741 



KNOX, REV. VICESIMUS, D.D. 



KOLCSEY, FERENCZ. 



742 



We subjoin a brief summary of it : Knox possessed strong talents; 

 was inquisitive, ardent, acute, vigorous, and bold in his conceptions. 

 He was a stranger to none of the branches of learning cultivated in 

 that age by persons of his profession, and he felt an irresistible desire 

 to impart his knowledge to others. Intrepidity, independence, and 

 elevation of mind, indefatigable activity, and constancy which no dis- 

 appointments could shake, eminently qualified him for the post which 

 he occupied. In private life he was loved and revered by Ms friends 

 and domestics : when free from depression of spirits, the result of ill 

 health, he was accustomed to unbend his mind, and was often witty 

 and humorous. Most of his faults may be traced to his natural tem- 

 perament and the character of the age and country in which he lived. 

 His passions were strong, and as he felt he expressed himself without 

 reserve or disguise. His zeal made him intemperate : ho was obstinate, 

 austere, stern, and vehement These defects, which would have been 

 inexcusable in most other persons, may be more easily forgiven in 

 him, for they were among the most successful weapons in his 

 warfare. 



KNOX, REV. VICESIMUS, D.D., was born at Newington Green, 

 Middlesex, December 8, 1752. His father was the Rev. Vicesimus 

 Knox, LL.B., Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, and head master 

 of -Merchant Taylors' School, London. Vicesimus Kuox, the son, was 

 also educated at St. John's College, Oxford, where he pursued his 

 classical studies with great diligence, and became very skilful in Latin 

 composition. Having taken his degree of B.A., and been elected to a 

 Fellowship, he left the university, and in 1778 was elected master of 

 Tunbridge School, Kent He married about the time of his settling 

 at Tunbridge, and his wife died in 1809, leaving two sons and a 

 daughter. A short time after his marriage he received the degree of 

 D.D. by diploma from the University of Philadelphia. After having 

 been master of Tunbridge School thirty -three years he retired, and 

 was succeeded by his eldest son. He was rector of Rumwell and 

 Ramsden Grays in Essex, and minister of the chapelry of Sliipbourne 

 in Kent He performed the duties of a pariah priest nearly forty 

 years with great regularity. In the latter part of his life he resided 

 in London. He was much admired as a preacher, and frequently gave 

 bis aid in behalf of public charities by delivering a sermon. He died 

 while on a visit to bis son at Tunbridge, September 6, 1821. 



Dr. Knox's chief works were 1, ' Essays, Moral and Literary,' 12mo, 

 1777, which came out anonymously, and met with so much success 

 that he republisbed them in 1778, with additional essays, in 2 vols. 

 12mo many additions have been since published; 2, 'Liberal Educa- 

 tion, or a Practical Treatise on the Methods of acquiring Useful and 

 Polite Learning,' 8vo, 1781, enlarged in 1785 to 2 vols. 8vo : this work 

 was chiefly intended to point out the defects of the system of educa- 

 tion in the English universities, and is said to have had some effect in 

 producing a reformation ; 3, ' Elegant Extracts in Prose,' Svo ; 4, 

 ' Winter Eveniugs, or Lucubrations on Life and Letters," 3 vola. 12mo, 

 1788 ; 5, ' Elegant Extracts in Verse,' 1790, Svo ; 6, ' Sermons intended 

 to promote Faith, Hope, and Charity,' 1792, Svo; 7, ' Elegant Epistles," 

 STO, 1792 ; 8, ' Family Lectures,' 8vo, 1794 ; 9, ' Christian Philosophy, 

 or an Attempt to display the Evidence and Excellence of Revealed 

 Religion,' 2 vols. 12mo, 1795 ; 10, 'Considerations on the Nature and 

 Efficacy of the Lord's Supper," 12mo, 1799. Dr. Knox published a 

 few other minor works, occasional sermons and pamphlets. 



Dr. Knox's writings were once much admired. His style has con- 

 siderable neatness and elegance, but he has little originality or power 

 of thought, and his popularity has for some years been gradually 

 decreasing. The selections in the ' Elegant Extracts ' were made with 

 much taste and judgment. They were very useful works in their day, 

 and had for many years a large circulation. 



KOBELL, the name of several German and Dutch landscape painters, 

 of whom the two following are the most distinguished : 



FERDINAND KOBELL was born at Mannheim in 1740, and was 

 educated by his father with a view to his obtaining an honourable 



rition in the civil service of the Electoral government, under which 

 himself held the place of hofkammerrath, or counsellor of the 

 exchequer. Ferdinand however had an invincible passion for land- 

 scape-painting, which the encouragement of the elector palatine, Karl 

 Tbeodor, enabled him finally to follow, notwithstanding the oppo- 

 sition of his father. He studied eighteen months at Paris, in 1768-70, 

 at the expense of the elector, who appointed him his cabinet painter 

 after his return to Mannheim : he was also made a member of and 

 secretary to the Academy of Mannheim. In 1793 he removed to 

 Munich, where he died in 1799. Kobell was also a very abla etcher : 

 a set of his prints, 179 in number, was published in N Urn berg in 

 1809 : ' Oeuvre complet de Ferd. Kobell, peintre de la Cour Electorate 

 Bavaro-Palatine, et graveur a 1'eau forte,' &c. In 1822 a ' Catalogue 

 Raisonnd ' was published by Baron von Stengel, in which 267 prints 

 are described. Nagler has printed a list of them in his Dictionary. 

 Kobcll's landscapes are well selected, true in colouring, and executed 

 with care. 



FRANZ KOBELL, the younger brother of Ferdinand, was born at 

 Mannheim in 1749. He was intended for a merchant, and spent four 

 years in a merchant'* house at Mainz ; but his love for the arts, espe- 

 cially landscape and architecture, finally overruled all obstacles, and 

 his brother's patron, the elector Karl Theodor, befriended him also, 

 and enabled him, in 1776, to visit Italy, where he remained an 



enthusiastic student of Italian scenery, chiefly at Rome, for nine 

 years. Franz Kobell, though he executed a few pictures in oil, was 

 scarcely a painter, literally, for his works are almost exclusively 

 drawings, chiefly with the pen, and tinted with sepia. He was so 

 industrious in this style of art, that the number of his drawings is 

 said to exceed 10,000, the great bulk of which are in three collections 

 that of the Duke Albert of Sachsen-Teschen in Vienna, that of H. 

 von Rigal in Paris, and that of Baron Stengel in Munich. He died at 

 Munich in 1822; and a flattering notice of him appeared in the 

 'Kunstblatt' of the same year, from the pen of his friend Speth, the 

 author of an excellent work on Italian art of the earlier ages 'Die 

 Kunst in Italien,' 3 vols. Svo, Miinchen, 1819-23. 



* KOCH, CHARLES PAUL DE, the sou of a Dutch banker, guil- 

 lotined during the reign of Terror, was born at Passy in 1794. 

 Originally intended for his father's business, he spent several years in 

 a banker's counting-house in Paris, where he began to write, " he 

 knew not why." His first attempts were theatrical, consisting of 

 vaudevilles, operas, melodramas, of which he produced a considerable 

 number, before his first novel, ' L'Eufant de ma Femme,' appeared, 

 in 1827. The knowledge of life, manifested in this work, and its 

 humour, caused it at once to become popular. It was followed by 

 'Jean' in 1829; by 'Frera Jacques," in 1S30; by his chef-d'oeuvre, 

 'Le Cocu,' iu 1831; by 'Gustavo' and ' Mou Oncle Raymond,' in 

 1832; by 'Georgette,' 'Andre 1 le Savoyard,' and 'LeBarbierde Paris," 

 in 1S33. In the year 1834 he produced 'Soonr Anne" and ' Un Bon 

 Enfant.' Although the earliest of his fictions, the foregoing are 

 usually considered his best. In them the novelist has painted the 

 Parisian manners of his time, above all those of the petite bourgeoisie, 

 the shopkeeper, the student, and the grisette with remarkable felicity, 

 but at the same time with equal licence. 



In 1836 he published ' M. Dupont ; ' in 1837, 'Mceurs Parisiennes; ' 

 in 1842. 'La Femme, le Mari, et 1'Amant;' in 1844, 'La Famille 

 Gogo.' He has since produced many others of less note. Owing to 

 his great fertility of invention, De Koch has sometimes been com- 

 pared to Alexandra Dumas, whom he does not resemble in most other 

 things. His style is very negligent, especially iu his recent novels. 

 But, although it must be regretted, that a writer of so much true 

 humour nnd genial mirth, too often passes over the limits of sobriety, 

 Paul de Koch by no means belongs to that class of novelists, whose 

 writings, if they do not directly inculcate immorality, at least depict 

 very loose specimens of morality as models for imitation. 



KOCH, JOSEPH ANTON, a celebrated German landscape-painter, 

 was born of poor parents at Obergiebln am Bach, in the valley of the 

 Lech, in the south of Germany, in 176S. Some of his early attempts 

 attracted the notice of Bishop Umgelder, vicar-general of Augsburg, 

 who placed Koch with a painter in that city and provided for his 

 maintenance. He was shortly afterwards sent by the bishop to the 

 Carls-Academie at Stuttgart, where he remained seven years, and 

 became in the meantime an able landscape-painter. Koch tried his 

 fortune in Rome at an early date, and he met with complete success ; 

 he married a Roman girl and settled himself fixedly in Rome, where 

 he enjoyed a great reputation for, with the exception of a short 

 interval, at least half a century, and he was for many years looked 

 upon as the Nestor of the German artists there. He died at Rome, 

 January 12, 1S39. 



Koch was not exclusively a landscape-painter, though he is chiefly 

 distinguished as such. He is known for some clever illustrations to 

 Dante. Among his pictures not exclusively landscapes are, ' Noah's 

 Sacrifice,' the ' Emancipation of the Tyrol by Hofer,' the ' Flight of 

 Laban,' the fresco illustrations to Dante in the Villa Massimi, besides 

 some others. He has painted several fine Alpine views; and many 

 poetical landscapes, which are rather characteristic pictures of a 

 peculiar class of scenery than prospects of particular localities. He 

 frequently composed his landscapes out of such peculiarities of 

 mountain scenery as were congenial with his individual taste, and 

 the parts were always well arranged, and true and characteristic iu 

 their details. In colouring he was heavy and monotonous. His latest 

 works were comparatively careless in execution. Koch was also an 

 etcher of considerable skill, and among his works iu this class arj 

 twenty-four designs from the ancient fable of the Argonautic expe- 

 dition, after Carstens. 



KOLCSEY, FERENCZ or FRANCIS, an Hungarian poet, critic, 

 and orator of the first eminence, was born at Szb'-Demeter, in the 

 county of Middle Szolook in Transylvania, on the 8th of August 1790. 

 He was sent when five years old to the Calvinistic school at Debreczin, 

 where he acquired an excellent knowledge of Greek and Latin, and 

 made a translation of the first book of the ' Iliad ' into Hungarian 

 hexameters. Debreczin was the main seat of the opponents to the 

 reform which Kazinczy [KAZIKCZT] was effecting in the Hungarian 

 language, but so warm was the young student's admiration of the 

 reformer that when in his fifteenth year he wrote him a letter as a 

 disciple, which Kazinczy answered with high gratification at finding 

 that something good would come out of Debreczin. A few years later 

 Kolcsey attracted attention by some poems in the ' Transylvanian 

 Museum," and for some years study and poetry formed his principal 

 occupation. In 1809, having adopted the profession of the law, he 

 Became a ' notary to the Koyal Table ' at Pesth, and was soon known 

 ;o the literary celebrities of the capital as one of the moat distin- 



