The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 275

KNOWLES, SHERIDAN, dramatist, born at Cork; was connected with the stage first as actor and then as an author of plays, which include "Virginius," "The Hunchback," and "The Wife"; latterly he gave up the stage, and took to preaching in connection with the Baptist body (1784-1862).

KNOW-NOTHINGS, a party in the United States that sprung up in 1853 and restricted the right of American citizens.h.i.+p to those who were born in America or of an American parentage, so called because to those inquisitive about their secret organisation they uniformly answered "I know nothing."

KNOX, JOHN, the great Scottish Reformer, born at Giffordgate, Haddington, in 1505; studied at Glasgow University; took priest's orders; officiated as a priest, and did tutoring from 1530 to 1540; came under the influence of George Wishart, and avowed the Reformed faith; took refuge from persecution in St. Andrews Castle in 1547; was there summoned to lead on the movement; on the surrender of the castle was taken prisoner, and made a slave in a French galley for 19 months; liberated in 1549 at the intercession of Edward VI., came and a.s.sisted the Protestant cause in England; was offered preferments in the Church, but declined them; fled in 1553 to France, from the persecution of b.l.o.o.d.y Mary; ministered at Frankfort and Geneva to the English refugees; returned to Scotland in 1555, but having married, went back next year to Geneva; was in absence, in 1557, condemned to be burned; published in 1558 his "First Blast against the Monstrous Regiment of Women"; returned to Scotland for good in 1559, and became minister in Edinburgh; saw in 1560 the jurisdiction of the Pope abolished in Scotland; had successive interviews with Queen Mary after her arrival at Leith in 1561; was tried for high-treason before the Privy Council, but acquitted in 1563; began his "History of the Reformation in Scotland" in 1566; preached in 1567 at James VI.'s coronation in Stirling; was in 1571 struck by apoplexy; died in Edinburgh on the 24th November 1572, aged 67, the Regent Morton p.r.o.nouncing an _eloge_ at his grave, "There lies one who never feared the face of man." Knox is p.r.o.nounced by Carlyle to have been the one Scotchman to whom, "of all others, his country and the world owe a debt"; "In the history of Scotland," he says, "I can find properly but one epoch; we may say it contains nothing of world interest at all but this Reformation by Knox.... It is as yet a country without a soul ... the people now begin to _live_ ... Scottish literature and thought, Scottish industry, James Watt, David Hume, Walter Scott (little as he dreamt of debt in that quarter), and Robert Burns, I find Knox and the Reformation acting on the heart's core of every one of these persons and phenomena; I find that without the Reformation they would not have been; or," he adds, "the Puritanism of England and of New England either"; and he sums up his message thus: "Let men know that they are men, created by G.o.d, responsible to G.o.d; who work in any meanest moment of time what will last through eternity. This great message," he adds, "Knox delivered with a man's voice and strength, and found a people to believe him."

KOBDO, a town in Mongolia, the entrepot of Russian dealers in connection with the Altai mines.

KOCH, ROBERT, an eminent bacteriologist, born at Klansthal, in Hanover; famous for his researches in bacteriology; discovered sundry bacilli, among others the cholera bacillus and the phthisis bacillus, and a specific against it; _b_. 1843.

k.o.c.k, CHARLES PAUL DE, popular French novelist and dramatist, born near Paris, and educated for a mercantile career, but turned to writing and produced a series of works, not of first merit, but ill.u.s.trating contemporary French middle-cla.s.s life (1794-1871).

KOHELETH (the preacher, originally gatherer), the Hebrew name for the book of Ecclesiastes, and a personification of wisdom.

KOLA, a small town, the most northerly in Russia, on a peninsula of the same name, with a capacious harbour.

KOLIN, a Bohemian town on the Elbe, 40 m. SE. of Prague, where Frederick the Great was defeated by Marshal Daun in 1757.

KoLLIKER, an eminent embryologist, born at Zurich; professor of Anatomy at Wurzburg; _b_. 1817.

KoLN, the German name for COLOGNE (q. v.).

KoNIG, FRIEDRICH, German mechanician, born in Eisleben; bred a printer, and invented the steam-press, or printing by machinery (1774-1833).

KoNIGGRaTZ (16), a Bohemian town 60 m. E. of Prague; was the scene of a terrible battle called Sa'dowa, in Austria, where the Germans defeated the Austrians in 1866.

KoNIGSBERG (161), the capital of E. Prussia, on the Pregel, with several manufactures and an extensive trade; has a famous university, and is the birthplace of Kant, where also he lived and died.

KORaN (i. e. book to be read), the Bible of the Mohammedans, accepted among them as "the standard of all law and all practice; thing to be gone upon in speculation and life; it is read through in the mosques daily, and some of their doctors have read it 70,000 times, and hard reading it is"; it contains the teaching of Mahomet, collected by his disciples after his death, and arranged the longest chapters first and the shortest, which were the earliest, last; a confused book.

KORDOFAN (280), an Egyptian Soudanese province on the W. bank of the Nile; an undulating dry country, furnis.h.i.+ng crops of millet, and exporting gums, hides, and ivory; was lost in the Mahdist revolt of 1883, but recovered by Lord Kitchener's expedition in 1898; El Obeid (30), the capital is 230 m. SW. of Khartoum.

KOREISH, the chief tribe among the Arabs in Mahomet's time, and to which his family belonged.

KoRNER, KARL THEODOR, a German soldier poet, often called the German Tyrtaeus, born in Dresden; famous for his patriotic songs and their influence on German patriots; fell in a skirmish with the French at Mecklenburg (1791-1813).

KOSCIUSKO, THADDEUS, Polish general and patriot, born in Lithuania, of n.o.ble parentage, bred to arms; first saw service in the American War on the side of the colonists, and returning to Poland, twice over did valiant service against Russia, but at length he was taken prisoner at the battle of Maciejowice in 1794; he was subsequently set at liberty by the Emperor Paul, when he removed to America, but soon returned to settle in Switzerland, where he died by a fall of his horse over a precipice; he was buried at Cracow beside John Sobieski (1746-1817).

KOSSUTH, LOUIS, Hungarian patriot, born near Zemplen; studied for his father's profession, the law, but giving that up for politics, became editor of several Liberal papers in succession; elected member of the Diet at Pesth in 1847, he next year demanded autonomy for Hungary, and set himself to drive out the Hapsburgs and establish a republic; he raised a large army and large funds, but Russia aided Austria, and the struggle, though hopeful at first, proved in vain, defeated at Temesvar and escaping to Turkey, he came to England in 1851, was enthusiastically received, and lived there for many years; ultimately he resided in Turin, studied science, and died there (1802 or 1806-1894).

KOTZEBUE, German dramatist, born at Weimar; went to St. Petersburg, obtained favour at court and a government appointment; was banished to Siberia, but regained the favour of Paul, and was recalled; on Paul's death he returned to Germany, but went back to Russia from fear of Napoleon, whom he had violently attacked; he had a facile pen, and wrote no fewer than 200 dramatic pieces; his strictures on the German university students greatly exasperated them, and one of them attacked him in his house at Mannheim and stabbed him to death (1761-1819).

KOUMISS, an intoxicating beverage among the Kalmucks, made by fermentation from mare's milk.

KOVALEVSKY, ALEXANDER, Russian embryologist, professor at St.

Petersburg; studied and wrote on the Ascidians; _b_. 1840.

KRAKATAO, a volcanic island in the narrow Strait of Sunda, between Java and Sumatra; was the scene of a terrific eruption in 1883, causing a tidal wave that swept round the globe, and raising quant.i.ties of dust that made the sunsets in Britain even more than usually red for three years.

KRAKEN, a huge fabulous sea-monster, reported as at one time seen in the Norwegian seas; it would rise to the surface, and as it plunged down drag s.h.i.+ps and every floating or swimming thing along with it.

KRAPOTKIN, PRINCE PETER, a Russian Nihilist, born in Moscow; became a member of the INTERNATIONAL (q. v.); was arrested in Russia and imprisoned, but escaped, as also in France, but released, and settled in England; has written extensively on Socialistic subjects; _b_. 1842.

KRAUSE, KARL CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH, German philosopher, born at Eisenberg; studied under Fichte and Sch.e.l.ling, and was himself lecturer successively in Jena, Dresden, Berlin, Gottingen, and Munich, where he died; of the school of Kant, his work has suffered through the pedantry of his style; he wrote "The Ideal of Humanity," and many philosophical treatises (1781-1832).

KREFELD (105), in Rhenish Prussia, 12 m. NW. of Dusseldorf; important manufacturing town; noted for its silk and velvet factories founded by Protestant refugees; has also machinery and chemical works.

KREMLIN, gigantic pile of buildings in Moscow of all styles of architecture;, including palaces, cathedrals, museums, government offices; founded by Ivan III. in 1485.

KREUZER, a German coin, worth one-third or one-fifth of an English penny.

KRIEGSSPIEL, a military game played on large-scale maps with metal blocks for troops, and designed to represent as fully as possible the conditions of warfare; was invented by a Prussian lieutenant in 1824.

KRILOF, IVAN ANDREEVICH, the great Russian fabulist, born at Moscow, son of a soldier; began his literary career writing dramas and editing magazines; was some time secretary to the governor of Livonia, and for years lived an idle roving life; at 40 his fables in the Moscow _Spectator_ brought him fame in 1805; next year he was appointed to a Government post at St. Petersburg, and in 1821 to a post in the Imperial Public Library; he was an eccentric, much-loved man, and the humour and sympathy of his writings have won for him the t.i.tle of the La Fontaine of Russia (1768-1844).

KRISHNA (i. e. the swarthy one), the man-G.o.d, or G.o.d-man, viewed as the 8th and final incarnation or avatar of VISHNU (q. v.), in whose manifestation the latter first reveals himself as supreme divinity, being, as the Theosophist might say, his Mahatma. See THEOSOPHY.