KEW, a township in the Kingston parliamentary division of Surrey,
England, situated on the south bank of the Thames, 6 m. W.S.W. of Hyde
Park Corner, London. Pop. (1901), 2699. A stone bridge of seven arches,
erected in 1789, connecting Kew with Brentford on the other side of the
river, was replaced by a bridge of three arches opened by Edward VII. in
1903 and named after him. Kew has increased greatly as a residential
suburb of London; the old village consisted chiefly of a row of houses
with gardens attached, situated on the north side of a green, to the
south of which is the church and churchyard and at the west the
principal entrance to Kew Gardens. From remains found in the bed of the
river near Kew bridge it has been conjectured that the village marks the
site of an old British settlement. The name first occurs in a document
of the reign of Henry VII., where it is spelt Kayhough. The church of St
Anne (1714) has a mausoleum containing the tomb of the duke of Cambridge
(d. 1850) son of George III., and is also the burial-place of Thomas
Gainsborough the artist, Jeremiah Meyer the painter of miniatures (d.
1789), John Zoffany the artist (d. 1810), Joshua Kirby the architect (d.
1774), and William Aiton the botanist and director of Kew Gardens (d.
1793).
The free school originally endowed by Lady Capel in 1721 received
special benefactions from George IV., and the title of "the king's free
school."
The estate of Kew House about the end of the 17th century came into the
possession of Lord Capel of Tewkesbury, and in 1721 of Samuel Molyneux,
secretary to the prince of Wales, afterwards George II. After his death
it was leased by Frederick prince of Wales, son of George II., and was
purchased about 1789 by George III., who devoted his leisure to its
improvement. The old house was pulled down in 1802, and a new mansion
was begun from the designs of James Wyatt, but the king's death
prevented its completion, and in 1827 the portion built was removed.
Dutch House, close to Kew House, was sold by Robert Dudley, earl of
Leicester, to Sir Hugh Portman, a Dutch merchant, late in the 16th
century, and in 1781 was purchased by George III. as a nursery for the
royal children. It is a plain brick structure, now known as Kew Palace.
The Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew originated in the exotic garden formed
by Lord Capel and greatly extended by the princess dowager, widow of
Frederick, prince of Wales, and by George III., aided by the skill of
William Aiton and of Sir Joseph Banks. In 1840 the gardens were adopted
as a national establishment, and transferred to the department of woods
and forests. The gardens proper, which originally contained only about
11 acres, were subsequently increased to 75 acres, and the pleasure
grounds or arboretum adjoining extend to 270 acres. There are extensive
conservatories, botanical museums, including the magnificent herbarium
and a library. A lofty Chinese pagoda was erected in 1761. A flagstaff
159 ft. high is made out of the fine single trunk of a Douglas pine. In
the neighbouring Richmond Old Park is the important Kew Observatory.
KEWANEE, a city of Henry county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the N. W. part of
the state, about 55 m. N. by W. of Peoria. Pop. (1900), 8382, of whom
2006 were foreign-born; (1910 census), 9307. It is served by the Chicago
Burlington & Quincy railroad and by the Galesburg & Kewanee Electric
railway. Among its manufactures are foundry and machine-shop products,
boilers, carriages and wagons, agricultural implements, pipe and
fittings, working-men's gloves, &c. In 1905 the total factory product
was valued at $6,729,381, or 61.5% more than in 1900. Kewanee was
settled in 1836 by people from Wethersfield, Connecticut, and was first
chartered as a city in 1897.
KEY, SIR ASTLEY COOPER (1821-1888), English admiral, was born in London
in 1821, and entered the navy in 1833. His father was Charles Aston Key
(1793-1849), a well-known surgeon, the pupil of Sir Astley Cooper, and
his mother was the latter's niece. After distinguishing himself in
active service abroad, on the South American station (1844-1846), in the
Baltic during the Crimean War (C.B. 1855) and China (1857), Key was
appointed in 1858 a member of the royal commission on national defence,
in 1860 captain of the steam reserve at Devonport, and in 1863 captain
of H.M.S. "Excellent" and superintendent of the Royal Naval College. He
had a considerable share in advising as to the reorganization of
administration, and in 1866, having become rear-admiral, was made
director of naval ordnance. Between 1869 and 1872 he held the offices of
superintendent of Portsmouth dockyard, superintendent of Malta dockyard,
and second in command in the Mediterranean. In 1872 he was made
president of the projected Royal Naval College at Greenwich, which was
organized by him, and after its opening in 1873 he was made a K.C.B, and
a vice-admiral. In 1876 he was appointed commander-in-chief on the North
American and West Indian station. Having become full admiral in 1878, he
was appointed in 1879 principal A.D.C., and soon afterwards first naval
lord of the admiralty, retaining this post till 1885. In 1882 he was
made G.C.B. He died at Maidenhead on the 3rd of March, 1888.
See _Memoirs of Sir Astley Cooper Key_, by Vice-Admiral Colomb (1898).
KEY, THOMAS HEWITT (1799-1875), English classical scholar, was born in
London on the 20th of March, 1799. He was educated at St John's and
Trinity Colleges, Cambridge, and graduated 19th wrangler in 1821. From
1825 to 1827 he was professor of mathematics in the university of
Virginia, and after his return to England was appointed (1828) professor
of Latin in the newly founded university of London. In 1832 he became
joint headmaster of the school founded in connexion with that
institution; in 1842 he resigned the professorship of Latin, and took up
that of comparative grammar together with the undivided headmastership
of the school. These two posts he held till his death on the 29th of
November 1875. Key is best known for his introduction of the crude-form
(the uninflected form or stem of words) system, in general use among
Sanskrit grammarians, into the teaching of the classical languages. This
system was embodied in his _Latin Grammar_ (1846). In _Language, its
Origin and Development_ (1874), he upholds the onomatopoeic theory. Key
was prejudiced against the German "Sanskritists," and the etymological
portion of his _Latin Dictionary_, published in 1888, was severely
criticized on this account. He was a member of the Royal Society and
president of the Philological Society, to the _Transactions_ of which he
contributed largely.
See _Proceedings of the Royal Society_, vol. xxiv. (1876); R. Ellis in
the _Academy_ (Dec. 4, 1875); J. P. Hicks, _T. Hewitt Key_ (1893),
where a full list of his works and contributions is given.
KEY (in O. Eng. _caég_; the ultimate origin of the word is unknown; it
appears only in Old Frisian _kei_ of other Teutonic languages; until the
end of the 17th century the pronunciation was _kay_, as in other words
in O. Eng. ending in _aég_; cf. _daég_, day; _claég_, clay; the _New
English Dictionary_ takes the change to kee to be due to northern
influence), an instrument of metal used for the opening and closing of a
lock (see LOCK). Until the 14th century bronze and not iron was most
commonly used. The terminals of the stem of the keys were frequently
decorated, the "bow" or loop taking the form sometimes of a trefoil,
with figures inscribed within it; this decoration increased in the 16th
century, the terminals being made in the shape of animals and other
figures. Still more elaborate ceremonial keys were used by court
officials; a series of chamberlains' keys used during the 18th and 19th
centuries in several courts in Europe is in the British Museum. The
terminals are decorated with crowns, royal monograms and ciphers. The
word "key" is by analogy applied to things regarded as means for the
opening or closing of anything, for the making clear that which is
hidden. Thus it is used of an interpretation as to the arrangement of
the letters or words of a cipher, of a solution of mathematical or other
problems, or of a translation of exercises or books, &c., from a foreign
language. The term is also used figuratively of a place of commanding
strategic position. Thus Gibraltar, the "Key of the Mediterranean," was
granted in 1462 by Henry IV. of Castile, the arms, _gules_, a castle
proper, with key pendant to the gate, _or_; these arms form the badge of
the 50th regiment of foot (now 2nd Batt. Essex Regiment) in the British
army, in memory of the part which it took in the siege of 1782. The word
is also frequently applied to many mechanical contrivances for
unfastening or loosening a valve, nut, bolt, &c., such as a spanner or
wrench, and to the instruments used in tuning a pianoforte or harp or in
winding clocks or watches. A farther extension of the word is to
appliances or devices which serve to lock or fasten together distinct
parts of a structure, as the "key-stone" of an arch, the wedge or piece
of wood, metal, &c., which fixes a joint, or a small metal instrument,
shaped like a U, used to secure the bands in the process of sewing in
bookbinding.
In musical instruments the term "key" is applied in certain wind
instruments, particularly of the wood-wind type, to the levers which
open and close valves in order to produce various notes, and in keyboard
instruments, such as the organ or the pianoforte, to the exterior white
or black parts of the levers which either open or shut the valves to
admit the wind from the bellows to the pipes or to release the hammers
against the strings (see KEYBOARD). It is from this application of the
word to these levers in musical instruments that the term is also used
of the parts pressed by the finger in typewriters and in telegraphic
instruments.
A key is the insignia of the office of chamberlain in a royal household
(see CHAMBERLAIN and LORD CHAMBERLAIN). The "power of the keys"
(_clavium potestas_) in ecclesiastical usage represents the authority
given by Christ to Peter by the words, "I will give unto thee the keys
of the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. xvi. 19). This is claimed by the Roman
Church to have been transmitted to the popes as the successors of St
Peter.
"Key" was formerly the common spelling of "quay," a wharf, and is still
found in America for "cay," an island reef or sandbank off the coast of
Florida (see QUAY).
The origin of the name Keys or House of Keys, the lower branch of the
legislature, the court of Tynwald, of the Isle of Man, has been much
discussed, but it is generally accepted that it is a particular
application of the word "key" by English- and not Manx-speaking
people. According to A. W. Moore, _History of the Isle of Man_, i.
160 sqq. (1900), in the Manx statutes and records the name of the
house was in 1417 _Claves Manniae et Claves legis_, Keys of Man and
Keys of the Law; but the popular and also the documentary name till
1585 seems to have been "the 24," in Manx _Kiare as feed_. From 1585
to 1734 the name was in the statutes, &c., "the 24 Keys," or simply
"the Keys." Moore suggests that the name was possibly originally due
to an English "clerk of the rolls," the members of the house being
called in to "unlock or solve the difficulties of the law." There is
no evidence for the suggestion that Keys is an English corruption of
_Kiare-as_, the first part of _Kiare as feed_. Another suggestion is
that it is from a Scandinavian word _keise_, chosen.
KEYBOARD, or MANUAL (Fr. _clavier_; Ger. _Klaviatur_; Ital.
_tastatura_), a succession of keys for unlocking sound in stringed, wind
or percussion musical instruments, together with the case or board on
which they are arranged. The two principal types of keyboard instruments
are the organ and the piano; their keyboards, although similarly
constructed, differ widely in scope and capabilities. The keyboard of
the organ, a purely mechanical contrivance, is the external means of
communicating with the valves or pallets that open and close the
entrances to the pipes. As its action is incapable of variation at the
will of the performer, the keyboard of the organ remains without
influence on the quality and intensity of the sound. The keyboard of the
piano, on the contrary, besides its purely mechanical function, also
forms a sympathetic vehicle of transmission for the performer's
rhythmical and emotional feeling, in consequence of the faithfulness
with which it passes on the impulses communicated by the fingers. The
keyboard proper does not, in instruments of the organ and piano types,
contain the complete mechanical apparatus for directly unlocking the
sound, but only that external part of it which is accessible to the
performer.
The first instrument provided with a keyboard was the organ; we must
therefore seek for the prototype of the modern keyboard in connexion
with the primitive instrument which marks the transition between the
mere syrinx provided with bellows, in which all the pipes sounded at
once unless stopped by the fingers, and the first organ in which sound
was elicited from a pipe only when unlocked by means of some
mechanical contrivance. The earliest contrivance was the simple
slider, unprovided with a key or touch-piece and working in a groove
like the lid of a box, which was merely pushed in or drawn out to open
or close the hole that formed the communication between the wind chest
and the hole in the foot of the pipe. These sliders fulfilled in a
simple manner the function of the modern keys, and preceded the groove
and pallet system of the modern organ. We have no clear or trustworthy
information concerning the primitive organ with sliders. Athanasius
Kircher[1] gives a drawing of a small mouth-blown instrument under the
name of _Magraketha_ (_Mashroqitha'_, Dan. iii. 5), and Ugolini[2]
describes a similar one, but with a pair of bellows, as the magrephah
of the treatise _'Arakhin_.[3] By analogy with the evolution of the
organ in central and western Europe from the 8th to the 15th century,
of which we are able to study the various stages, we may conclude that
in principle both drawings were probably fairly representative, even
if nothing better than efforts of the imagination to illustrate a
text.
The invention of the keyboard with balanced keys has been placed by
some writers as late as the 13th or 14th century, in spite of its
having been described by both Hero of Alexandria and Vitruvius and
mentioned by poets and writers. The misconception probably arose from
the easy assumption that the organ was the product of Western skill
and that the primitive instruments with sliders found in 11th century
documents[4] represent the sum of the progress made in the evolution;
in reality they were the result of a laborious effort to reconquer a
lost art. The earliest trace of a balanced keyboard we possess is
contained in Hero's description of the hydraulic organ said to have
been invented by Ctesibius of Alexandria in the 2nd century B.C. After
describing the other parts (see ORGAN), Hero passes on to the sliders
with perforations corresponding with the open feet of the speaking
pipes which, when drawn forward, traverse and block the pipes. He
describes the following contrivances: attached to the slider is a
three-limbed, pivoted elbow-key, which, when depressed, pushes the
slider inwards; in order to provide for its automatic return when the
finger is lifted from the key, a slip of horn is attached by a gut
string to each elbow-key. When the key is depressed and the slider
pushed home, the gut string pulls the slip of horn and straightens it.
As soon as the key is released, the piece of horn, regaining its
natural bent by its own elasticity, pulls the slider out so that the
perforation of the slider overlaps and the pipe is silenced.[5] The
description of the keyboard by Vitruvius Pollio, a variant of that of
Hero, is less accurate and less complete.[6] From evidence discussed
in the article ORGAN, it is clear that the principle of a balanced
keyboard was well understood both in the 2nd and in the 5th century
A.D. After this all trace of this important development disappears,
sliders of all kinds with and without handles doing duty for keys
until the 12th or 13th century, when we find the small portative
organs furnished with narrow keys which appear to be balanced; the
single bellows were manipulated by one hand while the other fingered
the keys. As this little instrument was mainly used to accompany the
voice in simple chaunts, it needed few keys, at most nine or twelve.
The pipes were flue-pipes. A similar little instrument, having tiny
invisible pipes furnished with beating reeds and a pair of bellows
(therefore requiring two performers) was known as the regal. There are
representations of these medieval balanced keyboards with keys of
various shapes, the most common being the rectangular with or without
rounded corners and the T-shaped. Until the 14th century all the keys
were in one row and of the same level, and although the B flat was
used for modulation, it was merely placed between A and B natural in
the sequence of notes. During the 14th century small square additional
keys made their appearance, one or two to the octave, inserted between
the others in the position of our black keys but not raised. An
example of this keyboard is reproduced by J. F. Riaño[7] from a fresco
in the Cistercian monastery of Nuestra Señora de Piedra in Aragon,
dated 1390.
So far the history of the keyboard is that of the organ. The only
stringed instruments with keys before this date were the _organistrum_
and the _hurdy-gurdy_, in which little tongues of wood manipulated by
handles or keys performed the function of the fingers in stopping the
strings on the neck of the instruments, but they did not influence the
development of the keyboard. The advent of the immediate precursors of
the pianoforte was at hand. In the _Wunderbuch_[8] (1440), preserved
in the Grand Ducal Library at Weimar, are represented a number of
musical instruments, all named. Among them are a _clavichordium_ and a
_clavicymbalum_ with narrow additional keys let in between the wider
ones, one to every group of two large keys. The same arrangement
prevailed in a _clavicymbalum_ figured in an anonymous MS. attributed
to the 14th century, preserved in the public library at Ghent[9]; from
the lettering over the jacks and strings, of which there are but
eight, it would seem as though the draughtsman had left the
accidentals out of the scheme of notation. These are the earliest
known representations of instruments with keyboards. The exact date at
which our chromatic keyboard came into use has not been discovered,
but it existed in the 15th century and may be studied in the picture
of St Cecilia playing the organ on the Ghent altarpiece painted by the
brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck. Praetorius distinctly states that
the large Halberstadt organ had the keyboard which he figures (plates
xxiv. and xxv.) from the outset, and reproduces the inscription
asserting that the organ was built in 1361 by the priest Nicolas Fabri
and was renovated in 1495 by Gregorius Kleng. The keyboard of this
organ has the arrangement of the present day with raised black notes;
it is not improbable that Praetorius's statement was correct, for
Germany and the Netherlands led the van in organ-building during the
middle ages.
At the beginning of the 16th century, to facilitate the playing of
contrapuntal music having a drone bass or _point d'orgue_, the
arrangement of the pipes of organs and of the strings of spinets and
harpsichords was altered, with the result that the lowest octave of
the keyboard was made in what is known as short measure, or mi, ré,
ut, i.e. a diatonic with B flat included, but grouped in the space of
a sixth instead of appearing as a full octave. In order to carry out
this device, the note below F was C, instead of E, the missing D and E
and the B flat being substituted for the three sharps of F, G and A,
and appearing as black notes, thus:--
D E B[flat]
C F G A B C,
or if the lowest note appeared to be B, it sounded as G and the
arrangement was as follows:--
A B
G C D E F G.
This was the most common scheme for the short octave during the 16th
and 17th centuries, although others are occasionally found. Praetorius
also gives examples in which the black notes of the short octave were
divided into two halves, or separate keys, the forward half for the
drone note, the back half for the chromatic semitone, thus:--
F[sharp] G[sharp]
| |
D E B[flat]
C F G A B C
This arrangement, which accomplishes its object without sacrifice, was
to be found early in the 17th century in the organs of the monasteries
of Riddageshausen and of Bayreuth in Vogtland.
See A. J. Hipkins, _History of the Pianoforte_ (London, 1896), and the
older works of Girolamo Diruta (1597), Praetorius (1618), and Mersenne
(1636). (K. S.)