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KAY

studied diligently from nature, and the works of Hogarth, with whose power of characteristic expression he was greatly impressed, and in whose manner he about this time made several designs. From drawings made in the Düsseldorf lunatic asylum, he painted during 1828-29 a large picture called the "Madhouse" (Irrenhaus), which excited a marked sensation. But he soon returned to the more poetic and ambitious subjects of his master, in which the historical legends of his native country, and scriptural and ecclesiastical themes, are treated from a poetical and symbolical point of view. To this Kaulbach was, doubtless, in a great measure incited by the active patronage and influence of the king, Ludwig of Bavaria. The first of the great works of this order which he painted from his own designs was his famous legendary "Hunnenschlacht," completed in 1837. Kaulbach was now intrusted by King Ludwig with the decorations of the queen's apartments in the new palace at Munich; the principal rooms so painted being the throne-room, which he covered with designs illustrating the poems of Klopstock; the drawing-room with designs from Wieland; and the state bed-room, in which the subjects, thirty-six in number, were taken from the works of Göthe. The drawing-room, both walls and ceiling, was painted in encaustic; in the other rooms the walls were executed in fresco, the ceilings in encaustic. He also painted a series of frescoes on the exterior of the New Pinacothek, illustrating the history of modern German art, and several others. Chief among the many colossal pictures painted during this period in Munich is his "Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus" (seventeen feet by nineteen), which is in the New Pinacothek, and which has been engraved on a scale of unusual magnitude by Herren Wagner and Merz. For some years past Kaulbach has been much engaged in preparing the designs for a series of large pictures for the new museum at Berlin. These, as well as his recent mural paintings in Munich, have been executed in the stereochrome, or water-glass method, i.e. with a soluble alkaline silicate as the vehicle; his frescoes, like most modern German as well as English frescoes, having shown unmistakable symptoms of decay. One of the largest of his recent non-mural works is the "Tower of Babel," which he forwarded to the French international exposition of 1855. Besides these and many other colossal works, Kaulbach has painted various historical and poetical pictures of smaller dimensions, and several portraits in oil; and made numerous designs from the New Testament, the works of Shakspeare, Göthe, Goerres, &c., for engraving. In all his works the aim is high, the conception noble, the knowledge displayed profound. The method of treatment will be differently estimated according to the prepossessions of the critic. Kaulbach belongs to the idealistic school, and he employs symbol and allegory largely, like all the disciples of Cornelius. As regards the execution of his works, it must be remembered that comparatively few of his larger mural compositions have been executed with his own hand. The cartoons are prepared by him, but the actual painting is intrusted usually in part, but in many instances wholly, to pupils and assistants.—J. T—e.

KAUNITZ, Wenceslas Anton, Prince of, and Count of Rietberg, an Austrian statesman, born at Vienna in 1711 died 24th June, 1794. From 1732 to 1735 he travelled in Germany, Italy, France, and England. On his return he was named Aulic councillor by Charles VI., and imperial commissioner to the diet at Ratisbon. In 1741 Maria Theresa sent him to Rome as ambassador, and in 1742 to Turin. In these missions he obtained great credit. In 1744 he was minister plenipotentiary to Charles of Lorraine, governor of the Netherlands; and in the absence of that prince was charged with the government of the provinces. In 1746, when Brussels surrendered to the French, Kaunitz made favourable terms, which allowed the government and troops to retire to Antwerp, and when Antwerp fell he retired to Aix-la-Chapelle, where in 1748 he was ambassador to the congress, and signed the peace on the part of Austria. In 1750 he was ambassador at the court of Louis XV., and paid his court so successfully to Madame De Pompadour that he secured an alliance between France and Austria, and defeated the Prussian diplomatist, greatly to the chagrin of Frederick II. He had previously entered the famed order of the golden fleece, and honours now fell thickly on him. The government of the empire was virtually in his hands; he was made knight of St. Stephen of Hungary, and raised to the dignity of hereditary prince. With Francis and Joseph II. his influence rather declined; but he went with Joseph to Neustadt in 1770, and met the king of Prussia. After this he discontinued attendance at court, but was frequently visited by the emperor; and it is commonly supposed that Joseph's reforms emanated from Kaunitz. Rome hated the innovations, and stigmatized Kaunitz as "il ministro eretico." Under Leopold II. he was again at the head of affairs; but his career had been completed, and he sought retirement at the accession of Francis II. He was carried off at last by a cold, neglected or improperly treated. Kaunitz was a man of immense information, could speak five or six languages, had travelled much, studied hard, seen the world, had great abilities, and, as Voltaire said of him, he was as "active in the cabinet as the king of Prussia in the field." So great was his influence that he was called in jest the "coachman of Europe." A thorough Austrian, he hated Prussia, and was repaid in kind. In attention he verged on foppery, and procured all his personal equipments—dress, linen, watches, jewellery—and even furniture and carriages, from Paris. Among his other peculiarities was the singular habit of living in close rooms, hermetically sealed against the invasion of the atmosphere. The air was his grand enemy, which he could never be prevailed on to encounter unless rolled up in a fortification of garments. He was a founder of academies and schools, a patron of art and a friend of progress, and, on the whole, one of the best ministers that Austria has ever had.—P. E. D.

* KAVANAGH, Julia, was born in 1824 in the town of Thurles in the county of Tipperary, and is the daughter of Bernard Kavanagh, himself a man of literary attainments. Leaving her native country at an early age she received a good education at Paris, which developed her excellent natural powers. Returning to Britain in her twenty-eighth year she settled in London, and commenced authorship first in periodicals, and afterwards by independent publications. After some tales and romances, which were well received, she brought out in 1850 a work of more pretension, "Women in France of the Eighteenth Century," in which she gives evidence of her knowledge of French life and manners. This was followed in 1852 by "Women of Christianity." She has since written various tales and romances—"Grace Lee," 1854; "Rachael Gray," 1855; "Seven Years," and other tales, 1860. Miss Kavanagh has a fine instinct of observation and much elegance of expression, the graces and spirituality of the French style.—J. F. W.

KAY, John, a writer of the fifteenth century, is distinguished in our literary annals as the first person who bore the title of poet-laureate. Little more is known of him. Of his verse not a line survives. His only extant production is an English prose translation of the Latin history of the siege of Rhodes, the Obsidio Rhodiæ urbis of Gulielmus Caorsius, vice-chancellor of the knights of Malta, when Rhodes was besieged by the Turks in 1480. In the dedication with which the text itself of the work commences, Kay, addressing King Edward, styles himself "hys humble poet-laureate." The English version was printed probably about 1482. Only two copies of it are known to exist, one of them being in the British museum.—F. E.

KAY, John, remembered for his connection with Sir Richard Arkwright, was in 1767 a clockmaker at Warrington. He was then and there employed by Arkwright to assist in constructing a machine destined to realize the perpetual motion. According to his own account, it was he who suggested to Arkwright the feasibility of spinning by rollers, and made the first model of the kind. He accompanied Arkwright to Nottingham, and was afterwards dismissed for misconduct, involving a charge of felony. He appeared as a prominent witness against Arkwright in the trial of June, 1785, which destroyed Arkwright's claims to a patent right in his cotton-spinning machinery. Kay's subsequent career is unknown.—F. E.

KAY, John, a Scottish miniature painter and engraver, was born in 1742. At the age of thirteen he was apprenticed to a barber, whom he served for six years. In 1771 he purchased the freedom of the city of Edinburgh, and commenced business there on his own account. He had from his boyhood shown a talent for drawing; and encouraged by Mr. Nisbet of Dirleton, a wealthy country gentleman, he ultimately relinquished his trade of a barber in 1785, and devoted himself to engraving and miniature painting. He died in 1826, in his eighty-fourth year. Kay's reputation mainly rests on his interesting etchings of the public personages and eccentric characters, who figured in Edinburgh during the latter portion of the eighteenth and the first twenty-five years of the nineteenth century. These were republished after the death of his second wife in 1835, in two quarto volumes,