KNEE KNIGHT. 



324 



Klotz was of an ardent temperament. Thorough in 

 Greek and Latin, of modern languages he knew 

 little. An irregular life hastened his death. He 

 died December 31, 1771. 



KNEE; a crooked piece of timber, having two 

 branches or amis, and generally used to connect the 

 beams of a ship with her sides or timbers. The 

 branches of the knees form an angle of greater or 

 smaller extent, according to the mutual situation of 

 the pieces which they are designed to unite. One 

 branch is securely bolted to one of the deck beams, 

 and the other in the same manner strongly attached 

 to a corresponding timber in the ship's side. By 

 connecting the beams and timber into one compact 

 frame, they contribute greatly to the strength and 

 solidity of the ship, and enable her to resist the effects 

 of a turbulent sea. In fixing these pieces, it is occa- 

 sionally necessary to give an oblique direction to the 

 vertical or side branch, in order to avoid the range of 

 an adjacent gun-port, or because the knee may be so 

 shaped as to require this disposition, it being some- 

 times difficult to procure so great a variety of knees 

 as may be necessary in the construction of a number 

 of ships of war. The scarcity of these pieces fre- 

 quently obliges shipwrights to form their knees of 

 iron. 



KNEES, in Russia; noblemen of the first class, 

 who, however, have no more authority over their 

 vassals than other landholders. A number of these 

 nobles are descended from the former ruling families 

 of particular provinces of the Russian empire. Of 

 such families, there are eighteen, as the Dolgorucky, 

 Repnin, Scherbatow, Wazneskoy, Labanow, who are 

 all descended from the family of Rurik. The czar 

 allows them to retain the arms of the provinces which 

 their forefathers ruled. Individuals of these families 

 have been illustrious in the civil and military service 

 of their country. There are also some nobles of this 

 class sprung from collateral branches of the family of 

 Jagellons, which formerly ruled in Lithuania or 

 Poland, and is extinct in its principal line. There 

 are others, who claim a descent from independent 

 Tartar khans. The last class of Knees consists of 

 the descendants of noble members of Tartar tribes, 

 who, after the subjugation of the tribes, embraced 

 the Christian religion, and received the above title 

 from the Russian sovereigns. 



KNELLER, SIR GODFREY, an eminent portrait 

 painter, born at Lubeck, about 1648, was designed 

 for a military life, and sent to Leyden to study 

 mathematics and fortification, but, showing a decided 

 bent for painting, was placed under Bol and Rem- 

 brandt at Amsterdam. He visited Italy in 1672, 

 where he became a disciple of Carlo Maratti and 

 Bernini, and painted several historical pieces and 

 portraits both at Rome and Venice. On his return, 

 he was induced to visit England, in 1674 ; and, 

 having painted a much admired family picture, 

 which was seen by the duke of York, the latter 

 introduced the painter to Charles II., by whom he 

 was much patronised. He was equally favoured by 

 James II. and William III., for the latter of whom 

 he painted the beauties at Hampton cpurt, and 

 several of the portraits in the gallery of admirals. 

 He also took the portrait of the czar Peter for the 

 Same sovereign, who, in 1692, knighted him, and 

 made him gentleman of the privy chamber. Queen 

 Anne continued him in the same office, and George 

 I. made him a baronet. He continued to practise 

 his art to an advanced age, and had reached his 

 seventy-fifth year at his death, in 1723. His inter- 

 ment took place in Westminster abbey, under a 

 splendid monument erected by Rysbrach, on which 

 appears an epitaph by Pope. The airs of Ins heads 

 are graceful, and his colouring is lively, true, and 



harmonious ; his drawing correct, and his disposition 

 judicious. lie displays a singular want of imagina- 

 tion in his pictures, the attitudes, action, and drapery 

 being insipid, unvarying, and ungraceful. See Wai- 

 pole's Anecdotes of Painting. 



KNIEPHAUSEN, a lordship on the Jade, in 

 the duchy of Holstein-Oldenburg, containing about 

 thirty-two square miles, and 2900 inhabitants, has 

 belonged, since 1757, to the counts of Bentink ; was 

 formerly a sovereign state, but was attached, in 1807, 

 to the department of East Friesland, in Holland; in 

 1810, to the department of Eastern Ems, in France; 

 and was sequestrated, in 1813, on account of the lord 

 having taken part with the allies. Subsequently, it 

 was occupied by Oldenburg, which deprived the lord 

 of his sovereignty, but left him in possession of the 

 revenue, &c. In this condition he has been obliged 

 to remain, as the German diet would not recognise 

 him as an independent prince. The name Kniep- 

 hausen is derived from a castle, to which belong 

 eight houses with fifty inhabitants, and in which the 

 chancery, archives, &c., of this Lilliputian govern- 

 ment are kept. At the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, 

 the lord of Kniephausen appeared, and gave rise to 

 much ridicule, by assuming the airs of an independent 

 prince. 



KNIGGE, ADOLPHTJS FRANCIS FREDERIC Louis. 

 Baron de, was boni October 16, 1752, at Brenden- 

 beck, not far from Hanover. His father died in 

 1766, leaving him an estate deeply embarrassed. In 

 1769, he went to the university of Gottingen. In 

 1777, he was made a chamberlain at Weimar. He 

 .died at Bremen, May 6, 1796, after a rather unsettled 

 life. Knigge wrote a variety of works. His novels 

 were once very popular, on account of their easy 

 style of narration, and a tinge of satire and popular 

 philosophy. His Journey to Brunswick was, for a 

 considerable time, much read. The work which 

 gave him the greatest reputation was his Uber den 

 Umgang mil Menschen (On Intercourse with Men) 

 a book which contains some good advice, but is 

 disfigured by a minuteness of petty precepts. Knigge 

 was also a member of the illuminati, and thus became 

 implicated in some of the disputes relating to that 

 order. See Short's Biography of the Baron Adolphus 

 von Knigge, Hanover, 1825. 



KNIGHT, in chess. The move of this piece has 

 given rise to an interesting problem, in regard to the 

 various modes by which the chess-board may be 

 covered by the knight. The path of the knight over 

 the board is of two kinds, terminable and intermina- 

 ble. It is interminable whenever the concluding 

 move of a series is made in a square, which lies within 

 reach by the knight of that from which he originally 

 set out, and is terminable in every other instance. 

 Euler, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Berlin, for 

 1759, has given a method of filling up all the squares 

 setting out from one of the corners. He has like- 

 wise given an interminable route, and has explained 

 the method by which the routes may be varied, so 

 as to end upon any square. Solutions of the same 

 problem have also been given by Montmort, Demoi- 

 vre, and Mairan. 



KNIGHT, RICHARD PAYNE ; a patron of learning 

 and the fine arts, to the study and encouragement of 

 which he devoted a great portion of his time and 

 ample fortune. His father, from a dread lest his son's 

 constitution should be impaired by the discipline of a 

 public school, kept him at home till his fourteenth 

 year ; but, on his decease, young Knight was placed 

 at a large seminary, where he soon distinguished 

 himself by his progress in classical literature, his fa- 

 vourite study. His splendid collection of ancient 

 bronzes, medals, pictures,and drawings, in his museum 

 at his house in Soho square, gave equal proofs of his 



