Part 48

KYD, THOMAS (1558-1594), one of the most important of the English Elizabethan dramatists who preceded Shakespeare. Kyd remained until the last decade of the 19th century in what appeared likely to be impenetrable obscurity. Even his name was forgotten until Thomas Hawkins about 1773 discovered it in connexion with _The Spanish Tragedy_ in Thomas Heywood's _Apologie for Actors_. But by the industry of English and German scholars a great deal of light has since been thrown on his life and writings. He was the son of Francis Kyd, citizen and scrivener of London, and was baptized in the church of St Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street, on the 6th of November 1558. His mother, who survived her son, was named Agnes, or Anna. In October 1565 Kyd entered the newly founded Merchant Taylors' School, where Edmund Spenser and perhaps Thomas Lodge were at different times his school-fellows. It is thought that Kyd did not proceed to either of the universities; he apparently followed, soon after leaving school, his father's business as a scrivener. But Nashe describes him as a "shifting companion that ran through every art and throve by none." He showed a fairly wide range of reading in Latin. The author on whom he draws most freely is Seneca, but there are many reminiscences, and occasionally mistranslations of other authors. Nashe contemptuously said that "English Seneca read by candlelight yeeldes many good sentences," no doubt exaggerating his indebtedness to Thomas Newton's translation. John Lyly had a more marked influence on his manner than any of his contemporaries. It is believed that he produced his famous play, _The Spanish Tragedy_, between 1584 and 1589; the quarto in the British Museum (which is probably earlier than the Göttingen and Ellesmere quartos, dated 1594 and 1599) is undated, and the play was licensed for the press in 1592. The full title runs, _The Spanish Tragedie containing the Lamentable End of Don Horatio and Bel-imperia; with the Pitiful Death of Old Hieronimo_, and the play is commonly referred to by Henslowe and other contemporaries as _Hieronimo_. This drama enjoyed all through the age of Elizabeth and even of James I. and Charles I. so unflagging a success that it has been styled the most popular of all old English plays. Certain expressions in Nashe's preface to the 1589 edition of Robert Greene's _Menaphon_ may be said to have started a whole world of speculation with regard to Kyd's

## activity. Much of this is still very puzzling; nor is it really

understood why Ben Jonson called him "sporting Kyd." In 1592 there was added a sort of prologue to _The Spanish Tragedy_, called _The First Part of Jeronimo, or The Warres of Portugal_, not printed till 1605. Professor Boas concludes that Kyd had nothing to do with this melodramatic production, which gives a different version of the story and presents Jeronimo as little more than a buffoon. On the other hand, it becomes more and more certain that what German criticism calls the _Ur-Hamlet_, the original draft of the tragedy of the prince of Denmark, was a lost work by Kyd, probably composed by him in 1587. This theory has been very elaborately worked out by Professor Sarrazin, and confirmed by Professor Boas; these scholars are doubtless right in holding that traces of Kyd's play survive in the first two acts of the 1603 first quarto of _Hamlet_, but they probably go too far in attributing much of the actual language of the last three acts to Kyd. Kyd's next work was in all probability the tragedy of _Soliman and Perseda_, written perhaps in 1588 and licensed for the press in 1592, which, although anonymous, is assigned to him on strong internal evidence by Mr Boas. No copy of the first edition has come down to us; but it was reprinted, after Kyd's death, in 1599. In the summer or autumn of 1590 Kyd seems to have given up writing for the stage, and to have entered the service of an unnamed lord, who employed a troop of "players." Kyd was probably the private secretary of this nobleman, in whom Professor Boas sees Robert Radcliffe, afterwards fifth earl of Sussex. To the wife of the earl (Bridget Morison of Cassiobury) Kyd dedicated in the last year of his life his translation of Garnier's _Cornelia_ (1594), to the dedication of which he attached his initials. Two prose works of the dramatist have survived, a treatise on domestic economy, _The Householder's Philosophy_, translated from the Italian of Tasso (1588); and a sensational account of _The Most Wicked and Secret Murdering of John Brewer, Goldsmith_ (1592). His name is written on the title-page of the unique copy of the last-named pamphlet at Lambeth, but probably not by his hand. That many of Kyd's plays and poems have been lost is proved by the fact that fragments exist, attributed to him, which are found in no surviving context. Towards the close of his life Kyd was brought into relations with Marlowe. It would seem that in 1590, soon after he entered the service of this nobleman, Kyd formed his acquaintance. If he is to be believed, he shrank at once from Marlowe as a man "intemperate and of a cruel heart" and "irreligious." This, however, was said by Kyd with the rope round his neck, and is scarcely consistent with a good deal of apparent intimacy between him and Marlowe. When, in May 1593, the "lewd libels" and "blasphemies" of Marlowe came before the notice of the Star Chamber, Kyd was immediately arrested, papers of his having been found "shuffled" with some of Marlowe's, who was imprisoned a week later. A visitation on Kyd's papers was made in consequence of his having attached a seditious libel to the wall of the Dutch churchyard in Austin Friars. Of this he was innocent, but there was found in his chamber a paper of "vile heretical conceits denying the deity of Jesus Christ." Kyd was arrested and put to the torture in Bridewell. He asserted that he knew nothing of this document and tried to shift the responsibility of it upon Marlowe, but he was kept in prison until after the death of that poet (June 1, 1593). When he was at length dismissed, his patron refused to take him back into his service. He fell into utter destitution, and sank under the weight of "bitter times and privy broken passions." He must have died late in 1594, and on the 30th of December of that year his parents renounced their administration of the goods of their deceased son, in a document of great importance discovered by Professor Schick.

The importance of Kyd, as the pioneer in the wonderful movement of secular drama in England, gives great interest to his works, and we are now able at last to assert what many critics have long conjectured, that he takes in that movement the position of a leader and almost of an inventor. Regarded from this point of view, _The Spanish Tragedy_ is a work of extraordinary value, since it is the earliest specimen of effective stage poetry existing in English literature. It had been preceded only by the pageant-poems of Peele and Lyly, in which all that constitutes in the modern sense theatrical technique and effective construction was entirely absent. These gifts, in which the whole power of the theatre as a place of general entertainment was to consist, were supplied earliest among English playwrights to Kyd, and were first exercised by him, so far as we can see, in 1586. This, then, is a more or less definite starting date for Elizabethan drama, and of peculiar value to its historians. Curiously enough, _The Spanish Tragedy_, which was the earliest stage-play of the great period, was also the most popular, and held its own right through the careers of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Fletcher. It was not any shortcoming in its harrowing and exciting plot, but the tameness of its archaic versification, which probably led in 1602 to its receiving "additions," which have been a great stumbling-block to the critics. It is known that Ben Jonson was paid for these additional scenes, but they are extremely unlike all other known writings of his, and several scholars have independently conjectured that John Webster wrote them. Of Kyd himself it seems needful to point out that neither the Germans nor even Professor Boas seems to realize how little definite merit his poetry has. He is important, not in himself, but as a pioneer. The influence of Kyd is marked on all the immediate predecessors of Shakespeare, and the bold way in which scenes of violent crime were treated on the Elizabethan stage appears to be directly owing to the example of Kyd's innovating genius. His relation to _Hamlet_ has already been noted, and _Titus Andronicus_ presents and exaggerates so many of his characteristics that Mr Sidney Lee and others have supposed that tragedy to be a work of Kyd's touched up by Shakespeare. Professor Boas, however, brings cogent objections against this theory, founding them on what he considers the imitative inferiority of _Titus Andronicus_ to _The Spanish Tragedy_. The German critics have pushed too far their attempt to find indications of Kyd's influence on later plays of Shakespeare. The extraordinary interest felt for Kyd in Germany is explained by the fact that _The Spanish Tragedy_ was long the best known of all Elizabethan plays abroad. It was acted at Frankfort in 1601, and published soon afterwards at Nuremberg. It continued to be a stock piece in Germany until the beginning of the 18th century; it was equally popular in Holland, and potent in its effect upon Dutch dramatic literature.

Kyd's works were first collected and his life written by Professor F. S. Boas in 1901. Of modern editions of _The Spanish Tragedy_ may be mentioned that by Professor J. M. Manly in _Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama_, vol. ii. (Boston, 1897), and by J. Schick in the _Temple Dramatists_ (1898). See also _Cornelia_ (ed. H. Gassner, 1894); C. Markscheffel, _T. Kyd's Tragödien_ (1885); Gregor Sarrazin, Thomas Kyd und sein Kreis (1892); G. O. Fleischer, "Bemerkungen über Thomas Kyd's Spanish Tragedy" (_Jahresbericht der Drei-Königschule zu Dresden-Neustadt_ (1896); J. Schick, "T. Kyd's Spanish Tragedy" (_Literarhistorische Forschungen_, vol. 19, 1901); and R. Koppel, in Prölss, _Altengl. Theater_ (vol. i., 1904). (E. G.)

KYFFHÄUSER, a double line of hills in Thuringia, Germany. The northern

## part looks steeply down upon the valley of the Goldene Aue, and is

crowned by two ruined castles, Rothenburg (1440 ft.) on the west, and Kyffhausen (1542 ft.) on the east. The latter, built probably in the 10th century, was frequently the residence of the Hohenstaufen emperors, and was finally destroyed in the 16th century. The existing ruins are those of the Oberburg with its tower, and of the Unterburg with its chapel. The hill is surmounted by an imposing monument to the emperor William I., the equestrian statue of the emperor being 31 ft. high and the height of the whole 210 ft. This was erected in 1896. According to an old and popular legend, the emperor Frederick Barbarossa sits asleep beside a marble table in the interior of the mountain, surrounded by his knights, awaiting the destined day when he shall awaken and lead the united peoples of Germany against her enemies, and so inaugurate an era of unexampled glory. But G. Vogt has advanced cogent reasons (see _Hist. Zeitschrift_, xxvi. 131-187) for believing that the real hero of the legend is the other great Hohenstaufen emperor, Frederick II., not Frederick I. Around him gradually crystallized the hopes of the German peoples, and to him they looked for help in the hour of their sorest need. But this is not the only legend of a slumbering future deliverer which lives on in Germany. Similar hopes cling to the memory of Charlemagne, sleeping in a hill near Paderborn; to that of the Saxon hero Widukind, in a hill in Westphalia; to Siegfried, in the hill of Geroldseck; and to Henry I., in a hill near Goslar.

See Richter, _Das deutsche Kyffhäusergebirge_ (Eisleben, 1876); Lemcke, _Der deutsche Kaisertraum und der Kyffhäuser_ (Magdeburg, 1887); and _Führer durch das Kyffhäusergebirge_ (Sangerhausen, 1891); Baltzer, _Das Kyffhäusergebirge_ (Rudolstadt, 1882); A. Fulda, _Die Kyffhäusersage_ (Sangerhausen, 1889); and Anemüller, _Kyffhäuser und Rothenburg_ (Detmold, 1892).

KYNASTON, EDWARD (c. 1640-1706), English actor, was born in London and first appeared in Rhodes's company, having been, like Betterton, a clerk in Rhodes's book-shop before he set up a company in the Cockpit in Drury Lane. Kynaston was probably the last and certainly the best of the male actors of female parts, for which his personal beauty admirably fitted him. His last female part was Evadne in _The Maid's Tragedy_ in 1661 with Killigrew's company. In 1665 he was playing important male parts at Covent Garden. He joined Betterton at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1695, after which he received less important rôles, retiring in 1699. He died in 1706, and was buried on the 18th of January.

KYNETON, a town of Dalhousie county, Victoria, Australia, on the river Campaspe, 56 m. by rail N.N.W. of Melbourne. Pop. (1901), 3274. It is the centre of a prosperous agricultural and pastoral district. Important stock sales and an annual exhibition of stock are held. There are, moreover, some rich gold quartz reefs in the neighbourhood. Kyneton lies at an elevation of 1687 ft., and the scenery of the district, which includes some beautiful waterfalls, attracts visitors in summer.

KYOSAI, SHO-FU (1831-1889), Japanese painter, was born at Koga in the province of Shimotsuke, Japan, in 1831. After working for a short time, as a boy, with Kuniyoshi, he received his artistic training in the studio of Kano Dohaku, but soon abandoned the formal traditions of his master for the greater freedom of the popular school. During the political ferment which produced and followed the revolution of 1867, Kyosai attained a considerable reputation as a caricaturist. He was three times arrested and imprisoned by the authorities of the shogunate. Soon after the assumption of effective power by the mikado, a great congress of painters and men of letters was held, at which Kyosai was present. He again expressed his opinion of the new movement in a caricature, which had a great popular success, but also brought him into the hands of the police--this time of the opposite party. Kyosai must be considered the greatest successor of Hokusai (of whom, however, he was not a pupil), and as the first political caricaturist of Japan. His work--like his life--is somewhat wild and undisciplined, and "occasionally smacks of the _sake_ cup." But if he did not possess Hokusai's dignity, power and reticence, he substituted an exuberant fancy, which always lends interest to draughtsmanship of very great technical excellence. In addition to his caricatures, Kyosai painted a large number of pictures and sketches, often choosing subjects from the folk-lore of his country. A fine collection of these works is preserved in the British Museum; and there are also good examples in the National Art Library at South Kensington, and the Musée Guimet at Paris. Among his illustrated books may be mentioned _Yehon Taka-kagami_, Illustrations of Hawks (5 vols., 1870, &c.); _Kyosai Gwafu_ (1880); _Kyosai Dongwa_; _Kyosai Raku-gwa_; _Kyosai Riaku-gwa_; _Kyosai Mangwa_ (1881); _Kyosai Suigwa_ (1882); and _Kyosai Gwaden_ (1887). The latter is illustrated by him under the name of Kawanabe Toyoku, and two of its four volumes are devoted to an account of his own art and life. He died in 1889.

See Guimet (É.) and Regamey (F.), _Promenades japonaises_ (Paris, 1880); Anderson (W.), _Catalogue of Japanese Painting in the British Museum_ (London, 1886); Mortimer Menpes, "A Personal View of Japanese Art: A Lesson from Kyosai," _Magazine of Art_ (1888). (E. F. S.)

KYRIE (in full _kyrie eleison_, or _eleeson_, Gr. [Greek: kyrie eleêson]; cf. Ps. cxxii. 3, Matt. XV. 22, &c., meaning "Lord, have mercy"), the words of petition used at the beginning of the Mass and in other offices of the Eastern and Roman Churches. In the Anglican Book of Common Prayer the Kyrie is introduced into the orders for Morning and Evening Prayer, and also, with an additional petition, as a response made by the congregation after the reading of each of the Ten Commandments at the opening of the Communion Service. These responses are usually sung, and the name Kyrie is thus also applied to their musical setting. In the Lutheran Church the Kyrie is still said or sung in the original Greek. "Kyrielle," a shortened form of _Kyrie eleison_, is applied to eight-syllabled four-line verses, the last line in each verse being repeated as a refrain.

KYRLE, JOHN (1637-1724), "the Man of Ross," English philanthropist, was born in the parish of Dymock, Gloucestershire, on the 22nd of May 1637. His father was a barrister and M.P., and the family had lived at Ross, in Herefordshire, for many generations. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and having succeeded to the property at Ross took up his abode there. In everything that concerned the welfare of the little town in which he lived he took a lively interest--in the education of the children, the distribution of alms, in improving and embellishing the town. He delighted in mediating between those who had quarrelled and in preventing lawsuits. He was generous to the poor and spent all he had in good works. He lived a great deal in the open air working with the labourers on his farm. He died on the 7th of November 1724, and was buried in the chancel of Ross Church. His memory is preserved by the Kyrie Society, founded in 1877, to better the lot of working people, by laying out parks, encouraging house decoration, window gardening and flower growing. Ross was eulogized by Pope in the third _Moral Epistle_ (1732), and by Coleridge in an early poem (1794).

KYSHTYM, a town of Russia, in the government of Perm, 56 m. by rail N.N.W. of Chelyabinsk, on a river of the same name which connects two lakes. Pop. (1897), 12,331. The official name is Verkhne-Kyshtymskiy-Zavod, or Upper Kyshtym Works, to distinguish it from the Lower (Nizhne) Kyshtym Works, situated two miles lower down the same river.