Chapter Ken to Kingsley of K by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

Ken to Kingsley

Ken, Thomas (1637-1711).—Religious writer, son of an attorney, was born at Little Berkhampstead, educated at Winchester and Oxford, and entering the Church received the living of Brightstone, Isle of Wight, where he composed his Morning, Evening, and Midnight Hymns, perhaps the most widely known of English hymns. These he was accustomed to sing daily to the lute. After holding other benefices he became Bishop of Bath and Wells, and a Chaplain to Charles II. He was one of the “Seven Bishops” sent to the Tower by James II. Refusing to take the oaths to William and Mary, he was deprived, and spent his later years in comparative poverty, though he found an asylum at Longleat with Lord Weymouth. Izaak Walton was his brother-in-law. Ken wrote a manual of prayers for Winchester School, and other devotional works.

Kennedy, John Pendleton (1795-1870).—Novelist, born in Baltimore, was distinguished as a lawyer and politician. He wrote three novels, Swallow Barn (1832), Horse Shoe Robinson (1835), and Rob of the Bowl (1838), which give a vivid presentation of life in the Southern States.

Kennedy, Walter (flourished 1500).—son of Lord Kennedy, was educated at Glasgow, and is perhaps best known as Dunbar’s antagonist in the Flying of Dunbar and Kennedy. Other poems are Praise of Aige (Age), Ane Ballat in Praise of Our Lady, and The Passion of Christ. Most of his work is probably lost.

Killigrew, Thomas (1612-1683).—Dramatist, son of Sir Robert Killigrew, of Hanworth, was a witty, dissolute courtier of Charles II., and wrote nine plays, each in a different city. Of them the best known is The Parson’s Wedding.

King, Henry (1592-1669).—Poet, son of a Bishop of London, was educated at Westminster School and Oxford He entered the Church, and rose in 1642 to be Bishop of Chichester. The following year he was deprived, but was reinstated at the Restoration. He wrote many elegies on Royal persons and on his private friends, who included Donne and Ben Jonson. A selection from his Poems and Psalms was published in 1843.

Kinglake, Alexander William (1809-1891).—born near Taunton, educated at Eton and Cambridge, was called to the Bar in 1837, and acquired a considerable practice, which in 1856 he abandoned in order to devote himself to literature and public life. His first literary venture had been Eothen, a brilliant and original work of Eastern travel, published in 1844; but his magnum opus was his Invasion of the Crimea, in 8 vols. (1863-87), which is one of the most effective works of its class. It has, however, been charged with being too favourable to Lord Raglan, and unduly hostile to Napoleon III., for whom the author had an extreme aversion. Its great length is also against it.

Kingsford, William (1819-1898).—Historian, born in London, served in the army, and went to Canada, where he was engaged in surveying work. He has a place in literature for his History of Canada in 10 vols., a work of careful research, though not distinguished for purely literary merits.

Kingsley, Charles (1819-1875).—Novelist and historian, son of a clergyman, was born at Holne Vicarage near Dartmoor, but passed most of his childhood at Barnack in the Fen country, and Clovelly in Devonshire, educated at King’s Coll., London, and Cambridge Intended for the law, he entered the Church, and became, in 1842, curate, and two years later rector, of Eversley, Hampshire. In the latter year he published The Saints’ Tragedy, a drama, of which the heroine is St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Two novels followed, Yeast (1848) and Alton Locke (1850), in which he deals with social questions as affecting the agricultural labouring class, and the town worker respectively. He had become deeply interested in such questions, and threw himself heart and soul, in conjunction with F. D. Maurice and others, into the schemes of social amelioration, which they supported under the name of Christian socialism, contributing many tracts and articles under the signature of “Parson Lot.” In 1853 appeared Hypatia, in which the conflict of the early Christians with the Greek philosophy of Alexandria is depicted; it was followed in 1855 by Westward Ho, perhaps his most popular work; in 1857 by Two Years Ago, and in 1866 by Hereward the Wake. At Last (1870), gave his impressions of a visit to the West Indies. His taste for natural history found