Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/672

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KENWARD.
655

"Letters of Charles Dickens," and the original, having been presented by Mr. Kent to the British Museum, is now enshrined there in one of the glass cases in the King's Library. Between the Christmas of 1845 and that of 1870 Mr. Charles Kent was for fiye-and-twenty years editor, and during the last eight of those years proprietor, of the Sun news- paper. During the course of his editorship— which began at the age of two-and-twenty — ^he is said to have written upwards of 5,000 leading articles and more than 10,000 reviews. In 1870 was pub- lieQied a new and collected edition of " Kent's Poems." In 1872 there was issued from the press simul- taneously in England and the United States his work entitled "Charles Dickens as a Reader." As an old and intimate friend of the late Lord Lytton, there was intrusted to him, in 1874, the 9election and arrangement, in the Knebworth edition, of all the mis- cellaneous works of that great author. For seven years — namely, from the spring of 1874 to that of 1881— Mr. Kent edited the Weekly Register, In 1875 he edited, with a Biographical Introduction and Notes, "The Popular Centenary Edition of the Works of Charles Lamb," and in the following year, with an Introductory Biography and a still lajger number of illus- trative notes, " The Poetical Works of Eobert Bums." In 1879 he brought out, with an elaborate Memoir and Notes, "The Centen- ary Edition of the Works of Thomas Moore," and in 1881 "The Works of Father Prout," with an introductory memoir, in which was given for the first time an authentic history of the Bev. Francis Mahony. Intermediately, in 1880, Mr. Charles Kent published, in a quarto voliime, a remarkable polyglot collection entitled "Co- rona Catholica," appended to which title were these explanatory words — " Ad Petri successoris Pedes oblata, De summi Pontificis Leonis XIII. Assumptione Epigramma, Carolo Kent auctore, in quinqua- ginta linguis." The seed-germ of the work was an epigram in which the writer celebrated both the death of Pius IX. and the accession of Leo XIII., with especial reference to the reputed prophecies of St. Malachy. This epigram, having been ^anslated witii surprising rapidity into no fewer than fifty languages by some of the most illiistrious linguistic scholars in the world, forms, as a whole, an al- most unprecedented curiosity of literature. One of the latest books on which the author of "Corona Catholica" has been engaged is in its turn a curiosity of science, descriptive as it is of "The Modern Seven Wonders of the World," these being the Steam Engine, iiie Electric Telegraph, the Sewing Machine, the Photo- giaph, the Spectroscope, the Elec- tric Lightj and the Telephone. Mr. Charles Kent was married, in 1853, to Ann, the eldest daughter of Murdo Young, author of " Wal- lace, a Tragedy," in five acts, and for more thim thirty years Mr. Kent's predecessor as proprietor of the Sun newspaper. Mrs. Charles Kent is the authoress of " Evelyn Stuart," "Maud Hamilton," "The Gilberts of Ashton," and a number of other novels. In 1883 he brought out, carefully selected by him- self, "The Wit* and Wisdom of Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton j " and as a biographer he has conM- buted the papers on " Dean Alford" and " Lord Dalling " to the ninth edition of the " Encyclopedia Bri- ^innica."

KENWARD, James, F.S.A., born in London, July 30, 1828, was edu- cated for the Church, but owing to family reverses he was unable to proceed to college, and after a short career as junior master in school, he sought subsistence in commercial pursuits. He has been for many years connected with the celebrated