Part 265 (1/2)
JOHNSTON, JAMES FINLAY WEIR, agricultural chemist, born at Paisley, educated at Glasgow; acquired a fortune by his marriage in 1830, and devoted himself to studying chemistry; after some years in Sweden he was chosen lecturer in Durham University, but he resided in Edinburgh, and wrote his ”Catechism of Agricultural Chemistry,” since translated into most European languages, and his ”Chemistry of Common Life”; he died at Durham (1796-1855).
JOHNSTONE (10), a Renfrews.h.i.+re manufacturing town, on the Black Cart, 3 m. W. of Paisley; has flax, cotton, paper, and iron industries.
JOHNSTOWN (22), a city of Pennsylvania, engaged in iron and steel manufactures; was overwhelmed by the bursting of a reservoir, May 31, 1889.
JOh.o.r.e (200), a Mohammedan State in the S. of the Malayan Peninsula, 15 m. N. of Singapore; half the population are Chinese; exports gambier, pepper, and coffee.
JOINVILLE, JEAN, SIRE DE, French chronicler, seneschal of Champagne, born in Chalons-sur-Marne; author of the ”Vie de St. Louis”; followed Louis IX. in the crusade of 1248, but refused to join in that of 1270; he lived through six reigns, and his biography of his sovereign is one of the most remarkable books of the Middle Ages; his ”Vie de St. Louis”
deals chiefly with the Crusade, and is, says Prof. Saintsbury, ”one of the most circ.u.mstantial records we have of mediaeval life and thought”; it is gossipy, and abounds in digressions (1224-1319).
JOKAI MAURICE or MORITZ, Hungarian novelist and voluminous author, born at Komorn; published his first novel, ”Working Days,” in 1845; in 1848 took a prominent part in the Hungarian struggle, but afterwards devoted himself to literature; wrote over 300 books, novels, romances, dramas, essays, and poems, and edited several newspapers; his work resuscitated Hungarian literature; was in his old age an able debater in the House of Representatives; _b_. 1825.
JONAH, a Hebrew prophet, who, born in Gathhepher, belonged to the northern kingdom of Israel; prophesied in the reign of Jeroboam II., and whose special mission it was, at the bidding of the Lord, to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh; his book, which records his mission and the story of it, written apparently, as by G.o.d's dealings with the Ninevites he had himself been, to admonish the Jews that the heathen nations whom they regarded as G.o.d's enemies were as much the objects of His mercy as themselves.
JONATHAN, BROTHER, an impersonation of the American people, given to them from the name of one Jonathan Trumbull, in whose judgment Was.h.i.+ngton had great confidence, and whom he said he would have to consult at a crisis of his affairs.
JONES, EBENEZER, poet, born in Islington; author of ”Studies in Sensation and Event,” fraught with genuine poetic feeling; published a pamphlet on ”Land Monopoly,” in which he advocated the nationalisation of land, apparently as a disciple of Carlyle (1820-1860).
JONES, EDWARD BURNE. See BURNE-JONES.
JONES, ERNEST, Chartist leader and poet, born at Berlin, of English parentage, educated at Gottingen; came to England in 1838, and six years later was called to the bar; in 1845 he threw himself into the Chartist movement, and devoted the rest of his life to the amelioration and elevation of the working-cla.s.ses, suffering two years' (1848-1850) solitary imprisonment for a speech made at Kensington; he wrote, besides pamphlets and papers in the Chartist cause, several poems; ”The Revolt of Hindostan” was written in prison, with his own blood, he said, on the fly-leaves of a prayer-book; he never succeeded in getting into Parliament (1819-1869).
JONES, HENRY ARTHUR, dramatist, born at Grandborough, Bucks; author of the ”Silver King,” ”Judah,” the ”Dancing Girl,” and many other plays; _b_. 1831.
JONES, INIGO, architect, born in London, son of a cloth-worker; studied in Italy, and, returning to England, obtained the patronage of James I., and became chief architect in the country; the Royal Chapel at Whitehall is reckoned his masterpiece; Heriot's Hospital, Edinburgh, is from his design; his style follows Palladio of Venice (1573-1652).
JONES, PAUL, a naval adventurer, whose real name was John Paul, born in Kirkcudbright, Scotland, son of a gardener; took to the sea, engaged in the slave-trade, settled in Virginia, threw in his lot with the colonists and against the mother-country, and offered his services as a sea-captain in the war with a s.h.i.+p of 18 guns; he in 1778 infested the British coast, and made a descent on the sh.o.r.es of his native county; his sympathies were with the French in their struggles for liberty, and he fought in their service as well, making the ”proud Forth quake at his bellying sails,” and capturing two British war-vessels off Flamborough Head; he died in Paris, where he languished in poverty, but the National a.s.sembly granted him a ”ceremonial funeral,” attended by a deputation; ”as good,” reflects Carlyle in his apostrophe to him--”as good had been the natural Presbyterian kirk-bell, and six feet of Scottish earth, among the dust of thy loved ones” (1747-1792).
JONES, SIR WILLIAM, English Orientalist, born in London; pa.s.sed through Oxford to the English bar in 1774, and was made a judge in Bengal in 1783; early devoted to Eastern languages and literature, he published numerous translations and other works, concluding with ”Sakuntala” and ”The Laws of Manu”; he founded the Asiatic Society at Calcutta, where he died (1746-1794).
JONGLEURS, were mediaeval minstrels of Provence and Northern France, who sang and often composed songs and tales, but whose jesting and buffoonery distinguished them from the knightly troubadours and trouveres.
JONSON, BEN, dramatist, born at Westminster, posthumous son of a clergyman of Scottish descent; was in his youth first a bricklayer, afterwards a soldier in the Netherlands, whence he returned about 1592; married a shrew, and became connected with the stage; he was one of the most learned men of his age, and for forty years the foremost, except Shakespeare, in the dramatic and literary world; killing his challenger in a duel nearly cost him his life in 1598; he was branded on the left thumb, imprisoned, and his goods confiscated; in prison he turned Catholic, but twelve years later reverted to Protestantism; the opening of the century brought an unpleasant difference with Dekker and Marston, and saw the famous Mermaid Club at its zenith; for nine years after Shakespeare's death he produced no dramas; in 1619 he received a degree, M.A., from Oxford, the laureates.h.i.+p, and a small pension from the king; now a widower, he founded with Herrick, Suckling, Carew, and others the Apollo Club at the Devil Tavern; in the new reign he turned again to dramatic work with sadly diminished power; he died in poverty, but was buried in Westminster Abbey, his tombstone bearing the words ”O rare Ben Jonson”; he wrote at least sixteen plays, among them ”Every Man is his Humour” (1598), in which Shakespeare acted, ”The Poetaster” (1601), which vexed Dekker, the tragedy of ”Seja.n.u.s” (1603), ”The Silent Woman” (1609), a farcical comedy, Dryden's favourite play, and his most elaborate and masterly work, ”The Alchemist” (1610); he wrote also thirty-five masques of singular richness and grace, in the production of which Inigo Jones provided the mechanism; but his best work was his lyrics, first of which stands ”Drink to me only with thine eyes,” whose exquisite delicacy and beauty everybody knows (1573-1637).