K I S K I S 101
for over four years wandered, mostly on foot, through Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy as far as Rome, obtaining as before a precarious livelihood as an artist. At length subdued by misfortune, and longing for his home and a more honourable career, he in 1817 sought by the aid of his sister reconciliation with his father, who, though still hard to be entreated, allowed him a slight pecuniary assistance. Although not without friends at Pest, where he now took up his abode, he continued to support himself by his brush until the spring of 1819. It was on the 3d of May in this year that the successful performance at Pest of his national drama, in five acts, The Tatars in Hungary, placed the name of Károly Kisfaludy on the roll of literary fame. It was rapidly followed by other dramas, all of which met with popular favour. Not only was he now admired by his own countrymen, but by means of the German translations of Gaal in the Theater der Magyaren (Brünn, 1820) he soon became known abroad. Freed from pecuniary embarrassment, Károly Kisfaludy was now able to devote his best energies to literature, poetry, and the drama. In 1822 he started an annual under the name of Aurora, which he continued to edit until the year of his death. Although its success was great and his popularity continued to increase, he became ever more and more critical with regard to his own productions; and, if his earlier pieces must be regarded rather as the outcome of natural talent than as the result of matured consideration, his later productions bear evidence to the high culture of his mental powers. In recognition of his exceptional literary merit, he was in 1826 rewarded with the prize of the Marczibányi foundation; about this time also he came into possession of the estate at Tét through the death of his father. Towards the close of 1829 his health began to fail, and, though he rallied for a time, consumption, accelerated by the news of his sister's death, brought his career to a close on the 21st November 1830, at tho early age of forty-two, while his friends were rejoicing at the tidings of his election as a member of the Hungarian academy of sciences. The first edition of his collected works was published by Toldy in 10 vols. (Buda, 1831). To the Kisfaludy Károly élete, prefixed to the Pest edition of 1872, we are indebted for many of the foregoing particulars.
KISFALUDY, Sándor or Alexander (1772-1844), elder brother of Károly Kisfaludy, whom he excels as a lyric poet though not as a dramatist, was born on the 27th of September 1772 at Sümeg in the county of Zalu, Hungary. Choosing the career of a soldier, he entered the army in 1793, and was soon appointed to a lieutenancy in the Hungarian life guards at Vienna. There he employed his spare time in literary pursuits, and especially in the study of Italian poets. Upon the death of his patron Prince Anton Eszterházy, Kisfaludy was sent back to Hungary. Soon after this, at a vintage festival in Badacsony, he made the acquaintance of Rozalia Szegedy, whom, not- withstanding a subsequent long estrangement, he eventu ally married, and who under the name of Liza is the subject of his Himfy. During the Italian campaign of 1796 Kisfaludy was stationed at Milan, and upon the surrender of that city he was sent as a prisoner of war to Vaucluse, where he began to write the series of love sonnets for which he afterwards became so famous, and which were suggested to his mind by the songs of Petrarch. After his release at the peace of Campo Formio (17th October 1797), Kisfaludy was posted as captain in a regiment quartered at Würtemberg, and in 1799 he took part in the battles of Stockach, Winterthur, and Zürich. In 1800 he left the army, and stayed for five years at Kam in the county of Vas, subsequently removing to his native place Sümeg, where he devoted himself to agricultural and literary
pursuits. By this time Kisfaludy had gained the highest
reputation as a lyric poet by his Loves of Himfy, the first
part of which, published anonymously at Buda in 1801,
was received with such applause as had never before been
accorded to any Magyar work. The second part appeared
under his own name in 1807. On the "insurrectio," or
general rising of the Hungarian nobles against Napoleon,
in 1809, Kisfaludy accepted the post of major of cavalry,
and was also nominated by the palatine one of his adjutants.
After his return to private life Kisfaludy wrote several
dramatic pieces, and from 1820 contributed largely to
his brother's annual Aurora. In 1818 he gained the
Marczibányi prize for his Ballads (2d edition, Buda, 1818),
which work was translated into German by Gaal (Vienna,
1820); and in 1831 he was elected member of the
Hungarian academy of sciences, in the formation of which
he had taken an active part. He died on the 28th of
October 1844, at the age of seventy-two. His collective
works, in 6 vols., were published at Pest in 1847 by Toldy.
Exquisite metrical English renderings of several verses from
the Himfy will be found in Sir John Bowring's Poetry of the Magyars (London, 1830).
See J. Ferenczy, Magyar Irók. Életrajz-Gyüjtemény, Pest, 1856.
KÍSH, or Ḳais (the first form is Persian and the second Arabic), an island in the Persian Gulf, which rose to im portance in the 12th and 13th centuries, and flourished on the fall of Síráf as a chief station of the Indian trade with the West. Edrísí in the 12th century describes it as the capital of a pirate chief who had acquired great wealth and power, and ravaged the coasts far and wide. He also drew a tribute from the pearl fisheries of the gulf. In the following century Yáḳút describes it from personal observa tion as a beautiful and flourishing island, the seat of the lord of 'Omán, sovereign of those seas, and the station for ships trading between India and Fársistán. The lord of Kísh was respected even in India for his wealth and mari- time power. According to Ibn el Athír he was at constant war with the sovereign of Hormuz, and the rise of the latter port seems to have been fatal to the importance of Kísh (Ibn Batuta, i. 244, and note in Paris edition; Kazwíní, ed. Wüstenf., ii. 161). The island is generally identified with the modern Kenn and the Kataia of Arrian. See Vincent, Voyage de Néarque; Ouseley's Travels, i. 169 sq.
KISHANGARH, or Krishnagarh, a native state in Rajputána, India, lying between 26 3 17 and 26 59 N. lat., 74 43 and 75 13 E. long., with an area of about 724 square miles, and an estimated population of 105,000. It was founded in the reign of the emperor Akbar, by a younger son of the rájá of Jodhpur. In 1818 Kishangarh first came into direct relations with the British Government, by entering into a treaty together with the other Rájput states, having for its object the suppression of the Pindári marauders by whom the country was at that time overrun. The estimated revenue in 1875 was £30,000.
KISHINEFF, the Kishlanow of the Moldavians, a town of Russia, capital of the province of Bessarabia, on the right bank of the Byk, a tributary of the Dniester, situated on the railway between Odessa and Jassy in Roumania, 118 miles north-west from the former. At the beginning of this century it was but a poor village, and in 1812, when it was acquired by Russia from Moldavia, it had but 7000 inhabitants ; twenty years later its population numbered 35,000, while in 1862 it had, with suburbs, 92,000 inhabi tants, and now its population is more than 110,000, composed of the most varied nationalities Moldavians, Wallachs, Russians, Jews, Bulgarians, Tartars, Germans, and Tsigans. The town consists of two parts the old or lower town, on the banks of the Byk, and the new or high town, situated on high crags, 450 to 500 feet above the level of
