KINGSBOROUGH, Edward King, Viscount, author, born in Cork, Ireland, 16 November, 1795; died in Dublin, 27 February, 1837. He was the eldest son of George, third Earl of Kingston, was educated at Oxford, represented Cork in parliament in 1820-'6, and subsequently devoted himself to his great work, "The Antiquities of Mexico, comprising Fac-Similes of Ancient Mexican Paintings and Hieroglyphics, together with the Monuments of New Spain by M. Dupaix, with their respective Scales of Measurement, and accompanying Descriptions, the Whole illustrated with many Valuable inedited MSS." (9 vols., London, 1831-'48). The first seven volumes are estimated to have cost upward of $300,000. The eighth and ninth were published after his death, which resulted from a fever contracted in a debtor's prison, where he had been temporarily confined for a resistance to an attempted imposition. The work is chiefly valuable for its generally faithful reproduction in fac-simile of such Mexican hieroglyphical or painted records and rituals as were known to exist in the private collections and libraries of Europe, but their careless arrangement renders them unintelligible except to advanced students in American archaeology. Most of his original speculations are loose and crude, and mainly directed to the hypothesis of the Jewish origin of the American Indians, or of the semi-civilized nations of Mexico and Central America. The ninth volume, containing the narrative of Don Alva Ixtlilxochitl, closes abruptly without finishing the imperfect relation.