[Kennaquhair] (i. e. know-not-where), an imaginary locality in Scott's "Monastery." See [Weissnichtwo].
[Kennedy, Benjamin Hall], head-master of Shrewsbury, son of a schoolmaster, born at Birmingham; after a brilliant career at Cambridge became, in 1828, Fellow of St. John's, in 1830 assistant-master at Harrow, and in 1830 was appointed to Shrewsbury, where he proved one of the greatest of schoolmasters (1804-1889).
[Kennicott, Benjamin], English Hebraist, born at Totnes, Devonshire, educated at Oxford; became Fellow of Exeter, Radcliffe librarian, and in 1770 canon of Christ Church; from 1753 he organised and took part in an extensive collation of Hebrew texts, issuing in 1776-80 the "Hebrew Old Testament, with Various Readings" (1718-1783).
[Kensal Green], a cemetery in the NW. of London; celebrated as the burial-place of many eminent men, Thackeray in chief.
[Kensington] (166), a West London parish, in which stand the Palace (Queen Victoria's birthplace), the Albert Memorial and Hall, South Kensington Museum, the Royal College of Music, the Imperial Institute, and many other institutions: contains also Holland House, and has long been the place of residence of notably artistic and literary men.
[Kent] (1,142), English maritime county in the extreme SE.; lies between the Thames estuary and the Strait of Dover, with Surrey and Sussex on the W.; it is hilly, with marshes in the SE. and on the Thames shore; is watered by the Medway, Stour, and Darent; has beautiful scenery, rich pasturage, and fine agricultural land, largely under hops and market-gardens; a large part of London is in Kent; Maidstone (32) is the county town; Rochester (26) and Canterbury (23) are cathedral cities; Woolwich (99), Gravesend (35), and Dover (33) are seaports, and Margate and Ramsgate watering-places.
[Kentigern, St.], or St. Mungo, the Apostle of Cumbria, born at Culross, the natural son of a princess named Thenew; entered the monastery there, where he had been trained from a boy, and founded a monastery near Glasgow and another in Wales; was distinguished for his missionary labours; was buried at Glasgow Cathedral (518-603).
[Kentish Fire], vehement and prolonged derisive cheering, so called from indulgence in it in Kent at meetings to oppose the Catholic Emancipation Bill of 1829.
[Kentucky] (1,859), an American State in the S. of the Ohio basin, with the Virginias on its E. and Tennessee on its S. border and the Mississippi River on the W.; is watered by the Licking and Kentucky Rivers that cross the State from the Cumberland Mountains in the SE. to the Ohio, and the Tennessee River traverses the western corner; the climate is mild and healthy; much of the soil is extremely fertile, giving hemp and the largest tobacco crops in the Union; there are dense forests of virgin ash, walnut, and oak over two-thirds of the State, and on its pasturage the finest stock and horses are bred; coal is found in both the E. and the W., and iron is plentiful; the chief industries are whisky distilling, iron smelting and working; admitted to the Union in 1792, Kentucky was a slave-holding State, but did not secede in the Civil War; the capital is Frankfort (8), the largest city Louisville (160); the State University is at Lexington (29).
[Kepler, John], illustrious astronomer, born at Weil der Stadt, Würtemberg, born in poverty; studied at Tübingen chiefly mathematics and astronomy, became lecturer on these subjects at Grätz; joined Tycho Brahé at Prague as assistant, who obtained a pension of £18 for him from the Austrian government, which was never paid; removed to Lintz, where Sir Henry Wotton saw him living in a camera obscura tent doing ingenious things, photographing the heavens, "inventing toys, writing almanacs, and being ill off for cash ... an ingenious person, if there ever was one among Adam's posterity ... busy discovering the system of the world—grandest conquest ever made, or to be made," adds Carlyle, "by the sons of Adam"; he was long occupied in studying the "'motions of the star' Mars, with calculations repeated seventy times, and with the discovery of the planetary laws of the Universe"; these last are called from his discovery of them Kepler's Laws; the first, that the planets move on elliptic orbits, the sun in one of the foci; the second, that, in describing its orbit, the radius vector of a planet traverses equal areas in equal times; and the third, that the square of the time of the revolution of a planet is proportional to the cube of its mean distance from the sun; poverty pursued Kepler all his days, and he died of fever at Ratisbon (1571-1630).