Part 4

KLESL (or KHLESL), MELCHIOR (1552-1630), Austrian statesman and ecclesiastic, was the son of a Protestant baker, and was born in Vienna. Under the influence of the Jesuits he was converted to Roman Catholicism, and having finished his education at the universities of Vienna and Ingolstadt, he was made chancellor of the university of Vienna; and as official and vicar-general of the bishop of Passau he exhibited the zeal of a convert in forwarding the progress of the counter-reformation in Austria. He became bishop of Vienna in 1598; but more important was his association with the archduke Matthias which began about the same time. Both before and after 1612, when Matthias succeeded his brother Rudolph II. as emperor, Klesl was the originator and director of his policy, although he stoutly opposed the concessions to the Hungarian Protestants in 1606. He assisted to secure the election of Matthias to the imperial throne, and sought, but without success, to strengthen the new emperor's position by making peace between the Catholics and the Protestants. When during the short reign of Matthias the question of the imperial succession demanded prompt attention, the bishop, although quite as anxious as his opponents to retain the empire in the house of Habsburg and to preserve the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church, advised that this question should be shelved until some arrangement with the Protestant princes had been reached. This counsel was displeasing to the archduke Maximilian and to Ferdinand, afterwards the emperor Ferdinand II. who believed that Klesl was hostile to the candidature of the latter prince. It was, however, impossible to shake his influence with the emperor; and in June 1618, a few months before the death of Matthias, he was seized by order of the archdukes and imprisoned at Ambras in Tirol. In 1622 Klesl, who had been a cardinal since 1615, was transferred to Rome by order of Pope Gregory XV., and was released from imprisonment. In 1627 Ferdinand II. allowed him to return to his episcopal duties in Vienna, where he died on the 18th of September 1630.

See J. Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall, _Khlesls Leben_ (Vienna, 1847-1851); A. Kerschbaumer, _Kardinal Klesl_ (Vienna, 1865); and _Klesls Briefe an Rudolfs II. Obersthofmeister A. Freiherr von Dietrichstein_, edited by V. Bibl. (Vienna, 1900).

KLINGER, FRIEDRICH MAXIMILIAN VON (1752-1831), German dramatist and novelist, was born of humble parentage at Frankfort-on-Main, on the 17th of February 1752. His father died when he was a child, and his early years were a hard struggle. He was enabled, however, in 1774 to enter the university of Giessen, where he studied law; and Goethe, with whom he had been acquainted since childhood, helped him in many ways. In 1775 Klinger gained with his tragedy _Die Zwillinge_ a prize offered by the Hamburg theatre, under the auspices of the actress Sophie Charlotte Ackermann (1714-1792) and her son the famous actor and playwright, Friedrich Ludwig Schröder (1744-1816). In 1776 Klinger was appointed _Theaterdichter_ to the "Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft" and held this post for two years. In 1778 he entered the Austrian military service and took part in the Bavarian war of succession. In 1780 he went to St Petersburg, became an officer in the Russian army, was ennobled and attached to the Grand Duke Paul, whom he accompanied on a journey to Italy and France. In 1785 he was appointed director of the corps of cadets, and having married a natural daughter of the empress Catharine, was made praeses of the Academy of Knights in 1799. In 1803 Klinger was nominated by the emperor Alexander curator of the university of Dorpat, an office he held until 1817; in 1811 he became lieutenant-general. He then gradually gave up his official posts, and after living for many years in honourable retirement, died at Dorpat on the 25th of February 1831.

Klinger was a man of vigorous moral character and full of fine feeling, though the bitter experiences and deprivations of his youth are largely reflected in his dramas. It was one of his earliest works, _Sturm und Drang_ (1776), which gave its name to this literary epoch. In addition to this tragedy and _Die Zwillinge_ (1776), the chief plays of his early period of passionate fervour and restless "storm and stress" are _Die neue Arria_ (1776), _Simsone Grisaldo_ (1776) and _Stilpo und seine Kinder_ (1780). To a later period belongs the fine double tragedy of _Medea in Korinth_ and _Medea auf dem Kaukasos_ (1791). In Russia he devoted himself mainly to the writing of philosophical romances, of which the best known are _Fausts Leben, Taten und Höllenfahrt_ (1791), _Geschichte Giafars des Barmeciden_ (1792) and _Geschichte Raphaels de Aquillas_ (1793). This series was closed in 1803 with _Betrachtungen und Gedanken über verschiedene Gegenstände der Welt und der Literatur_. In these works Klinger gives calm and dignified expression to the leading ideas which the period of _Sturm und Drang_ had bequeathed to German classical literature.

Klinger's works were published in twelve volumes (1809-1815), also 1832-1833 and 1842. The most recent edition is in eight volumes (1878-1880); but none of these is complete. A selection will be found in A. Sauer, _Stürmer und Dränger_, vol. i. (1883). See E. Schmidt, _Lenz und Klinger_ (1878); M. Rieger, _Klinger in der Sturm- und Drangperiode_ (1880); and _Klinger in seiner Reife_ (1896).

KLINGER, MAX (1857- ), German painter, etcher and sculptor, was born at Plagwitz near Leipzig. He attended the classes at the Carlsruhe art school in 1874, and went in the following year to Berlin, where in 1878 he created a sensation at the Academy exhibition with two series of pen-and-ink drawings--the "Series upon the Theme of Christ" and "Fantasies upon the Finding of a Glove." The daring originality of these imaginative and eccentric works caused an outburst of indignation, and the artist was voted insane; nevertheless the "Glove" series was bought by the Berlin National Gallery. His painting of "The Judgment of Paris" caused a similar storm of indignant protest in 1887, owing to its rejection of all conventional attributes and the naïve directness of the conception. His vivid and somewhat morbid imagination, with its leaning towards the gruesome and disagreeable, and the Goyaesque turn of his mind, found their best expression in his "cycles" of etchings: "Deliverances of Sacrificial Victims told in Ovid," "A Brahms Phantasy," "Eve and the Future," "A Life," and "Of Death"; but in his use of the needle he does not aim at the technical excellence of the great masters; it supplies him merely with means of expressing his ideas. After 1886 Klinger devoted himself more exclusively to painting and sculpture. In his painting he aims neither at classic beauty nor modern truth, but at grim impressiveness not without a touch of mysticism. His "Pietà" at the Dresden Gallery, the frescoes at the Leipzig University, and the "Christ in Olympus," at the Modern Gallery in Vienna, are characteristic examples of his art. The Leipzig Museum contains his sculptured "Salome" and "Cassandra." In sculpture he favours the use of varicoloured materials in the manner of the Greek chryselephantine sculpture. His "Beethoven" is a notable instance of his work in this direction.

KLIPSPRINGER, the Boer name of a small African mountain-antelope (_Oreotragus saltator_), ranging from the Cape through East Africa to Somaliland and Abyssinia, and characterized by its blunt rounded hoofs, thick pithy hair and gold-spangled colouring. The klipspringer represents a genus by itself, the various local forms not being worthy of more than racial distinction. The activity of these antelopes is marvellous.

KLONDIKE, a district in Yukon Territory, north-western Canada, approximately in 64° N. and 140° W. The limits are rather indefinite, but the district includes the country to the south of the Klondike River, which comes into the Yukon from the east and has several tributaries, as well as Indian River, a second branch of the Yukon, flowing into it some distance above the Klondike. The richer gold-bearing gravels are found along the creeks tributary to these two rivers within an area of about 800 sq. m. The Klondike district is a dissected peneplain with low ridges of rounded forms rising to 4250 ft. above the sea at the Dome which forms its centre. All of the gold-bearing creeks rise not far from the Dome and radiate in various directions toward the Klondike and Indian rivers, the most productive being Bonanza with its tributary Eldorado, Hunker, Dominion and Gold Run. Of these, Eldorado, for the two or three miles in which it was gold-bearing, was much the richest, and for its length probably surpassed any other known placer deposit. Rich gravel was discovered on Bonanza Creek in 1896, and a wild rush to this almost inaccessible region followed, a population of 30,000 coming in within the next three or four years with a rapidly increasing output of gold, reaching in 1900 the climax of $22,000,000. Since then the production has steadily declined, until in 1906 it fell to $5,600,000. The richest gravels were worked out before 1910, and most of the population had left the Klondike for Alaska and other regions; so that Dawson, which for a time was a bustling city of more than 10,000, dwindled to about 3000 inhabitants. As the ground was almost all frozen, the mines were worked by a thawing process, first by setting fires, afterwards by using steam, new methods being introduced to meet the unusual conditions. Later dredges and hydraulic mining were resorted to with success.

The Klondike, in spite of its isolated position, brought together miners and adventurers from all parts of the world, and it is greatly to the credit of the Canadian government and of the mounted police, who were entrusted with the keeping of order, that life and property were as safe as elsewhere and that no lawless methods were adopted by the miners as in placer mining camps in the western United States. The region was at first difficult of access, but can now be reached with perfect comfort in summer, travelling by well-appointed steamers on the Pacific and the Yukon River. Owing to its perpetually frozen soil, summer roads were excessively bad in earlier days, but good wagon roads have since been constructed to all the important mining centres. Dawson itself has all the resources of a civilized city in spite of being founded on a frozen peat-bog; and is supplied with ordinary market vegetables from farms just across the river. During the winter, when for some time the sun does not appear above the hills, the cold is intense, though usually without wind, but the well-chinked log houses can be kept comfortably warm. When winter travel is necessary dog teams and sledges are generally made use of, except on the stage route south to White Horse, where horses are used. A telegraph line connects Dawson with British Columbia, but the difficulties in keeping it in order are so great over the long intervening wilderness that communication is often broken. Gold is practically the only economic product of the Klondike, though small amounts of tin ore occur, and lignite coal has been mined lower down on the Yukon. The source of the gold seems to have been small stringers of quartz in the siliceous and sericitic schists which form the bed rock of much of the region, and no important quartz veins have been discovered; so that unlike most other placer regions the Klondike has not developed lode mines to continue the production of gold when the gravels are exhausted.

KLOPP, ONNO (1822-1903), German historian, was born at Leer on the 9th of October 1822, and was educated at the universities of Bonn, Berlin and Göttingen. For a few years he was a teacher at Leer and at Osnabrück; but in 1858 he settled at Hanover, where he became intimate with King George V., who made him his _Archivrat_. Thoroughly disliking Prussia, he was in hearty accord with George in resisting her aggressive policy; and after the annexation of Hanover in 1866 he accompanied the exiled king to Hietzing. He became a Roman Catholic in 1874. He died at Penzing, near Vienna, on the 9th of August 1903. Klopp is best known as the author of _Der Fall des Hauses Stuart_ (Vienna, 1875-1888), the fullest existing account of the later Stuarts.

His _Der König Friedrich II. und seine Politik_ (Schaffhausen, 1867) and _Geschichte Ostfrieslands_ (Hanover, 1854-1858) show his dislike of Prussia. His other works include _Der dreissigjährige Krieg bis zum Tode Gustav Adolfs_ (Paderborn, 1891-1896); a revised edition of his _Tilly im dreissigjährigen Kriege_ (Stuttgart, 1861); a life of George V., _König Georg V._ (Hanover, 1878); _Phillipp Melanchthon_ (Berlin, 1897). He edited _Corrispondenza epistolare tra Leopoldo I. imperatore ed il P. Marco l'Aviano capuccino_ (Gratz, 1888). Klopp also wrote much in defence of George V. and his claim to Hanover, including the _Offizieller Bericht über die Kriegsereignisse zwischen Hannover und Preussen im Juni 1866_ (Vienna, 1867), and he edited the works of Leibnitz in eleven volumes (1861-1884).

See W. Klopp, _Onno Klopp: ein Lebenslauf_ (Wehberg, 1907).

KLOPSTOCK, GOTTLIEB FRIEDRICH (1724-1803), German poet, was born at Quedlinburg, on the 2nd of July 1724, the eldest son of a lawyer, a man of sterling character and of a deeply religious mind. Both in his birthplace and on the estate of Friedeburg on the Saale, which his father later rented, young Klopstock passed a happy childhood; and more attention having been given to his physical than to his mental development he grew up a strong healthy boy and was an excellent horseman and skater. In his thirteenth year Klopstock returned to Quedlinburg where he attended the gymnasium, and in 1739 proceeded to the famous classical school of Schulpforta. Here he soon became an adept in Greek and Latin versification, and wrote some meritorious idylls and odes in German. His original intention of making the emperor Henry I. ("The Fowler") the hero of an epic, was, under the influence of Milton's _Paradise Lost_, with which he became acquainted through Bodmer's translation, abandoned in favour of the religious epic. While yet at school, he had already drafted the plan of _Der Messias_, upon which his fame mainly rests. On the 21st of September 1745 he delivered on quitting school a remarkable "leaving oration" on epic poetry--_Abschiedsrede über die epische Poesie, kultur- und literargeschichtlich erläutert_--and next proceeded to Jena as a student of theology, where he elaborated the first three cantos of the _Messias_ in prose. The life at this university being uncongenial to him, he removed in the spring of 1746 to Leipzig, and here joined the circle of young men of letters who contributed to the _Bremer Beiträge_. In this periodical the first three cantos of the _Messias_ in hexameters were anonymously published in 1748. A new era in German literature had commenced, and the name of the author soon became known. In Leipzig he also wrote a number of odes, the best known of which is _An meine Freunde_ (1747), afterwards recast as _Wingolf_ (1767). He left the university in 1748 and became a private tutor in the family of a relative at Langensalza. Here unrequited love for a cousin (the "Fanny" of his odes) disturbed his peace of mind. Gladly therefore he accepted in 1750 an invitation from Jakob Bodmer (q.v.), the translator of _Paradise Lost_, to visit him in Zürich. Here Klopstock was at first treated with every kindness and respect and rapidly recovered his spirits. Bodmer, however, was disappointed to find in the young poet of the _Messias_ a man of strong worldly interests, and a coolness sprang up between the two friends.

At this juncture Klopstock received from Frederick V. of Denmark, on the recommendation of his minister Count von Bernstorff (1712-1772), an invitation to settle at Copenhagen, with an annuity of 400 talers, with a view to the completion of the _Messias_. The offer was accepted; on his way to the Danish capital Klopstock met at Hamburg the lady who in 1754 became his wife, Margareta (Meta) Moller, (the "Cidli" of his odes), an enthusiastic admirer of his poetry. His happiness was short; she died in 1758, leaving him almost broken-hearted. His grief at her loss finds pathetic expression in the 15th canto of the _Messias_. The poet subsequently published his wife's writings, _Hinterlassene Werke von Margareta Klopstock_ (1759), which give evidence of a tender, sensitive and deeply religious spirit. Klopstock now relapsed into melancholy; new ideas failed him, and his poetry became more and more vague and unintelligible. He still continued to live and work at Copenhagen, and next, following Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg (q.v.), turned his attention to northern mythology, which he conceived should replace classical subjects in a new school of German poetry. In 1770, on the dismissal by King Christian VII. of Count Bernstorff from office, he retired with the latter to Hamburg, but retained his pension together with the rank of councillor of legation. Here, in 1773, he issued the last five cantos of the _Messias_. In the following year he published his strange scheme for the regeneration of German letters, _Die Gelehrtenrepublik_ (1774). In 1775 he travelled south, and making the acquaintance of Goethe on the way, spent a year at the court of the margrave of Baden at Karlsruhe. Thence, in 1776, with the title of _Hofrat_ and a pension from the margrave, which he retained together with that from the king of Denmark, he returned to Hamburg where he spent the remainder of his life. His latter years he passed, as had always been his inclination, in retirement, only occasionally relieved by association with his most intimate friends, busied with philological studies, and hardly interesting himself in the new developments of German literature. The American War of Independence and the Revolution in France aroused him, however, to enthusiasm. The French Republic sent him the diploma of honorary citizenship; but, horrified at the terrible scenes the Revolution had enacted in the place of liberty, he returned it. When 67 years of age he contracted a second marriage with Johanna Elisabeth von Winthem, a widow and a niece of his late wife, who for many years had been one of his most intimate friends. He died at Hamburg on the 14th of March 1803, mourned by all Germany, and was buried with great pomp and ceremony by the side of his first wife in the churchyard of the village of Ottensen.

Klopstock's nature was best attuned to lyrical poetry, and in it his deep, noble character found its truest expression. He was less suited for epic and dramatic representation; for, wrapt up in himself, a stranger to the outer world, without historical culture, and without even any interest in the events of his time, he was lacking in the art of plastic representation such as a great epic requires. Thus the _Messias_, despite the magnificent passages which especially the earlier cantos contain, cannot satisfy the demands such a theme must necessarily make. The subject matter, the Redemption, presented serious difficulties to adequate epic treatment. The Gospel story was too scanty, and what might have been imported from without and interwoven with it was rejected by the author as profane. He had accordingly to resort to Christian mythology; and here again, circumscribed by the dogmas of the Church, he was in danger of trespassing on the fundamental truths of the Christian faith. The personality of Christ could scarcely be treated in an individual form, still less could angels and devils--and in the case of God Himself it was impossible. The result was that, despite the groundwork--the Gospels, the _Acts of the Apostles_, the _Revelation of St John_, and the model ready to hand in Milton's _Paradise Lost_--material elements are largely wanting and the actors in the poem, Divine and human, lack plastic form. That the poem took twenty-five years to complete could not but be detrimental to its unity of design; the original enthusiasm was not sustained until the end, and the earlier cantos are far superior to the later. Thus the intense public interest the work aroused in its commencement had almost vanished before its completion. It was translated into seventeen languages and led to numerous imitations. In his odes Klopstock had more scope for his peculiar talent. Among the best are _An Fanny_; _Der Zürchersee_; _Die tote Klarissa_; _An Cidli_; _Die beiden Musen_; _Der Rheinwein_; _Die frühen Gräber_; _Mein Vaterland_. His religious odes mostly take the form of hymns, of which the most beautiful is _Die Frühlingsfeier_. His dramas, in some of which, notably _Hermanns Schlacht_ (1769) and _Hermann und die Fürsten_ (1784), he celebrated the deeds of the ancient German hero Arminius, and in others, _Der Tod Adams_ (1757) and _Salomo_ (1764), took his materials from the Old Testament, are essentially lyrical in character and deficient in action. In addition to _Die Gelehrtenrepublik_, he was also the author of _Fragmente über Sprache und Dichtkunst_ (1779) and _Grammatische Gespräche_ (1794), works in which he made important contributions to philology and to the history of German poetry.

Klopstock's _Werke_ first appeared in seven quarto volumes (1798-1809). At the same time a more complete edition in twelve octavo volumes was published (1798-1817), to which six additional volumes were added in 1830. More recent editions were published in 1844-1845, 1854-1855, 1879 (ed. by R. Boxberger), 1884 (ed. by R. Hamel) and 1893 (a selection edited by F. Muncker). A critical edition of the _Odes_ was published by F. Muncker and J. Pawel in 1889; a commentary on these by H. Düntzer (1860; 2nd ed., 1878). For Klopstock's correspondence see K. Schmidt, _Klopstock und seine Freunde_ (1810); C. A. H. Clodius, _Klopstocks Nachlass_ (1821); J. M. Lappenberg, _Briefe von und an Klopstock_ (1867). Cf. further K. F. Cramer, _Klopstock, er und über ihn_ (1780-1792); J. G. Gruber, _Klopstocks Leben_ (1832); R. Hamel, _Klopstock-Studien_ (1879-1880); F. Muncker, _F. G. Klopstock_, the most authoritative biography, (1888); E. Bailly, _Étude sur la vie et les oeuvres de Klopstock_ (Paris, 1888).

KLOSTERNEUBURG, a town of Austria, in Lower Austria, 5-½ m. N.W. of Vienna by rail. Pop. (1900), 11,595. It is situated on the right bank of the Danube, at the foot of the Kahlenberg, and is divided by a small stream into an upper and a lower town. As an important pioneer station Klosterneuburg has various military buildings and stores, and among the schools it possesses an academy of wine and fruit cultivation.

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, dating from the 12th century, 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. In Roman times the castle of Citium stood in the region of Klosterneuburg. The town was founded by Charlemagne, and received its charter as a town in 1298.