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KEBLE, JOHN (1792-1866)

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Originally appearing in Volume V15, Page 711 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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KEBLE, See also:JOHN (1792-1866) , See also:English poet and divine, the author of the See also:Christian See also:Year, was See also:born on St See also:Mark's See also:Day (See also:April 25), 1792, at Fairford, See also:Gloucestershire. He was the second See also:child of the Rev. John Keble and his wife Sarah See also:Maule. Descended from a See also:family which had attained some legal See also:eminence in the See also:time of the See also:Commonwealth, John Keble, the See also:father of the poet, was See also:vicar of Coln St Aldwyn, but lived at Fairford, about 3 M. distant from his cure. He was a clergyman of the old High See also:Church school, whose adherents, untouched by the See also:influence of the Wesleys, had moulded their piety on the doctrines on the non-jurors and the old See also:Anglican divines. Himself a See also:good See also:scholar, he did not send his son to any school, but educated him and his See also:brother at See also:home so well that both obtained scholarships at Corpus Christi See also:College, See also:Oxford. John was elected scholar of Corpus in his fifteenth, and See also:fellow of See also:Oriel in his nineteenth year, April 1811. In See also:Easter See also:term 1810 he had obtained See also:double first class honours, a distinction which had been obtained only once before, by See also:Sir See also:Robert See also:Peel. After his See also:election to the Oriel fellowship Keble gained the University prizes, both for the English See also:essay and also for the Latin essay. But he was more remarkable for the rare beauty of his See also:character than even for See also:academic distinctions. Sir John See also:Taylor See also:Coleridge, his fellow scholar at Corpus and his See also:life-See also:long friend, says of him, after their friendship of five and fifty years had closed, " It was the singular happiness of his nature, remarkable even in his undergraduate days, that love for him was always sanctified by reverence—reverence that did not make the love less See also:tender, and love that did but add intensity to the reverence." Oriel College was, at the time when Keble became a fellow, the centre of all the finest ability in Oxford. See also:Copleston, See also:Davison, See also:Whately, were among the See also:fellows who elected Keble; See also:Arnold, See also:Pusey, See also:Newman, were soon after added to the society.

In 1815 Keble was ordained See also:

deacon, and See also:priest in 1816. His real See also:bent and choice were towards a See also:pastoral cure in a See also:country See also:parish; but he remained in Oxford, acting first as a public examiner in the See also:schools, then as a See also:tutor in Oriel, till 1823. In summer he sometimes took clerical See also:work, sometimes made See also:tours on See also:foot through various English counties, during which he was composing poems, which after-wards took their See also:place in the Christian Year. He had a rare See also:power of attracting to himself the finest See also:spirits, a power which See also:lay not so much in his ability or his See also:genius as in his character, so See also:simple, so humble, so pure, so unworldly, yet wanting not that severity which can stand by principle and maintain what he holds to be the truth. In 1823 he returned to Fairford, there to assist his father, and with his brother to serve one or two small and poorly endowed curacies in the neighbourhood of Coln. He had made a quiet but deep impression on all who came within his influence in Oxford, and during his five years of college tutorship had won the See also:affection of his pupils. But it was to pastoral work, and not to academic See also:duty, that he thenceforth devoted himself, associating with it, and scarcely placing on a See also:lower level, the affection-See also:ate See also:discharge of his duties as a son and brother. Filial piety influenced in a quite unusual degree his feelings and his See also:action all life through. It was in 1827, a few years after he settled at Fairford, that he published the Christian Year. The poems which make up that See also:book had been the silent gathering of years. Keble had purposed in his own mind to keep them beside him, correcting and improving them, as long as he lived, and to leave them to be published only " when he was fairly out of the way." This See also:resolution was at length overcome by the importunities of his See also:friends, and above all by the strong See also:desire of his father to see his son's poems in See also:print before he died. Accordingly they were printed in two small volumes in Oxford, and given to the See also:world in See also:June 1827, but with no name on the See also:title-See also:page.

The book continued to be published anonymously, but the name of the author soon transpired. Between 1827 and 1872 one See also:

hundred and fifty-eight See also:editions had issued from the See also:press, and it has been largely reprinted since. The author, so far from taking See also:pride in his widespread reputation, seemed all his life long to wish to disconnect his name with the book, and " as if he would rather it had been the work of some one else than himself." This feeling arose from no false modesty. It was because he knew that in these poems he had painted his own See also:heart, the best See also:part of it; and he doubted whether it was right thus to exhibit himself, and by the See also:revelation of only his better self, to win the good See also:opinion of the world. Towards the See also:close of 1831 Keble was elected to fill the See also:chair of the See also:poetry professorship in Oxford, as successor to his friend and admirer, See also:Dean See also:Milman. This chair he occupied for ten eventful years. He delivered a See also:series of lectures, clothed in excellent idiomatic Latin (as was the See also:rule), in which He expounded a theory of poetry which was See also:original and suggestive. He looked on poetry as a vent for overcharged feeling, or a full See also:imagination, or some imaginative regret, which had not found their natural outlet in life and action. This suggested to him a distinction between what he called See also:primary and secondary poets—the first employing poetry to relieve their own See also:hearts, the second, poetic artists, composing poetry from some other and less impulsive See also:motive. Of the former See also:kind were See also:Homer, See also:Lucretius, See also:Burns, See also:Scott; of the latter were See also:Euripides, See also:Dryden, See also:Milton. This view was set forth in an See also:article contributed to the See also:British Critic in 1838 on the life of Scott, and was more fully See also:developed in two volumes of Praelectiones Academicae. His See also:regular visits to Oxford kept him in intercourse with his old friends in Oriel See also:common See also:room, and made him See also:familiar with the currents of feeling which swayed the university.

See also:

Catholic emancipation and the Reform See also:Bill had deeply stirred, not only the See also:political spirit of Oxford, but also the church feeling which had long been stagnant. See also:Cardinal Newman writes, " On See also:Sunday See also:July 14, 1833, Mr Keble preached the See also:assize See also:sermon in the University See also:pulpit. It was published under the title of See also:National See also:Apostasy. I have ever considered and kept the day as the start of the religious See also:movement of 1833." The occasion of this sermon was the suppression, by See also:Earl See also:Grey's Reform See also:ministry, of ten Irish bishoprics. Against the spirit which would treat the church as the See also:mere creature of the See also:state Keble had long chafed inwardly, and now he made his outward protest, asserting the claim of the church to a heavenly origin and a divine See also:prerogative. About the same time, and partly stimulated by Keble's sermon, some leading spirits in Oxford and elsewhere began a concerted and systematic course of action to revive High Church principles and the See also:ancient patristic See also:theology, and by these means both to defend the church against the assaults of its enemies, and also to raise to a higher See also:tone the See also:standard of Christian life in See also:England. This See also:design embodied itself in the Tractarian movement, a name it received from the famous Tracts for the Times, which were the vehicle for promulgating the new doctrines. If Keble is to be reckoned, as Newman would have it, as the primary author of the movement, it was from Pusey that it received one of its best known names, and in Newman that it soon found its genuine See also:leader. To the tracts Keble made only four contributions:—No. 4, containing an See also:argument, in the manner of See also:Bishop See also:Butler, to show that adherence to See also:apostolical See also:succession is the safest course; No. 13, which explains the principle on which the Sunday lessons in the church service are selected; No. 40, on See also:marriage with one who is unbaptized; No.

89, on the See also:

mysticism attributed to the See also:early fathers of the church. Besides these contributions from his own See also:pen, he did much for the series by suggesting subjects, by reviewing tracts written by others, and by lending to their circulation the See also:weight of his See also:personal influence. In 1835 Keble's father died at the See also:age of ninety, and soon after this his son married See also:Miss See also:Clarke, See also:left Fairford, and settled at Hursley vicarage in See also:Hampshire, a living to which he had been presented by his friend and attached See also:pupil, Sir See also:William See also:Heath-cote, and which continued to be Keble's home and cure for the See also:remainder of his life. In 1841 the tracts were brought to an abrupt termination by the publication of Newman's See also:tract No. 9o. All the Protestantism of England was in arms against the author of the See also:obnoxious tract. Keble came forward at the time, desirous to See also:share the responsibility and the blame, if there was any; for he had seen the tract before it was published, and approved it. The same year in which burst this ecclesiastical See also:storm saw the close of Keble's See also:tenure of the professorship of poetry, and thenceforward he was seen but rarely in Oxford. No other public event ever affected Keble so deeply as the See also:secession of Newman to the Church of See also:Rome in 1845. It was to him both a public and a private sorrow, which nothing could repair. But he did not lose heart; at once he threw himself into the double duty, which now devolved on himself and Pusey, of counselling the many who had hitherto followed the movement, and who, now in their perplexity, might be tempted to follow their leader's example, and at the same time of maintaining the rights of the church against what he held to be the encroachments of the state, as seen in such acts as the Gorham See also:judgment, and the decision on Essays and Reviews. In all the ecclesiastical contests of the twenty years which followed 1845, Keble took a part, not loud or obtrusive, but See also:firm and resolute, in maintaining those High Anglican principles with which his life had been identified.

These absorbing duties, added to his parochial work, left little time for literature. But in 1846 he published the See also:

Lyra Innocentium; and in 1863 he completed a life of Bishop See also:Wilson. See also:KEDGEREE 71I In the See also:late autumn of the latter year, Keble left Hursley for the See also:sake of his wife's See also:health, and sought the milder See also:climate of See also:Bournemouth. There he had an attack of See also:paralysis, from which he died on the 29th of See also:March 1866. He was buried in his own See also:churchyard at Hursley; and in little more than a See also:month his wife was laid by her See also:husband's See also:side. Keble also published A Metrical Version of the Psalter (1839), Lyra Innocentium (1846), and a See also:volume of poems was published posthumously. But it is by the Christian Year that he won the See also:ear of the religious world. It was a happy thought that dictated the See also:plan of the book, to furnish a meditative religious lyric for each Sunday of the year, and for each See also:saint's day and festival of the English Church. The subject of each poem is generally suggested by some part of the lessons or the See also:gospel or the See also:epistle for the day. One thing which gives these poems their strangely unique power is the sentiment to which they See also:appeal, and the saintly character of the poet who makes the appeal, illumining more or less every poem. The intimacy with the See also:Bible which is See also:manifest in the pages of the Christian Year; and the unobtrusive felicity with which Biblical sentiments and See also:language are introduced have done much to endear these poems to all Bible readers. " The exactness of the descriptions of See also:Palestine, which Keble had never visited, have been noted, and verified on the spot," by Dean See also:Stanley.

He points to features of the See also:

lake of Gennesareth, which were first touched in the Christian Year; and he observes that throughout the book " the Biblical scenery is treated graphically as real scenery, and the Biblical See also:history and poetry as real history and poetry." As to its See also:style, the Christian Year is See also:calm and See also:grave in tone, and subdued in See also:colour, as beseems its subjects and sentiments. The contemporary poets whom Keble most admired were Scott, Words-See also:worth and See also:Southey; and of their influence traces are visible in his diction. Yet he has a style of language and a See also:cadence of his own, which steal into the heart with strangely soothing power. Some of the poems are faultless, after their kind, flowing from the first See also:stage to the last, lucid in thought, vivid in diction, harmonious in their pensive See also:melody. In others there are imperfections in See also:rhythm, conventionalities of language, obscurities or over-subtleties of thought, which See also:mar the reader's enjoyment. Yet even the most defective poems commonly have, at least, a single See also:verse, expressing some profound thought or tender shade of feeling, for which the sympathetic reader willingly pardons See also:artistic imperfections in the See also:rest. Keble's life was written by his life-long friend Mr See also:Justice J. T. Coleridge. The following is a See also:complete See also:list of his writings:-1. See also:Works published in Keble's lifetime: Christian Year (1827); Psalter (1839) ; Praelectiones Academicae (1844) ; Lyra Innocentium (1846) ; Sermons Academical (1848) ; Argument against See also:Repeal of Marriage See also:Law, and Sequel (1857) ; Eucharistical See also:Adoration (1857) Life of Bishop Wilson (1863) ; Sermons Occasional and Parochial (1867). 2.

See also:

Posthumous publications: See also:Village Sermons on the Baptismal Service (1868); See also:Miscellaneous Poems (1869); Letters of Spiritual Counsel (187o) ; Sermons for the Christian Year, See also:Fee. (11 vols., 1875-1880) ; Occasional Papers and Reviews (1877) ; Studia Sacra (1877) ; Outlines of Instruction or Meditation (188o). . KECSKEMET, a See also:town of See also:Hungary, in the See also:county of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun, 65 m. S.S.E. of See also:Budapest by See also:rail. Pop. (1900), 56,786. Kecskemet is a poorly built and straggling town, situated in the extensive Kecskemet See also:plain. It contains monasteries belonging to the Piarist and Franciscan orders, a Catholic (founded in 1714.), a' Calvinistic and a Lutheran school. The manufacture of See also:soap and See also:leather are the See also:principal See also:industries. Besides the raising of cereals, See also:fruit is extensively cultivated in the surrounding See also:district; its apples and apricots are largely exported, large quantities of See also:wine are produced, and See also:cattle-rearing constitutes another See also:great source of See also:revenue. Kecskemet was the birthplace of the Hungarian dramatist JSzsef Katona (1792-1830), author of the See also:historical See also:drama, Bdnk-Bdn (1815).

End of Article: KEBLE, JOHN (1792-1866)

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