685 



KARAMSIN, NIKOLAI MIKHAELOVITCH. 



KATER, HENRY. 



638 



tion. At nearly the same time with the ballads, Karajich published a 

 Servian grammar, which received the high honour of being rendered 

 into German by Jacob Grimm, and displayed a singular talent for 

 simplifying the rules of the language. In 1818 he issued a Servian 

 and German dictionary, of which, in 1S52, he published a second 

 edition. By these works he endeavoured to aid in putting an end to 

 the pedantic custom which prevailed in Servia of using for tho 

 language of literary composition the dialect called the ' Church- 

 Servian," and of bringing into use the ordinary language of the people 

 an object which had been aimed at before him by Dositheus Obra- 

 dovich, but which Karajich is regarded as having done by far the most 

 towards promoting. la these works he adopted a system of ortho- 

 graphy proposed by himself, and founded on the Russian alphabet, 

 with some modifications, while Gaj [GAj], who has since been attempt- 

 ing to induce the scattered Servian races to sacrifice peculiar dialects 

 to the advantage of possessing a central language, has proposed another 

 system of orthography, based on the Latin alphabet. In addition to 

 these importaut^labours, Karajich is also the author of a Servian 

 translation of the New Testament, which was published at Vienna in 

 1847 by the British and Foreign Bible Society. It was taken from 

 the old Slavonic version, which is in use by the Russians, who still 

 retain the Slavonic as their ecclesiastical language. 



By the publication of a Servian literary almanac, or annual, entitled 

 'Danitza' ('The Dawn'), 5 vols., Vienna and Buda, 1S26-34, and the 

 ' Kovchejich,' or ' Casket for the Servian Language and History ' (one 

 number only, Vienna, 1849) ; by his ' Life of Prince llilosh,' the suc- 

 cessor and slayer of Kara-George, and by a work in German, ' Mon- 

 tenegro und die Montenegriner,' he has supplied valuable materials for 

 the study of the interesting race to which he belongs. He has also 

 given forth a collection of Servian Proverbs, which has reached two 

 editions (the last in 1S49, at Vienna), and ' Servian National Tales' 

 ( Vienna, 1853), which has been translated into German by his daughter 

 Wilhelmina Karadschisch (Berlin, 1854). Since the restoration of the 

 freedom of Servia, he appears to have divided his time between his 

 native and Germany his adopted country, where he has been elected 

 a member of the academies of Gottingen, Berlin, and Vienna, and has 

 received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the University of 

 Jena. He is also member of the St. Petersburg, and almost all the 

 other Slavonic academies; and shortly after tho publication of his 

 Servian ballads, was assigned a pension by the emperor Nicholas of 

 Russia. 



KARAMSIN, NIKOLAI MIKHAELOVITCH, one of the most 

 eminent writers that Russia has yet produced, and the one to whom 

 its literature is mainly indebted for the popularity it has acquired, 

 and the rapid progress it has made since the commencement of the 

 present century, was born in the government of Simbirsk, Decem- 

 ber 1st, 1765. Having completed his education at Moscow, he served 

 with a commission in the Guards, and in 1789-91 visited Germany, 

 Switzerland, Italy, France, and England, which tour he has described 

 in his ' Letters of a Travelling Russian,' of which there exists an English 

 translation, or rather a copy of the German one. On his return to 

 Moscow he devoted himself entirely to literature, one of his first under- 

 takings being the 'Moscow Journal,' which was succeeded by ' Aglaia,' 

 the ' Pantheon,' and the ' Votnik EuropaV or European Intelligencer 

 (1802). Besides various narratives and other papers, both original 

 and translated, these publications contained many articles of criticism 

 by him, and were well calculated to promote a love of reading among all 

 classes of his country men. These however were comparatively insigni- 

 ficant productions, chiefly remarkable for careful polish and correctness 

 of style. The great work to which he entirely devoted himself from 

 1803 to his death, is his ' History of the Russian Empire,' which 

 however he did not live to complete beyond the eleventh volume. 

 This laborious task, which may in more senses than one be said to be 

 the very first historical work in Russian literature, is a monument 

 both of diligence and genius. The labour of collecting and arranging 

 the vast mass of materials requisite for it must have been immense, 

 yet never was historian more liberally repaid by the enthusiasm with 

 which his work was instantly received. Its sale and popularity were 

 unprecedented ; it was to be seen everywhere, iu the hut of the peasant 

 and the palace of the noble ; and in spite of all the imperfections that 

 the utmost rigour of criticism has been able to allege against it, it is 

 captivating and interesting to all who are capable of perusing it in the 

 original, whether foreigners or natives. It has been translated both 

 into German and French. The first edition, comprising the first eight 

 volumes (1816), produced him the sum of 100,000 rubles, also the title 

 of counsellor of state, and the order of St. Anne, which were bestowed 

 on him by the emperor Alexander. Karamsiu died in the Tauridan 

 palace, where apartments had been assigned him, June 3rd, 1826. 

 The emperor munificently bestowed on his widow and family a yearly 

 pension of 60,000 rubles. 



His merits and celebrity as an historian and a prose writer have so 

 completely eclipsed his reputation as a poet, that he is scarcely ever 

 considered iu that character, notwithstanding that his poetical pieces 

 are not without their value. 



KARR, JEAN-BAPTISTE-ALPHONSE, the son of a music 

 master of some distinction, was born at Paris (some accounts say at 

 Munich), in 1808. After leaving the university, he became teacher of 

 the fifth class at the College Bourbon, in the French capital ; whore he 



spent most of his leisure hours in writing poetry. The merit of these 

 first attempts appears to have been but small. Having converted one of 

 hia poems into a prose romance, it appeared in 1832, under the title of 

 ' Sous les Tilleuls,' and partly from the German sentiments with which 

 it abounds being then a novelty, it became immediately very popular. 

 Many of the chapters of this fiction still exhibit their original poetic 

 character. In this romance, as in most of hia productions, Alphonse 

 Karr has shown much ingenuity and some original power, whilst his 

 style, language, and moral purpose, are unobjectionable. It was fol- 

 lowed in 1833 by ' Une Heure trop Tard;' by 'Fa Dieze ' in 1834, 

 and by 'Vendredi Soir' in 1835. The following year he produced 

 ' Le Chemin le plus Court,' in which the private history of his own 

 married life was unveiled to the public curiosity, and a great sensa- 

 tion effected thereby. Few of the contemporary French writers have 

 exceeded M. Karr in this habit of communicating to the reader their 

 own personal history. 



'Genevieve,' published in 1838, 'Clotilde' in 1839, 'Hortense' in 

 1842, and 'Am Reuchen" in the same year, compose a series of very 

 pretty tales, under the general title of ' Ce qu'il y a dans une Bouteille 

 d'Encre ;' ' Genevieve ' and ' Hortense ' being still popular, and several 

 times reprinted. ' Feu Bressier ' appeared in 1844, and his 'Voyage 

 autour de Mon Jardin' in 1845. 'La Famille Alain,' another ingenious 

 story, appeared in 1848, followed a few mouths later by 'Le Livre dea 

 Cent V elites.' 



Besides the above list of domestic tales, M. Karr haa been attached, 

 sometimes as originator and proprietor, at other times, as editor or 

 contributor, to various periodicals. After writing several years for 

 ' Figaro,' he published, in the form of a monthly magazine, a satirical 

 work, c:\lled ' Les Guepes/ the first number of which came out in 

 November 1839. There was a great display of wit and smartness in 

 ' Les Guepes,' but many things were reprinted in them, which the 

 reader knew already, and the author's egotism was never more conspi- 

 cuous, than iu this serial. The freedom of his invective, likewise, gave 

 offence to several of those writers who were brought within the range 

 of his criticism, and one lady especially was so much irritated by the 

 unsparing censure with which he examined her poems, that she con- 

 cealed herself one evening in the street where he resided, and slightly 

 wounded him in the back with a poniard. This adventure happened 

 in 1844, and was at the time much talked of. M. Karr has of late 

 years devoted much of his attention to horticulture, on which subject 

 he has written many interesting articles for the monthly serials, besides 

 some clever reports for the annual exhibitions of plants and flowers. 

 He was created a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour by Louis Philippe. 

 His 'Voyage autour de Mon Jardin,' in which he has made clever use 

 of his knowledge of plants and flowers, has been translated into English. 



KATER, HENRY, an English mathematician of some eminence, 

 and an excellent practical philosopher, was born at Bristol, April 16, 

 1777, but of his early life very little is known. He obtained a com- 

 mission in the army ; and in 1808, while holding the rauk of lieutenant 

 in the 12th regiment (infantry), he became a student in the senior 

 department of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Duriug his 

 residence at that institution he was promoted to a company in the 

 62ud regiment ; and on quitting the college he received a certificate 

 of the first class. He was afterwards made brigade-major of the 

 eastern district. 



Captain Kater was first engaged in making experiments to deter- 

 mine the relative merits of reflecting telescopes constructed according 

 to the methods of Cassegrain and Gregory ; and his conclusion was 

 that the ratio of the illuminating power of the former to that of the 

 latter kind was two-and-a-half to one. On this subject he wrote two 

 papers, entitled ' On the Light of the Cassegrainian telescope compared 

 with that of the Gregorian,' which were published in the 'Philo- 

 sophical Transactions' for 1813. 



The determination of the precise length of the seconds' pendulum, 

 an object of high importance in physical science, engaged the attention 

 of Captain Kater during several years. The methods which had 

 previously been employed to determine accurately the centre of oscil- 

 lation in an irregular and heterogeneous body vibrating as a pendulum 

 were found totally inadequate to this purpose ; but Captain Kater 

 succeeded in surmounting the difficulty by availing himself of a 

 property of that centre which had been demonstrated by Huyghens : 

 this property is that, if the centre of oscillation in a suspended body 

 be made the point of suspension, the body will perform a vibration 

 about it in a time equal to that in which it performs a vibration about 

 the original point of suspension. The distance between the two 

 points, experimentally obtained, is evidently equal to the length of a 

 mathematical pendulum vibrating iu the same time as the given 

 pendulum. The 'knife-edge' mode of suspension was first used by 

 Captain Kater in these experiments ; and the details of the construction 

 of the pendulum are contained in a paper which was published in the 

 ' Philosophical Transactions ' for 1818. A bill having been introduced 

 into parliament for establishing a uniform system of weights and 

 measures in this country, Captain Kater distinguished himself by the 

 experiments which he made to ascertain the length of the seconds' 

 pendulum, for the purpose of assigning the physical value of the 

 English foot; and these experiments gave for the length of such 

 pendulum, in London, in vacuo and when reduced to the level of the 

 sea, 39'13929 inehea. At the request of the Royal Society of London, 



