KEATS KEENERS. 



301 



{.'resented him with a gold cup, as a token of their 

 esteem (June 25, 1814). In 1820, he visited the 

 United States, and performed in New York, Philadel- 

 phia, Baltimore, and Boston, on the whole, with 

 great success. A second visit to America, in 1825, 

 was attended with little credit or advantage. His 

 death took place at Richmond, on the 15th of May, 

 1833. His professional gains in Britain and America, 

 have been estimated at above 150,000 ; but the reck- 

 lessness of his character kept him always in difficulties. 

 KEATS, JOHN ; a young English poet, of fine sen- 

 sibility and great luxuriance of language, was born, 

 of humble origin, in Moorfields, London, on the 29th 

 October, 1796. He was sent to school at Enfield, 

 where he remained till the age of fifteen, and was 

 then bound apprentice to a surgeon ; but his inclina- 

 tion to poetry having been cultivated by his teachers 

 at school, he gave way to the ambition of becoming 

 a poet. Keats's first volume of poems, many of which 

 were written in his teens, made its appearance in 

 1817, when he was in his twenty-first year. This 

 was followed by Endymion, a Poetic Romance, in 

 1818 ; and, in the year 1820, he published his last and 

 best work, Lamia, Isabella, and other Poems. Being 

 in feeble health, he was prevailed upon to try the 

 climate of Italy, where he arrived in November, 1820, 

 and died in Rome, on the 27th of December follow- 

 ing. His death has been attributed to the attacks of 

 critics ; but it was, in fact, owing to a consumptive 

 complaint of long standing. He was interred in the 

 English burying-ground, near the monument of Cains 

 Cestius, and not far from the place where were soon 

 after deposited the ashes of his poetical mourner, Mr 

 Shelley. " Mr Keats," says, Mr Leigh Hunt, who 

 was his earliest and warmest patron, and to whose 

 patronage, as connecting him with the liberal party, 

 may be attributed many of the merciless attacks made 

 on the young poet by Tory writers, "had a very 

 manly, as well as a delicate spirit. He was person- 

 ally courageous in no ordinary degree, and had the 

 usual superiority of genius to little arts and the love 

 of money. His patrimony, which was inconsidera- 

 ble, he freely used in part, and even risked alto- 

 gether, to relieve the wants of others, and further 

 their views. He was handsome, with remarkably 

 beautiful hair, curling in natural ringlets. He had the 

 two highest qualities of a poet in the highest degree 

 sensibility and imagination. His Endymion, with all 

 its young faults, will be a store-house for the lovers 

 of genuine poetry, both young and old, a wood to 

 wander in; a solitude inhabited by creatures of super- 

 human beauty and intellect; and superabundant in 

 the luxuries of a poetical domain, not omitting ' weeds 

 of glorious feature.' The fragment of Hyperion, 

 which was his last performance, and which extorted 

 the admiration of Lord Byron, has been compared to 

 those bones of enormous creatures which are occa- 

 sionally dug up, and remind us of extraordinary and 

 gigantic times." 



KEBIR ; an Arabian word, which signifies large, 

 and is found in many geographical names. 



KEBLA. See Kaaba, and Koran. 



KEDGE, orKEDGER; a small anchor, used to 

 keep a ship steady and clear from her bower anchor, 

 while she rides in a harbour or river, particularly at 

 the turn of the tide, when she might otherwise drive 

 over her principal anchor, and entangle the stock or 

 flukes with her slack cable, so as to loosen it from 

 the ground. The kedge-anchors are also used to 

 transport a ship, or remove her from one part of a 

 harbour to another, being carried out from her in the 

 long boat, and let go by means of ropes fastened to 

 these anchors. They are also generally furnished with 

 an iron stock, which is easily displaced for the con- 

 venience of stowing. See Anchor. 



KEEL ; the principal piece of timber in a ship, 

 which is usually first laid on the blocks in building. 

 By comparing the carcass of a ship to the skeleton of 

 the human body, the keel appears as the back-bone, 

 and- the timbers as the ribs. The keel supports and 

 unites the whole fabric, since the stem and stern 

 posts, which are elevated on its ends, are, in some 

 measure, a continuation of the keel, and serve to con- 

 nect and enclose the extremities of the sides by tran- 

 soms, as the keel forms and unites the bottom by 

 timbers. The keel is generally composed of several 

 thick pieces placed lengthways, which, after being 

 scarfed together, are bolted and clinched upon the 

 upper side. 



False Keel ; a strong, thick piece of timber, bolted 

 to the bottom of the keel, which is very useful in 

 preserving its lower side. The false keel is provided 

 when the thick pieces which form the real keel can- 

 not be procured large enough to give a sufficient 

 depth thereto. In large ships of war, the false keel 

 is composed of two pieces, called the upper and lower 

 false keels. The lowest plank in a ship's bottom, 

 called the garboard streak, has its inner edge let into 

 a groove or channel, cut longitudinally on the side of 

 the keel : the depth of this channel is therefore 

 regulated by the thickness of the garboard streak. 



KEEL-HAULING ; a punishment inflicted for 

 various offences in the Dutch navy. It is performed 

 by suspending the culprit by a rope from one yard- 

 arm, with a weight of lead or iron upon his legs, and 

 having another rope fastened to him, leading under 

 the ship's bottom, and through a block at its opposite 

 yard-arm. He is then suddenly let fall from the one 

 yard-arm into the sea, where, passing under the ship's 

 bottom, he is hoisted up on the opposite side of the 

 vessel to the other. This punishment is not altogether 

 unknown in British ships ; but, as it is dangerous, 

 it is very rarely, or, indeed, scarcely ever now prac- 

 tised. 



KEELSON, or KELSON ; a piece of timber form- 

 ing the interior or counterpart of the keel, being laid 

 upon the middle of the floor timbers immediately 

 over the keel, and serving to bind and unite the 

 former to the latter, by means of long bolts driven 

 from without, and clinched on the upper side of the 

 keelson. The keelson, like the keel, is composed of 

 several pieces scarfed together ; and, in order to fit 

 with more security upon the floor timbers and crotch- 

 ets, it is notched about an inch and a half deep, 

 opposite to each of those pieces, thereby scored down 

 upon them to that depth, where it is secured by 

 spike-nails. The pieces of which it is formed are 

 only half the breadth and thickness of those of the 

 keel. 



KEENERS ; the name of the Irish singing mourn- 

 ers. The. Irish have always been remarkable for 

 their funeral lamentations, and once were celebrated 

 for their musical art, in the last sad offices to their 

 departed friends. Formerly, these duties were per- 

 formed by dressing the body of the deceased in grave- 

 clothes, ornamenting it with flowers, and placing it 

 on a bier; when the relations and keeners, ranging 

 themselves in two divisions, one at the head anil the 

 other at the feet of the corpse, the chief bard of the 

 head chorus, softly accompanied by the harp, sung 

 the first stanza of the caoinan, or funeral song. This 

 being ended, the foot semi-chorus began the lamenta- 

 tion, or ullaloo, in which they were answered by the 

 head semi-chorus, and then both united in one gen- 

 eral chorus. After this, the chief bard of the foot 

 semi-chorus began the second got, or lamentation, in 

 which he was answered by that of the head ; and then, 

 as before, both united in the general full chorus. 

 Thus, alternately, were the song and choruses 

 solemnly performed during the night. But whatever 



