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Messiah. In Zürich Klopstock received from Frederick V. of Denmark, on the recommendation of his minister Count Bernstorff, an invitation to settle in Copenhagen with a pension of 400 thalers. The invitation was accepted; and on his way to the Danish capital he met at Hamburg the lady who, in 1754, became his wife – Margarethe (Meta) Moller, an enthusiastic admirer of his poetry. She died in 1758; and after her death Klopstock edited her writings, which give evidence of a tender, sensitive, and deeply religious spirit. In 1771 Klopstock left Copenhagen, and followed his friend Count Bernstorft to Hamburg, where, in 1773, he issued the last five cantos of The Messiah. After spending about a year at the court of the margrave of Baden in Carlsruhe, he returned to Hamburg with the title of hofrath and a pension, which he retained along with the pension of the king of Denmark. During the rest of his life he remained in Hamburg, where in 1792 he married Johanna Elizabeth von Winthem, a widow who had been for many years one of his most intimate friends. He died on the 14th of March 1803, and was buried beside his first wife in the village of Ottensen, near Hamburg. Besides The Messiah he wrote many odes; and in several dramas he celebrated the deeds of the ancient German hero, Arminius, while in others he dealt with the earliest narratives of the Old Testament. He was also the author of Fragmente über Sprache und Dichtkunst, Grammatische Gespräche, and a book entitled Gelehrtenrepublik. In these works he made important contributions to philology and to the history of German poetry. Klopstock's dramatic writings are without value: many of his odes, especially those on subjects taken from northern mythology, are so vague as to be hardly intelligible; and The Messiah lacks plastic force, unity of conception, and precision of style. His best odes, however, and many passages of The Messiah are still admitted to be marked by lyrical genius of a high order; and all German critics recognize that he exercised a salutary influence on the literature of his age by helping to deliver it from slavish adherence to foreign models.
An edition of his works in 12 octavo volumes was published in Leipsic, 1798-1817; and among later editions may be mentioned one in 12 volumes, 1823-26, another in 9 vols. , 1839, and a third in 11 vols., 1844-45. Klopstock's writings are included in Hempel's Nationalbibliothek, and there is a new edition, with notes, by Bock (Stuttgart, 1876). See K. F. Cramer, Klopstock, er und, über ihn; and Klopstock's Jugendgeschichte in the Kleine Schriften of D. F. Strauss.
KLOSTERNEUBURG, a town in the official district of
Hernals, Austria, is situated on the right bank of the
Danube, 5½ miles north-west of Vienna. It is divided by
a small stream into an upper and a lower town, in the
former of which are the ruins of a mediæval fortress. The
town has a local court, a hospital, an asylum for the insane,
and a convent of Mekhitarists; among the schools is an
academy of wine and fruit cultivation. As an important
pioneer station, it has various military buildings and
stores. On a hill rising directly from the banks of the
Danube, stand the magnificent buildings (erected 1730-
1834) of the Augustine canonry, founded in 1106 by
Margrave Leopold the Holy. This foundation is the
oldest and richest of the kind in Austria; it owns much
of the land upon which the north-western suburbs of
Vienna stand. Among the points of interest within it are
the old chapel of 1318, with Leopold's tomb and the altar
of Verdun, the treasury and relic-chamber, the library with
30,000 volumes and many MSS., the picture gallery, the
collection of coins, the theological hall, and the wine cellar,
containing an immense tun like that at Heidelberg. The
inhabitants of Klosterneuburg are mainly occupied in
making wine, of excellent quality. There is a large
cement factory outside the town. The population in
1869 was 5330, but has increased. In Roman times the
castle of Citium stood in the region of Klosterneuburg. The town was founded by Charlemagne.
KNARESBOROUGH, a market-town and parliamentary borough in the West Riding of Yorkshire, is finely situated on a rocky elevation on the left bank of the Nidd, 17 miles west by north of York and 207 north of London. It is a station on the North-Eastern Railway, which crosses the valley near the town by a lofty viaduct. The town is built chiefly of stone, and contains several good streets and a spacious market-place. The parish church of St John is an old cruciform structure chiefly Perpendicular in style, restored in 1872; the free grammar school was founded in 1616. Knaresborough Castle, now in ruins, but originally of great strength, was founded in 1170 by Serlo de Burgh. After the battle of Marston Moor it was taken by Fairfax, and in 1648 it was ordered to be dismantled. To the south of the castle is St Robert's chapel, an excavation in the rock constructed into an ecclesiastical edifice in the reign of Richard I. A little further down the river is St Robert's cave, which is supposed to have been the residence of the hermit, and in 1744 was the scene of the murder of Daniel Clarke by Eugene Aram. Opposite the castle is a petrifying spring called the "Dropping Well." Before the rise of Harrogate Knaresborough was a favourite watering-place, but it is now dependent chiefly on its manufacture of towels, sheetings, and similar linen fabrics, and of wool rugs. There are also flour-mills and a considerable trade in corn. From the first year of the reign of Mary until 1867 Knaresborough returned two members to parliament, but since then it has returned only one. The area of the parliamentary borough and local board district, which includes part of Scriven with Tentergate, is 481 acres, and the population, which in 1871 was 5205, was exactly 5000 in 1881.
KNELLER, SIR GODFREY (1648-1723), a portrait painter whose celebrity belongs chiefly to England, was born in Lübeck in the duchy of Holstein, of an ancient family, on August 8, 1648. He was at first intended for the army, and was sent to Leyden to learn mathematics and fortification. Showing, however, a marked preference for the fine arts, he studied in the school of Rembrandt, and under Ferdinand Bol in Amsterdam. In 1672 he removed to Italy, directing his chief attention to Titian and the Caracci; Carlo Maratti gave him some guidance and encouragement. In Rome, and more especially in Venice, Kneller earned considerable reputation, by historical paintings as well as portraits. He next went to Hamburg, painting with still increasing success. In 1674 he came over to England at the invitation of the duke of Mon- rnouth, was introduced to Charles II., and painted that sovereign, much to his satisfaction, several times. Charles also sent him to Paris, to take the portrait of Louis XIV. When Lely died in 1680, Kneller, who produced in England little or nothing in the historical department, remained without a rival in the ranks of portrait painting; there was no native-born competition worth speaking of. Charles appointed him court painter; and he continued to hold the same post into the days of George I. Under William III. (1692) he was made a knight, under George I. (1715) a baronet, and by order of the emperor Leopold I. a knight of the Roman empire. Not only his court favour but his general fame likewise was large : he was lauded by Dryden, Addison, Steele, Prior, Tickell, and Pope. Kneller's gains also were very considerable, aided by habits of frugality which approached stinginess : he left property yielding an annual income of 2000. His industry was maintained till the last. His studio had at first been in Covent Garden, but in his closing years he lived in Kneller Hall, Twickenham. He died of fever, the date being generally given as 7th November 1723, though
