KNIGHT 29 society, but generally at his own risk and ex- pense. Foremost were the "Penny Magazine," in three series (1832-'45), which at one time had a circulation of nearly 200,000 copies week- ly; the " British Almanac " and "Companion to the Almanac," begun in 1828 and still con- tinued ; the "Penny Cyclopaedia" (30 vols. small fol., 1833-'56), since condensed as the " National Cyclopaedia ;" the " Library of En- tertaining Knowledge," to which he contrib- uted a volume on "The Elephant" (1831); the "Pictorial History of England," by Craik and Macfarlane, with its continuation entitled " History of the Thirty Years' Peace," by Mr. Knight and Miss Martineau (1840-'50) ; and the " Gallery of Portraits of Distinguished Men." Several of the above works were edited by Mr. Knight, and all enjoyed much of his supervision. He also edited the " Pictorial Bible " (4 vols. 4to, 1838) ; the " Pictorial Book of Common Prayer" (1838); the "Store of Knowledge" (1841); "London Pictorially Il- lustrated" (6 vols., 1841-'4; abridged into the "Cyclopaedia of London," 1851); "Old Eng- land, a Pictorial Museum of National Antiqui- ties" (2 vols. fol., 1845); the " Weekly Vol- ume," a series extending to 126 vols. (18mo, 1843-'5); "Half Hours with the Best Au- thors " (4 vols., 1847-'8) ; " The Land we Live in" (4 vols., 1848); " Cyclopedia of the In- dustry of All Nations" (1851); "Half Hours of English History " (2 vols., 1853) ; " Geog- raphy of the British Empire" (2 vols., 1853), &c. He won a position as a Shakespearian scholar by his "Pictorial Shakspere," in- cluding a biography and a " History of Opin- ion, with Doubtful Plays and Index " (8 vols. 8vo, 1839-'41 ; library edition, 12 vols. 18mo, 1842-'4; national edition, with biography and "Studies," 8 vols. 8vo, 1851 -'3); "Plays and Poems, with Glossarial Notes " (7th ed., 1 vol. 8vo, 1857); "Companion Shakspere" (8 vols. 12mo, 1855-'7), &c. In 1854, having purchased the plates of the "Penny Cyclopedia," Mr. Knight began the " English Cyclopedia," based upon that work, but. greatly enlarged and modi- fied (22 vols. 4to, usually bound in 11, with a separate volume of indexes). His own writings more especially are : "Results, of Machinery" (1830), and " Rights of Industry, Capital, and Labor" (1831), amalgamated and enlarged un- der the title of " Knowledge is Power" (1855) ; "Life of Caxton" (1844), enlarged under the title of "The Old Printer and the Modern Press" (1854); "Varieties" (1844); "New Lamps for Old : Remarks on Mr. Collier's Dis- covery of the Annotations on Shakspere" (1851); "Once upon a Time" (1854), a col- lection of his miscellaneous works ; and " The Struggles of a Book against Excessive Taxa- tion," and "The Case of the Authors as re- gards the Paper Duty, "pamphlets which large- ly contributed to the repeal of the English duty upon paper, as proposed in Mr. Gladstone's budget of 1860. In 1856 appeared the first volume of " The Popular History of England, an Illustrated History of Society and Govern- ment from the Earliest Period to our own Times." This work, the most important of Mr. Knight's writings, was completed in 1862 in 8 vols. 8vo, bringing the British annals down to the final extinction of the corn laws in 1849. The new editions of this work contain an ap- pendix, giving a chronological account of pub- lic events, legislation, and statistics until the time of publication. He also wrote an auto- biography, " Passages of a Working Life during Half a Century" (3 vols., 1863-'5; abridged American ed., 1 vol., New York, 1874) ; " School History of England" (1865); " Begg'd at Court" (1867); "Questions on School His- tory" (1868) ; and " Half Hours with the best Letter Writers " (2 vols., 1866-'8). Mr. Knight's whole life was one of useful and intellectual labor, and it is not too much to say that he was the founder of that description of litera- ture, cheap yet good, which has exercised a very beneficial influence on the minds of his countrymen during the last 50 years. His suc- cess as a man of business was not equal to his enterprise. About the year 1860 he received the appointment, through the influence of Lord Brougham, of publisher of the " London Ga- zette," almost a sinecure, at 1,200 'a year. His statue was erected at Windsor in 1874. KNIGHT. I. Richard Payne, an English au- thor, born at Wormsley Grange, Herefordshire, in 1750, died in London, April 24, 1824. Being a sickly child, he was not put to school, nor allowed to study either Latin or Greek at home. In 1764, however, upon the death of his father, he was sent to a grammar school, and in the course of a few years obtained a thorough knowledge of Latin and Greek. In 1771 he came into possession of a large property, and from 1780 to 1806 held a seat in parliament, during the last 22 years as member for the borough of Ludlow, in which he owned a large estate. In 1814 he was ap- pointed a trustee of the British museum, to which institution his unique collection of an- tiquities, consisting chiefly of ancient bronzes and Greek coins, and valued at 50,000, was be- queathed. His admiration of Greek art having directed his attention to those subjects which illustrate it, he published in 1786 " An Account of the Remains of the Worship of Priapus lately existing at Isernia, in the Kingdom of Naples, to which is added a Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, and its connection with the Mystic Theology of the Ancients " (4to). This work was privately printed, and was at- tacked on the score of its indelicacy, notwith- standing the author's object was simply to elu- cidate an obscure point in Greek mythology. In 1791 appeared his " Analytical Essay on the Greek Alphabet " (4to), in which he broached some opinions of questionable value on the use of the digamma, and also exposed the forgery of certain inscriptions claimed to have been found by Fourmont in Laconia, and which had deceived Winckelmann, Heyne, and some of the
