuting the studies that were afterwards to bring him fame. In 1817 he was reconciled to his father, and returned to Pesth, where he published a long series of poems, tales, and dramas, that made him the most popular author in Hungary. After his death a subscription was raised to erect a monument to his memory, and the funds came in so abundantly, that after defraying the expense of the monument, the surplus was devoted to the formation of a literary society called the Kisfaludy Society, which to the present time exerts a highly beneficial influence on Hungarian literature. It publishes a journal, gives prizes, and reprints works of value in the Hungarian language. The complete works of this author were published in ten volumes in 1831, and the best have been translated into German by Gaal of Bonn.—P. E. D.

* KISS, August, a popular German sculptor, was born at Pless in Upper Silesia, October 11, 1802. He learnt sculpture in the Berlin academy under Tieck and Rauch; and for a while laboured on the designs of Rauch and Schinkel, and in the production of copies from the antique. Some original designs by him attracting notice, he was employed to execute some bas-reliefs for a church at Potsdam. He first, however, secured the public attention by exhibiting in 1839 the model of his colossal group (twelve feet by eighteen) of the "Amazon attacked by a Tiger," which was cast in bronze a few years later by a public subscription; copied by him in marble for King Ludwig of Bavaria; and of which a bronzed zinc cast formed a prominent object in the Great Exhibition of 1851. Among his later works have been a bronze equestrian statue of "Frederick the Great;" two of "Frederick William III.;" a series of bronze statues of Prussian generals, commissioned by the government; a "St. Michael and the Dragon;" and a colossal "St. George and the Dragon," which occupied as prominent a place at the French Universal Exposition of 1855, as the "Amazon" did at the Great Exhibition of 1851.—J. T—e.

KITCHINER, William, M.D., an enthusiastic cultivator of, and writer on the art of cookery, was the son of an opulent London coal merchant, and born about 1777. Educated at Eton, he received his degree of M.D. from Glasgow; but a handsome competency relieved him from the necessity of practising his profession, and he devoted himself to hospitality and the cultivation of the culinary art. "His lunches," says one of his biographers, "to which only the favoured few had the privilege of entrée, were superb." He had two classes of dinners: one of them comparatively plain and simple; the other, his "public dinners, were elaborate chef d'œuvres, and heralded by a loud note of preparation." His fame as an amateur gastronomist was established by his "Apicius Redivivus," published in 1817, followed in 1822 by "The Art of Invigorating and Prolonging Life." At his death, which happened on the 20th of February, 1827, he left, ready for publication, "The Traveller's Oracle," a curious and whimsical book. Dr. Kitchiner was a man of some scientific accomplishment. His "Practical Observations on Telescopes," published anonymously in 1815, reached a third edition in 1819. This work, and an essay "On the size best adapted for achromatic glasses," contributed to vol. xlvi. of the Philosophical Magazine, were recast and published in 1825 as "The Economy of the Eyes." Dr. Kitchiner was fond of music, and had a fine musical library. In 1822 he published a small volume of "Observations in Vocal Music;" and the same year, a handsome folio, the "Loyal and National Songs of England," selected from original manuscripts and early printed copies in his own library. There is an amusing memoir of this modern Apicius in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1827.—F. E.

KITE, Charles, a physician, born at Gravesend about 1768, was the author of various articles in the London Medical Journal, and of two works on drowning. He died in 1811.—D. W. R.

KI-TSEU, a Chinese philosopher who flourished about 1122 b.c. The knowledge necessary for a wise man he summed up in nine rules, which contain the most precious elements of morality. The five things he held to be desirable are—a long life, riches, tranquillity, love of virtue, and a happy death.—D. W. R.

KITTO, John, the eminent self-taught biblical scholar, was born at Plymouth, 4th December, 1804. Through the intemperance of his father his childhood was passed in poverty, so that he got no schooling worthy of the name. Having, however, through his grandmother's kindness learned to read, he devoured all the nursery literature within his reach. When he was about ten years of age he was set to work as assistant to his father who was a mason. On the 13th February, 1817, the little drudge, who was engaged carrying mortar and slates, missed his footing and fell from the roof of a house, down thirty-five feet, into the court beneath. Long he lay in bed afterwards, and by the accident his sense of hearing was completely extinguished. The poor boy resorted to various contrivances to gain a livelihood, groping for bits of rope and iron in Sutton pool, painting heads and flowers, and preparing labels to replace such as were thus spelled—"Logins for singel men." The love of reading still grew upon him, victim though he was of hunger and nakedness, and at length the starved and ragged lad was admitted into Plymouth workhouse. In the workhouse he began to keep a journal—a curious record of his history and privations; his learning to be a shoemaker; his fights with the other boys who teased him; his lamentations over his grandmother's death; his moralizings on passing events; his being indentured out to a man named Bowden, who made his life so utterly wretched that he twice attempted suicide; and his return a second time to the poorhouse. But the various writings of the pauper youth began to attract attention; a subscription was made for him; and he left the hospital in which he had been an inmate for about four years. Mr. Groves, then a dentist in Exeter, took him under his charge as an apprentice; and during his stay at Exeter, and in his twentieth year, he published a small volume of essays. Kitto then went to the Missionary college in Islington to learn printing, with a view to mission work abroad. Malta was selected as his field of labour, and there he resided eighteen months. On his return he found Mr. Groves preparing to go as a missionary to the East, and he at once agreed to go with him as tutor to his children—a strange occupation for a deaf and rather feeble and self-willed stripling. Mr. Groves and his party reached Bagdad on the 6th December, 1829, and Kitto remained till September, 1832. During his stay in Bagdad the city was besieged; the plague broke out and carried off fifty thousand of the population in two months; and the river overflowed its banks, throwing down seven thousand houses. Kitto came home by way of Constantinople, and arrived in England, June, 1833, having kept a pretty full journal of his eastern travels. He began at once to write in the Penny Magazine, and Mr. Knight engaged him for the Penny Cyclopedia. He had always been fond of theology; his travels had furnished him with a knowledge of oriental customs and peculiarities, and he projected the Pictorial Bible, which was published in monthly parts, and finished in May, 1838. It rose at once into high popularity, and has been several times reprinted. The work was published anonymously, and its success decided what should be the labour of his subsequent years. The "Pictorial History of Palestine" followed; the "Christian Traveller," of which a few parts only were published; the "History of Palestine;" the "Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature;" the "Pictorial Sunday Book;" and various smaller pieces, the best of which are the "Lost Senses," the first volume of which is virtually an autobiography, and one of great interest. Then came the "Journal of Sacred Literature," to which he gave much of his time; and finally the "Daily Bible Illustrations," in eight volumes, and dedicated to the queen. This work is the most popular of all his productions, as it justly deserves to be. But before this work was concluded he had fallen into bad health. Headaches had plagued him through life; and probably his skull had received some internal injury from the fall in his youth. To secure him some relaxation a sum of money was raised among his friends—a pension of £100 from the civil list having been previously conferred upon him. Broken down and exhausted from constitutional debility and excessive labour, he repaired to Germany and finally settled at Canstatt on the Neckar. Recovery was hopeless, his days were clouded by family bereavement, and after some hours of severe convulsions he died on the morning of the 25th of November, 1854. A handsome monument, erected by the publisher of his last work, marks the spot where he now sleeps, in the new cemetery