Samuel Warren, in his 'Legal Studies,' 3rd ed. 1854 (i. 235–6, 349), highly praises his historical work. Keightley spent some time in Italy (Notes on the Bucolics, Pref.), and was an accomplished linguist. But he ludicrously overestimated all his performances, and his claim to have written the best history of Rome in any language, or to be the first to justly value Virgil and Sallust, could not be admitted by his friends. During the last years of his life he received a pension from the civil list. He died at Erith, Kent, on 4 Nov. 1872.
Besides the works already mentioned Keightley was author of 'The Crusaders, or Scenes, Events, and Characters from the times of the Crusaders' (1834), and 'Secret Societies of the Middle Ages,' which was published anonymously, and against his wish, in Knight's 'Library of Entertaining Knowledge,' in 1837 (Notes and Queries, 4th ser. ix. 359, 435, 489, 541). He also issued 'The Manse of Mastland,' a novel translated from the Dutch of C. E. Van Koetsveld, 1860, 8vo.
[Extract from Register of Trin. Coll. Dublin, kindly supplied by the Rev. J. W. Stubbs, D.D.; Times, 7 Nov. 1872; Keightley's Fairy Mythology in Bohn's Antiquarian Library, 1850, Preface; Webb's Compendium of Irish Biog. p. 585.]
KEIGWIN, JOHN (1641–1716), Cornish scholar, was born at Mousehole on Mounts Bay in Cornwall, and baptised at Paul on 7 Jan. 1641. His direct ancestor was 'Jenkin Keigwin, gent.,' who was killed by a cannon-ball when the Spaniards landed at Mousehole on 23 July 1595. His father was Martin Keigwin, and he was the only son by a second marriage. His mother was Elizabeth, second daughter of Robert Scawen of St. Germans, whom his father married 27 Dec. 1639. John Keigwin received a classical education, and was instructed in the Cornish language by his father. His occupation was that of a merchant at Mousehole, but he gave much of his time to the study 'of the original language of his county,' then on the verge of extinction, and was probably the last person whose knowledge of it was profound. Edward Lhuyd, in his address 'to the courteous and noble inhabitants of the county of Cornwall,' expresses his acknowledgments to Keigwin. In 1700 Lhuyd came into Cornwall, and, with the assistance of Keigwin, wrote his 'Cornish Grammar.' While attending the assizes for Cornwall, Keigwin was requested by Sir Francis North, the lord chief justice, to undertake the translation from the Cornish of a mystery play entitled 'Pascon Agan Arluth' (The Passion of our Lord). This he did in 1682. His second work was a translation of 'The Creation of the World,' by William Jordan [q. v.], 1697. These works remained in manuscript until 1826–7, when Davies Gilbert, F.R.S., edited and printed them in two volumes, entitled respectively 'Mount Calvary' and 'The Creation of the World.' Gilbert's knowledge of Cornish was, however, limited, and he made many errors of transcription. Between 1860 and 1863 Mr. Whitley Stokes re-edited them in the 'Transactions of the Philological Society.' Keigwin corresponded in the Cornish tongue with John Boson, William Gwavas, and Thomas Tonkin. One of his letters to Gwavas, dated 1693, is in the British Museum Addit. MS. 28555, pp. 139–40.
He died at Mousehole on 20 April 1716. By his wife Mary Penrose, whom he married in 1666, he had four children.
[Mount Calvary, 1826, with Memoir of J. Keigwin, by Sir N. H. Nicolas, pp. xi–xviii; Mackay's Annals of the Bodleian; Pryce's Archæologia Cornu-Britannica, 1790, in Preface; Burke's Landed Gentry, 1850, i. 664, 937; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. pp. 280, 281, 1089, 1195.]
KEIGWIN, RICHARD (d. 1690), naval and military commander, was third son of Richard Keigwin (1605–1647) of Penzance, by Margaret, daughter of Nicholas Godolphin of Trewarveneth. He was in 1665 appointed lieutenant of the Santa Maria, one of the blue squadron in the four days' fight 1–4 June 1666. In 1672 he was promoted by Prince Rupert to the command of the Eagle flagship, but was shortly afterwards moved into the Assistance as lieutenant under Commodore Richard Munden [q. v.] In the attack on the island of St. Helena, 4 May 1673, he commanded the boats and the men who landed in Prosperous Bay, at the spot since known as 'Keigwin's Rock,' and swarmed up the cliff at 'Hold fast, Tom.' When Munden left the island he appointed Keigwin governor. A few months later the East India Company, to whom the island was assigned, recalled him, promising to reward him as his merits deserved. He was accordingly sent out to Bombay and appointed commandant of the garrison and of the company's forces by land and sea, including a troop of horse, some three hundred foot, and a small flotilla of armed vessels. In this capacity he seems to have insisted on the necessity of energetic measures in restraining the threatening attitude of the Mahrattas, and on 18 Oct. 1679, in command of the company's ship Revenge, fought a remarkable action with Sivajee's 'Armada' just outside Bombay. The native vessels which formed his squadron fled; one commanded by an Englishman was captured. The Revenge, a
