701 



RENNET, WHITE. 



KENT, JAMES. 



7oa 



ever most generally attributed to" John Gerson, chancellor of the Uni- 

 versity of Paris, and a great theologian, who died in 1429. [GERSON, 

 J. C. DE.] It has also been attributed to a John Gerson, Abb<5 of Verceil, 

 who lived in the early part of the 1 3th century, but this opinion, though 

 it has been more than once revived, now finds few support rs. 



Thomas 11 Kempis composed some ascetic treatises, such as'Dia- 

 logus Novitiorum de Contemptu Mundi,' &c., but they are very 

 inferior to the book 'De Imitatione J. C.' He wrote also a Chronicle 

 of his Monastery, and other compilations. He died in 1471, at ninety 

 years of age. 



KliN'NKT, WHITE, distinguished as a divine, antiquarian writer, 

 and prelate of the Church of England, was born in 1609. He was 

 the son of a Kentish clergyman ; was educated at Westminster and 

 Oxford ; had the living of Ambrosden early bestowed upon him with a 

 prebend in the church of Peterborough, but returned to Oxford, 

 where he became vice-principal of Edmund Hall, the college to which 

 Hearne belonged. He subsequently resigned Ambrosden, and settled 

 in London as minister of St. Eotolph's, Aldgate, where he became a 

 very popular preacher. He wag made successively archdeacon of 

 Huntingdon and dean of Peterborough, and finally, in 1718, bishop 

 of Peterborough. He died in 1728. Bishop Kennet was a man, 

 as his biographer says, " of incredible diligence and application, not 

 only in his youth, but to the very last, the whole disposal of himself 

 being to perpetual industry and service, his chiefest recreation being 

 variety of employment." His published works are, according to his 

 biographer's catalogue, fifty-seven in number, including several single 

 sermons and small tiacts; but perhaps not a less striking proof of 

 the indefatigable industry ascribed to him is to be seen in his 

 manuscript collections, mostly in his own hand, now in the Lands- 

 liowne department of the British Museum Library of Manuscripts, 

 where from No. 935 to 1042 are all his, and most of them containing 

 matter nut incorporated in any of his printed works. 



His principal published works are : 1. ' Parochial Antiquities, 

 attempted in the UUtory of Ambrosden, Burccster, and other adjacent 

 places in the counties of Oxford and Bucks,' 4to, 1695. This has 

 been reprinted. In this work hu very useful glossary is to be 

 found. 2. ' The Case of Impropriations, &c., with an Appendix of 

 Records and Memorials,' 1704. 3. 'A Register and Chronicle, Eccle- 

 siastical and Civil,' in 2 volumes folio, 1723; relating to the events 

 of a few years of the reign of King Charles II.' He also published a 

 corrected edition of ' The History of Guvelkind,' by William Somner, 

 to which he prefixed a life of that eminent Saxouist. Most of his other 

 works were either sermons or controversial tract", many of the latter 

 being on ecclesiastical controversy, in which he was reckoned what is 

 called a Low Churchman ; and having, previously to the Revolution, 

 taken the opposite side, he was often severely handled by the other 

 party. 



There ia an octavo volume, published in 1730, entitled ' The Life of 

 the Right Reverend Dr. White Keuuett, late Lord Bishop of Peter- 

 borough,' from which the above particulars have been derived. It is 

 anonymous ; and as the fact is not generally known, it may not be 

 improper to state that the author was William Newton, rector of 

 Wingham in Kent. 



KENNICOTT, BENJAMIN, was born of humble parents, at 

 Totnes, in Devonshire, April 4th, 1718. Being appointed master of a 

 charity-school in his native town, he continued in this situation till 

 1744, when several of his friends raised a sufficient sum of money to 

 enable him to go to Oxford. He entered at Wadhain College, and 

 applied himself with the greatest diligence to the study of divinity 

 and Hebrew. While he was an undergraduate he published a work 

 4 On the Tree of Life in Paradise, and on the Oblations of Cain and 

 Abel,' which was BO well received that the university allowed him to 

 fake his degree before the usual time, without the payment of the 

 customary fees. He was elected a Fellow of Exeter College shortly 

 afterwards, and took his degree of M.A. in 1750. He continued to 

 reside at Oxford till the time of his death, which happened .Sep- 

 tember 18tb, 1783. He was a canon of Christchurch, and librarian of 

 the Itadculle Library, to which office he was appointed in 1767. 



The moat celebrated of Keunicott's works is his edition of the 

 ' Hebrew Bible,' which was published at Oxford in 2 vols. folio, the 

 first volume in 1776, and the second in 1780. In 1753 Dr. Kennicott 

 published a work ' On the State of the Printed Hebrew Text of the 

 Old Testament,' which was succeeded by another volume on the aatue 

 subject in 1 769. The first volume contained a comparison of 1 Chron. 

 xi. with 2 Sam. v., xxiii., with observations on seventy Hebrew 

 manuscripts, in which he maintained that numerous mistakes and 

 interpolations had crept into the sacred text. In the second he gave 

 an account of numerous other manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, and 

 proposed an extensive collation of Hebrew manuscripts, with the view 

 of publishing a correct edition of the Hebrew Bible. This under- 

 taking met with much opposition from several persons, who were afraid 

 that such a collation might overturn the received reading of various 

 im|xjrtant passages, and introduce uncertainty into the whole system 

 of Biblical interpretation. The plan was however warmly patronised 

 by the majority of the clergy, and nearly 10,0002. were subscribed to 

 defray the expenses of tbe collation of tho manuscripts aud tho pub- 

 lication of the work. Several learned men were employed both at 

 home and abroad, and more thnn 600 Hebrew manuscrips, and 16 



manuscripts of the Samaritan Pentateuch, were collated either wholly 

 or in the more important passages. The business of collation oou- 

 tinued from 1760 to 1769, during which period Dr. Kennioott pub- 

 lished annually an account of the progress which was made. Though 

 the number of various readings was found to be very great, yet they 

 were neither so numerous nor by any means so important as those 

 that are contained in Griesbach's edition of tho New Testament. But 

 this is easily accounted for from the revision of the Hebrew text by 

 the Masorites in the 7th and 8th centuries, and from the scrupulous 

 fidelity with which the Jews have transcribed the same text from that 

 time. 



" The text of Keuuicott's edition was printed from that of Van der 

 Hooght, with which the Hebrew manuscripts, by Kennicott's direction, 

 were all collated. But as variations iu the points were disregarded in 

 the collation, the points were not added in the text. The various 

 readings, as in the critical editions of the Greek Testament, were 

 printed at the bottom of the page, with references to the correspond- 

 ing readings of the text. In the Pentateuch the variations of the 

 Samaritan text were printed in a column parallel to the Hebrew ; and 

 the variations observable in the Samaritan manuscripts, which differ 

 from each other as well as the Hebrew, are likewise noted, with refer- 

 ences to the Samaritan printed text. To this collation of manuscripts 

 was added a collation of the most distinguished editions of the Hebrew 

 Bible, in the same manner (is Wetstein has noticed the variations 

 observable in the principal editions of the Greek Testament. Nor did 

 Kenuicott confine his collation to manuscripts and editions. He fur- 

 ther considered that as the quotations from the Greek Testament in 

 the works of ecclesiastical writers afford another source of various 

 readings, so the quotations from the Hebrew Bible in the works of 

 Jewish writers are likewise subjects of critical inquiry. For this 

 purpose he had recourse to the most distinguished among the Rab- 

 binical writings, but particularly to the Talmud, the text of which 

 is as ancient as tho 3rd century." (Marsh ' Divinity Lectures,' 

 part ii.) 



Kennicott annexed to the second volume a ' Dissertatio Geueralis,' 

 in which he gives an account of the manuscripts and other authorities 

 collated for his work, aud also a history of the Hebrew text from the 

 time of the Babylonian captivity. This dissertation was reprinted at 

 Brunswick in 1783, under the superintendence of Professor Brims, 

 who had collated a great number of manuscripts for the original 

 work. 



An important Supplement to Kenuicctt's Hebrew Bible was pub- 

 lished by De Rossi, under the title of ' Varise Lectiones Veteris Testa- 

 ment!,' Parma, 1784-88, 4 vols. 4to; to which an appendix was added 

 in 1798. 



The works of Kennicott and De Rossi are too bulky and expensive 

 for general use. An edition of the Hebrew Bible, containing the most 

 important of the various readings in Kennicott's aud De Rossi's 

 volumes, was published by Doederleiu and Meissner, Leip., 1793; but 

 the text is incorrectly printed, and the paper ia exceedingly bad. A 

 far more correct and elegant edition of the Hebrew Bible, which also 

 contains the most important of Kennicott's and De Rossi's various 

 readings, was published by Jahn, Vienna, 1806, 4 vols. 8vo. 



Two scholarships were founded at Oxford by the widow of Dr. Ken- 

 nicott for the promotion of the study of the Hebrew language. 



KENT, JAMES, a distinguished and deservedly popular composer 

 of English church music, was born at Winchester in 1700, and at an 

 early age placed as a chorister in the cathedral of that city, but soon 

 removed to London, and admitted as one of the Children of the Chapel 

 Royal, under the celebrated Dr. Croft, then Master of the Children. 

 After completing his education, he was chosen organist of Finden, iu 

 Northamptonshire, and subsequently was appointed organist of Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, whence he removed, in 1737, upon being elected 

 to fill the same situation in the cathedral of his native place an office 

 which he resigned in favour of his pupil, Mr. Fussell, in 1774. He 

 died deeply regretted in 1776. 



Mr. Kent was very serviceable to Dr. Boyce while the latter was 

 preparing his magnificent work, the ' Collection of Cathedral Music,' 

 and his assistance is duly acknowledged by that learned editor. In 

 1773 he published his now well-known volume of ' Twelve Anthems,' 

 among which are ' Hear my Prayer,' ' When the Son of Man,' ' My 

 Song shall be of Mercy,' and others familiar to aud the delight of the 

 congregations of our cathedrals. Upon presenting a copy of this work 

 to Trinity College, the Master and Fellows voted him a valuable piece 

 of plate. After his decease, a ' Morning and Evening Service, aud 

 Eight Anthems," composed by him for the Winchester choir, were 

 collected and printed by Mr. Corfe of Salisbury ; but the probability 

 is that that the author never intended them for publication, for ouly 

 the service aud one of the anthems admit of comparison with the 

 productions he himself gave to the world. He was regarded by his 

 contemporaries as one of the ablest players on the organ of his titne. 



KENT, JAMES, ono of the most distinguished lawyers of America, 

 was born at Fredericksburg, in tbe state of New York, on the 31st of 

 July 17C3. After passing through Yale College with great credit, he 

 studied law under Mr. Benson, attorney-general for the state of New 

 York; was admitted to practise as attorney of the supreme court of 

 that state iu 1785, and in 1787 as counsellor. Duriug this time he 

 had been prosecuting with exemplary diligence not ouly legal but 



