ceedings against her had been kept secret. On hearing that she had been imprisoned and threatened with death, Keith went alone through a crowd infuriated by rumours that the queen had attempted to poison her husband, forced his way into the council-chamber, and denounced war against Denmark if so much as a hair of her head was touched. He despatched a messenger to his own government for further instructions, and then shut himself up for four weeks. At the end of that time he received the return packet, with the insignia of the Bath, enclosed by the king's own hands, to mark his sense of Keith's conduct. He was instructed to invest himself, and go straight to the palace. In consequence of Keith's intrepid bearing, the queen was allowed to retire to Zell in Hanover. In November 1772 Keith was transferred to Vienna, where his father had been British minister before him, and he himself represented British interests for the next twenty years. During a period of leave in the summer of 1774 he appears to have accompanied his friend General Henry Seymour Conway on a military tour in France, Flanders, Prussia, and Hungary. In 1775 he was returned to parliament for Peebles, and, although absent, remained the representative until 1780. On 1 Sept. 1777 he was promoted major-general. In 1781 he became a lieutenant-general, and was made colonel of the 10th (Lincolnshire) foot. Having been reappointed to Vienna, he in 1788 very strongly urged on the home government the need of a change of policy towards Austria. His diplomatic services ended with the peace between Austria, Russia, and Turkey, on the eve of the French revolutionary war; on 29 April 1789 he became a privy councillor.
As a diplomatist Keith was capable, honest, and fearless. He possessed great conversational powers, speaking French, Dutch, German, and Italian well, and having a fluent command of Latin, of which he made good use in diplomacy. He was very temperate in his habits. In person he was short-throated, and in later life very corpulent. He died suddenly in the arms of his servant, after entertaining a few friends at dinner, at his villa at Hammersmith, 21 June 1795, aged 64. His father had died under nearly the same circumstances.
[Mrs. Gillespie Smyth's Memoirs and Correspondence of Sir Robert Murray Keith, K.B., with a memoir of Queen Matilda of Denmark (London, 1849, 2 vols. 8vo), is the chief authority. An abridgment, entitled Romance of Diplomacy (London, 8vo), appeared in 1861. An account of the formation and services of the 87th (or Keith's) highlanders is given in General D. Stewart's Sketches of the Scottish Highlanders (Edinburgh, 1822), vol. ii. See also Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen, vol. ii.; and in Hill Burton's Scot Abroad (new ed. 1881), pp. 423 et seq. Keith's despatches from Dresden, Copenhagen, and Vienna are enrolled under ‘Saxony,’ ‘Denmark,’ and ‘Austria,’ and the respective dates in the Foreign Office Papers in the Public Record Office, London. In the British Museum a letter from Keith to Count Bentinck in 1760 is in Egerton MS. 1722, f. 64; letters to Sir A. Mitchell are in Addit. MS. 6810 ff. 246, 252 b, 6856 ff. 26, 37, 6860 f. 387, and a letter from Dresden, Addit. MS. 6829, f. 187. Letters from Keith to Lord Grantham in 1771–9, General Rainsford in 1781, J. Strange in 1784, and the fifth Duke of Leeds in 1786–90, are also among Addit. MSS.]
KEITH, ROBERT WILLIAM (1787–1846), musical composer and writer, was born at Stepney on 20 March 1787. He was the son of Cornelius Keith, organist of St. Peter's, Cornhill, and of the Danish Chapel in Wellclose Street, and the grandson of William Keith, organist of West Ham Church (d. 1800). From the latter Keith learnt the rudiments of music, and from Barthelemon and others the violin, harmony, and composition. He kept at 131 Cheapside a musical and musical instrument warehouse, and prepared many of his own publications. He died on 19 June 1846. While organist and composer to the New Jerusalem Church in Friars Street, Keith published ‘A Selection of Sacred Melodies … to which is prefixed Instructions for the use of Young Organists …,’ London, 1816. There followed ‘A Musical Vade Mecum, being a compendious Introduction to the whole art of Music; Part I, containing the Principles of Notation, etc., in an easy categorical form, apprehensible to the meanest capacity,’ London, 1820 (?); ‘Part II, Elements of Musical Composition.’ Keith compiled instruction-books for pianoforte, flute, and Spanish guitar (by ‘Paulus Prucilli’), and a violin preceptor, which has gone through many editions, and still maintains its ground. Some of Keith's sacred music was published by Clementi. He set to music some elegiac verses, ‘Britannia, Mourn,’ on the death of the Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, 1817; arranged the overture and airs from ‘Der Freischütz’ as duet for two violins, 1830 (?); and edited ‘Favourite Airs with Variations, for the Violin.’
[Private information; Dictionary of Music, 1827, ii. 5; Brown's Biographical Dictionary, p. 354; Gerber's Tonkünstler-Lexikon, 1813, pt. iii. col. 32; Gent. Mag. vol. lxxxvi. pt. i. p. 346.]
