698 KEY 
riched with a great number of new plants ; with feverdl, 
in particular, from New South Wales. They were under 
the care of the late Mr. Aiton, celebrated throughout Eu¬ 
rope for his excellent work, Hortus Kcwenjis. 
The old houfe, oppofite the palace, was taken on a long 
leafe by queen Caroline, of the defendants of fir Richard 
Levett, and has been inhabited by different branches of 
the royal family. The Prince Regent was educated there, 
under the 1 'uperintendence of the late Dr. Markham, arch- 
bifliop of York ; and the houfe was bought in 1761 for her 
majefty. Near this fpot a new palace is now erecting' for his 
majefty, under the direction of Wyatt, of which the north 
front, the only part open to public infpeflion, pofTefTes, 
indeed, an air of folemn fallen grandeur; but very ill 
accords with the talte and lcience generally dilplayed by 
its nominal architect. The northern front is intended to 
be appropriated to the ufe of domeltics ; and the whole 
building is rendered nearly indeltruCtible by fire, by means 
of cad-iron joilts, rafters, See. 
ICEW'AN, a town of Hindooftan, in the circar of 
Ketchwara : ten miles weft of Sheergur. 
KEW'EH, a town of Aliatic Turkey, in Natolia, 011 
the Sakaria : twenty-four miles ealt of Ifnik. 
KEX, f. [fuppofed to be from the Lat. cicuta .] Hem¬ 
lock ; any plant with a large hollow knotted Italk refem- 
bling hemlock.— Kex, dried hex. Miferies of inforced Mar¬ 
riage. 
KEXTIOLM, that part of Finland which borders upon 
Ruflia. The lake Ladoga crofl'es it, and divides it into 
two parts. By the treaty between Ruflia and Sweden in 
1721, the Swedes were obliged to abandon the beft part 
to the Ruffians. The Country in general is full of lakes 
and marfhes, thinly inhabited, and badly cultivated. The 
lake above mentioned is 120 miles in length, and full of 
fifh. 
KEXTIOLM, a town of Ruflia, in the government 
of Viborg. The town is built on two iflands, at the 
mouth of a river, on the file of Lake Ladoga. The 
houfes are of wood, but the town is well fortified, and de¬ 
fended by a citadel: forty miles eaft-north-eaft of Viborg-, 
and iixty-eight north of Peterfburg. Lat. 61. N. Ion. 
29. 50.E. 
KEXLEBO'DA, a town of Sweden, in the province of 
Smaland : thirty-fix miles fouth-fouth-weft of Wexio. 
KEY, f. [ccex, Sax.] An inflrument formed with 
cavities correfpondent to the wards of a lock, by which 
the bolt of a lock is puflied forward or backward.—Con¬ 
fidence is its own counfellor, the foie matter of its own 
fecrets; and it is the privilege of our nature, that every 
man fliould keep the key of his own breaft. South. 
Yet fome there be, that by due fteps afpire 
To lay their jult hands on that golden key, 
That opes the palace of eternity. Milton. 
An inftrument by which fomething is ferewed or turned. 
-—Hide the key of the jack. Swift. —An explanation of any 
thing difficult; as, Sibly’s Key to the Occult Sciences.— 
An emblem without a hey to’t, is no more than a tale of 
a tub. VEJlrange. 
L. Molinus has a treatife of keys, De Clavibus veterum, 
printed at Upfal ; he derives the Latin name clavis, from 
the Greek j'Xeiw, I fliut, or from the adverb clam, privatelyi; 
and adds, that the ufe of keys is yet unknown in fome 
parts of Sweden. The invention of keys.is owing to one 
Theodore of Samos, according to Pliny and Polydore 
Virgil ; but this mult be a miftake, the ufe of keys hav¬ 
ing been known before the fiege of Troy ; mention even 
feems made of them in the 19th chapter of Genefis. Mo¬ 
linus is of opinion, that keys at firft only ferved for the 
untying certain knots, wherewith they anciently fecured 
their doors; but the Laconic keys, he maintains, were 
nearly akin in ufe to our own ; they confided of three 
Angle teeth, and made the figure of an E; of which form 
there are itill iome to be fieen in tire cabinets of the 
curious. 
K E Y 
There was another key, called Qa.’Kotvxy^ct, made in the 
manner of a male ferew ; which had its correfponding fe¬ 
male in a bolt affixed to the door. Key is hence become 
a general name for feveral things ferving to Unit up or 
clofe others. See the article Lock. 
The keys of the ancients, fays Calmet, were certainly very 
different from ours; becaufe their doors and trunks were 
clofed generally with bands, and the key ferved only to 
loofen or fatten thele bands in a certain manner. The keys 
ufed in the eaft are very unlike ours. Chardin fays, that a 
lock in the ealt is like a little harrow, which enters half¬ 
way into a wooden Itaple, and the key is h wooden handle 
with points at the end of it, which are puflied into the Ita¬ 
ple, and fo raife this little harrow. See likewile Dandin’s 
Voyage to Mount Libanus, chap. xiv. The prophet Ifiiiah 
fays, that Eliakim fhould wear his key upon hisfiauldcr, as 
a mark of diltinCtion. Ifaiah xxii. 22. And Callimachus 
fays that Ceres carried a key upon her flioulder. This 
cultomof carrying keys upon flioulders feems very llrange 
to us : but the ancients had their keys made very large, in 
the form of a fickle ; and the weight and lhape of them 
was fuch, that they could no otherwife be carried conve¬ 
niently. Homer, having faid that Penelope took feveral 
things out of her ftore-room, adds, 
Ei?i£ro ran x.\i jii 5 " evKa/jeTna. waq^Enj, 
KocXev, •ya.’h.fiHiv Kurro S'chEtpcdl®* erney. Od. xxi. 
Whereby he feems to reprefent, that it required fome 
ft length to lift it up. And nothing of this is loft in our 
tranllation : 
A brazen key ffie held, the handle turn’d. 
With fteel and polilh’d elephant adorn’d.— 
The wards refpondent to the key turn round; 
The bars fall back, the flying valves refound. 
Loud as a bull makes hill and valley ring, 
So roar’d the lock when it releas’d the fpring. Pope. 
The word key is very often ufed in a figurative fenfe. 
Thus, Our Saviour reproaches the feribes and pharilees 
with having taken away the key of knowledge ; i. e. with 
reading and ftudying the Scriptures, without advantage 
to themfelves, and without difeovering to others the truth, 
which in fome fort they held captive in unrighteoufnefs. 
Rom. i. 18. Jefus Chrilt (Rev. i. 18.) fays, that he has 
the keys of hell and death, i. e. it is in his power to bring 
to the grave or to deliver from it, to appoint to life or 
death. The rabbins fay that God has referved to himfelf 
four keys, with which he hath entrufted no one, not 
even the angels : the key of rain, the key of the grave, 
the key of fruitfulnefs, and the key of barrennefs. 
Key is ufed to denote ecclefiaftical jurifdiCHon ; parti¬ 
cularly for the power of excommunicating and abiolving. 
The Romanifts fay, the pope has the power of the keys, 
and can open and Ihut paradife as he pleafes ; grounding 
their opinion on that expreffion of Jefus Chrilt to Peter, 
“ I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” 
In St. Gregory we read, that it was the cuftoni heretofore 
for the popes to fend a golden key to princes, wherein 
they encloled a little of the filings of St. Peter’s chains, 
kept with a deal of devotion at Rome ; and that thefe 
keys were worn in the bofom, as being fuppofed to con¬ 
tain fome wonderful virtues. 
KEYisalfo ufed for the index or explanation of a cipher. 
See the article Stenogr aphy. 
Key, in botany, the hulk containing the feed of an 
afh.—Alh, elm, tilia, poplar, hornbeam, &c. are diftin- 
guilhed by their keys, tongues, See. fmall, flat, and hufky 
fkins including the feeds. Evelyn. 
Key, or Key-stone, of an arch or vault, is the laft 
ftone placed at the top thereof; which, being wider and 
fuller at the top than the bottom, wedges as it were, and 
binds in, all the reft. The key is different in the different 
orders; in the Tufcan and Doric, it is a plain ftone, only 
projecting ; in the Ionic, it is cut, and waved fomewhat 
after the manner of confoles 5 in the Corinthian and 
Compofite, 
