Chapter Kames to Kelly of K by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

Kames to Kelly

Kames, Henry Home, Lord (1696-1782).—Miscellaneous writer, son of Geo. H., of Kames, Berwickshire, was admitted an advocate in 1723, and raised to the Bench in 1752. In 1748 he published a collection of Decisions of the Court of Session. It is, however, on his philosophical and historical writings that his literary fame rests. His writings include Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion (1751), The Elements of Criticism (1762), in which he sought for principles based on the elements of human nature; Sketches of the History of Man (1774), and Loose Hints on Education, in which many modern views are anticipated. In all these works, while the style is stiff and crabbed, there is much original thought. Lord Kames was also an eminent authority upon agriculture, on which he in 1777 published a work entitled The Gentleman Farmer.

Kavanagh, Julia (1824-1877).—Novelist, daughter of Morgan Kavanagh, poet, and philologist, wrote many novels, of which the scene is usually in France, among which are Madeleine (1848), Adele, and Daisy Burns; also biographical works, Woman in France in the 18th Century (1850), etc.

Kaye, Sir John William (1814-1876).—Historian and biographer, son of a London solicitor, was educated at Eton and Addiscombe. After serving for some time in the Bengal Artillery, he succeeded J. S. Mill as secretrayto the political and secret department in the East India Office. His first literary work was novel published in 1845, and he then began his valuable series of histories and biographies illustrative of the British occupation of India, including The War in Afghanistan (1851), and The Sepoy War in India, which he did not live to finish, and which was completed by G. B. Malleson as The History of the Indian Mutiny (6 vols., 1890); also histories of the East India Company and of Christianity in India, and Lives of Sir John Malcolm and other Indian soldiers and statesmen. All his writings are characterised by painstaking research, love of truth, and a style suited to the importance of his subjects. He was made K.C.S.I. in 1871.

Keary, Annie (1825-1879).—Novelist, wrote some good novels, including Castle Daly, A Doubting Heart, and Oldbury, also books for children and educational works.

Keats, John (1795-1821).—Poet, son of the chief servant at an inn in London, who married his master’s daughter and died a man of some substance. He was sent to a school at Enfield, and having meanwhile become an orphan, was in 1810 apprenticed to a surgeon at Edmonton. In 1815 he went to London to walk the hospitals. He was not, however, at all enthusiastic in his profession, and having become acquainted with Leigh Hunt, Hazlitt, Shelley, and others, he gave himself more and more to literature. His first work—some sonnets—appeared in Hunt’s Examiner, and his first book, Poems, came out in 1817. This book, while containing much that gave little promise of what was to come, was not without touches of beauty and music, but it fell quite flat, finding few readers beyond his immediate circle. Endymion, begun during a visit to the Isle of Wight, appeared in 1818, and was savagely attacked in Blackwood and the Quarterly Review. These attacks, though naturally giving pain to the poet, were not, as was alleged at the time, the cause of his health breaking down, as he was possessed of considerable confidence in his own powers, and his claim to immortality as a poet. Symptoms of hereditary consumption, however, began to show themselves and, in the hope of restored health, he made a tour in the Lakes and Scotland, from which he returned to London none the better. The death soon after of his brother Thomas, whom he had helped to nurse, told upon his spirits, as did also his unrequited passion for Miss Fanny Brawne. In 1820 he published Lamia and Other Poems, containing Isabella, Eve of St. Agnes, Hyperion, and the odes to the Nightingale and The Grecian Urn, all of which had been produced within a period of about 18 months. This book was warmly praised in the Edinburgh Review. His health had by this time completely given way, and he was likewise harassed by narrow means and hopeless love. He had, however, the consolation of possessing many warm friends, by some of whom, the Hunts and the Brawnes, he was tenderly nursed. At last in 1821 he set out, accompanied by his friend Severn, on that journey to Italy from which he never returned. After much suffering he died at Rome, and was buried in the Protestant cemetery there. The character of Keats was much misunderstood until the publication by R. M. Milnes, afterwards Lord Houghton (q.v.), of his Life and Letters, which gives an attractive picture of him. This, together with the accounts of other friends, represent him as “eager, enthusiastic, and sensitive, but humorous, reasonable, and free from vanity, affectionate, a good brother and friend, sweet-tempered,