ISABELLA, queen of Castile; her marriage with Ferdinand of Aragon
led to the union under one sceptre of the crowns of Aragon and Castile,
which was followed 10 years after by their united occupancy of the throne
of all Spain; she was an able woman, and associated with her husband in
every affair of State (1451-1504). See FERDINAND V.
ISABELLA II., ex-queen of Spain, daughter of Ferdinand VII.;
succeeded him in 1833; was forced to leave the country in 1868; took
refuge in France, and in 1870 abdicated in favour of her son.
ISABEY JEAN BAPTISTE, French portrait-painter, born at Nancy;
painted many of the notabilities of France in his day (1767-1855).
ISÆUS, an Attic orator, and the teacher of Demosthenes; wrote 64
orations, of which only 10 are extant, and these not on political issues
but forensic, and particularly the law of inheritance.
ISAIAH, one of the great Hebrew prophets, the son of one Amoz; was a
citizen of Jerusalem, evidently of some standing, and who flourished
between 750 and 700 B.C.; like AMOS (q. v.), he foresaw the
judgment that was coming on the nation for its unfaithfulness, but felt
assured that God would not altogether forsake His people, and that "a
remnant," God's elect among them, would be saved--that though the casket
would be shattered in pieces, the jewel it contained would be preserved.
See HEBREW PROPHECY.
ISAIAH, THE ASCENSION OF, an apocryphal book giving an incoherent
account of the martyrdom of Isaiah, and a vision he had under the reign
of Hezekiah, apparently the origin of the tradition in Heb. xi. 37, about
the prophet having been "sawn asunder."
ISAIAH, THE PROPHECIES OF, consist of two divisions, the first
extending from chap. i. to chap. xxxix., and the second from chap. xl. to
the end; these two divisions were for long believed to be throughout the
work of Isaiah the son of Amoz, but modern criticism assigns them in the
main to different authors, the one living 150 years after the other; and
the reasons for this conclusion are that the author of the latter
belonged to a different period of Jewish history from that of the former,
is not of the same temper, and has much deeper spiritual insight, while
his hopes and expectations are built on a more spiritual view of the
method of salvation, the Messiah of the former, for instance, being a
conquering king, and that of the latter a suffering Redeemer, who to save
the nation has to bear the burden of its sins, and the brunt of them, and
so bearing, bear them away.
ISAMBERT, FRANÇOIS ANDRÉ, a noteworthy French lawyer, politician,
and historian, born at Aunay; began to practise in Paris at the age of
twenty-six; becoming known in politics, he gained considerable renown by
certain works on French law and by his advocacy of the claims of the
liberated slaves in the French West Indies; entering the Chamber of
Deputies after the Revolution of July 1830, he set himself to oppose the
Jesuits and to further freedom; "The Religious Conditions of France and
Europe" and a "History of Jerusalem" were among his later works; he died
at Paris (1792-1857).
ISANDULA, place 110 m. NW. of Durban, where a force of British
troops was encamped in January 22, 1879, and was set upon and almost
annihilated by a body of Zulus.
ISAURIA, in ancient times this name was given to the northern slopes
of the Taurus in Asia Minor, what is now Karamania; the Isaurians were a
wild, savage people; from the 1st to the 4th centuries they were the
terror of neighbouring States, and gave Rome herself considerable
trouble; but from the 5th century they disappear from history.
ISCHIA (22), a beautiful volcanic island 6 m. off the Bay of Naples;
its scenery, climate, and mineral springs make it a health resort; it
produces excellent fruits and wines; it is liable to severe earthquakes;
in the last (1883), 4000 persons perished. The chief town (3) bears the
same name.
ISCHL, a town in Upper Austria, picturesquely situated on the river
Traun, 33 m. SE. of Salzburg; famous for its saline baths; has
salt-works, where 8000 tons of salt are annually manufactured.
ISENGRIN, the wolf, typifying the feudal baron in the epic tale of
Reynard the Fox, as the fox does the Church. See REYNARD.
ISER, a German river, which rises in the Tyrol N. of Innsbruck,
passes through Münich, and falls into the Danube after a course of 180 m.
ISÈRE, a river in the SE. of France, which gives name to a dep.
(572), and which, after a course of 180 m. falls into the Rhône near
Valence.
ISERLOHN (22), a town in Prussian Westphalia, 14 m. SE. of Dortmund;
is picturesquely situated, and is engaged in iron-ware manufacture.
ISHMAEL, the son of Abraham and the handmaid Hagar, cast out of
Abraham's household at 15; he became skilful with the bow, and founded a
great nation, the Arabs; for the offering of Isaac on Moriah the Arabs
substitute the offering of Ishmael on Arafat, near Mecca; Mahomet claimed
descent from him; he gives name in modern life to a social outcast driven
into antagonism to social arrangements.
ISIDORE, ST., BISHOP OF SEVILLE, born at Carthagena, a distinguished
man and ecclesiastic, who exercised great influence on Latin
Christianity, and on both civil and ecclesiastical matters in Spain, and
left a large number of writings of varied interest; he was animated at
once by a severe sense of duty and by an admirable Christian spirit
(570-638). Festival, April 4.
ISINGLASS, a gelatine substance prepared from the sounds or
air-bladders of certain fresh-water fishes, the sturgeon in particular;
it is imported from Russia, Brazil, and the Hudson Bay Territory.
ISIS, an Egyptian divinity, the wife and sister of Osiris and mother
of Horus, the three together forming a trinity, which is
characteristically Egyptian, and such as often repeats itself in Egyptian
mythology, and typifying the life of the sun, Osiris representing that
luminary slain at night and sorrowed over by his sister Isis, reviving in
the morning in his son Horus, and wedded anew to his sister Isis as his
wife; passed into the mythology of the Greeks, Isis became identified
first with Demeter and then with the Moon, while in that of Rome she
figures as the Universe-mother.
ISLA, JOSÉ FRANCISCO DE, a Spanish Jesuit, celebrated as a preacher
and a humorist and satirist of the stamp of Cervantes; his principal work
"Friar Gerund," a satire on the charlatanism and bombast of the popular
preaching friars of the day, as Don Quixote was on the false chivalry;
the friars he satirised were too strong for him, and he was expelled from
Spain, retired to Italy, and died at Bologna in extreme poverty
(1703-1781).
ISLAM or ISLAMISM, the religion of Mahomet, "that we must
_submit_ to God; that our whole strength lies in resigned submission to
Him, whatsoever He do to us, for this world and the other; this is the
soul of Islam; it is properly the soul of Christianity; Christianity also
commands us, before all, to be resigned to God. This is yet the highest
wisdom that Heaven has revealed to our earth." See "Heroes and
Hero-Worship."
ISLAND OF SAINTS, a name given to Ireland in the Middle Ages.
ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED, fabled islands of the far west of the ocean,
where the favoured of the gods after death are conceived to dwell in
everlasting blessedness.
ISLAY (7), a large mountainous Island 13 m. W. of Kintyre, Scotland;
much of it is cultivated; dairy produce, cattle, and sheep are exported;
there are lead, copper, and manganese mines, marble quarries, and salmon
fisheries; the distilleries produce 400,000 gallons of whisky annually.
ISLINGTON (319), a district of London, 2½ m. N. of St. Paul's;
contains the division of Holloway, Highbury, Barnsbury, and part of
Kingsland.
ISMAIL PASHA, khedive of Egypt from 1863, who was obliged by the
Powers to abdicate in 1879.
ISMAILIA, a small town on Suez Canal; was the head-quarters of the
work during the construction of the Canal.
ISMAÎLIS, one of the Mohammedan sects which support the claim of the
house of Ali, Mahomet's cousin, to supremacy among the faithful;
originating about A.D. 770, they rose to importance in the 10th century
under Abdallah, a Persian, who introduced Zoroastrian ideas into their
creed and prophesied the appearance of a Madhi or Messiah who should be
greater than the Prophet himself; becoming latterly extremely
rationalistic the sect lost its influence in the 13th century, and its
representatives in Syria and Persia are now comparatively obscure; in
Turkey and Egypt, however, several Madhis have arisen, of whom the last,
Mohammed Ahmed, _b_. 1843, gained possession of the Soudan, defeated the
Egyptian army in 1883, two years later captured Khartoum, but died at
Omdurman shortly afterwards.
ISMENË, the sister of Antigone, who requested, as her accomplice, to
be promoted to be sharer in her fate.
ISOCRATES, an Athenian rhetorician, of a school that was an offshoot
of the SOPHISTS (q. v.), and the whole merit of whose oratory
depended upon style or literary finish and display; he is said to have
starved himself to death after the battle of Cheronea at the age of 98
because he could not brook to outlive the humiliation of Greece by Philip
of Macedon and the destruction of its freedom (436-338 B.C.).
ISODORIAN DECRETALS, a body of ecclesiastical decretals imposed upon
the Church under the name of ISODORE OF SEVILLE (q. v.).
ISOLDE, the wife of King Mark of Cornwall, who, under the potency of
some philter which she had inadvertently taken, conceived an illicit
passion for Sir Tristram, her husband's nephew, the story of which is
celebrated in mediæval romance.
ISPAHÂN (60), the ancient capital of Persia, 226 m. S. of Teheran,
on the river Zenderud, which, as its greatest glory, is spanned by a
noble bridge of 34 arches; it stands in a fertile plain abounding in
groves and orchards, amid ruins of its former grandeur, and is a centre
of Mohammedan learning; the inhabitants are said to have at one time
numbered a million; it produces rich brocades and velvets, firearms,
sword-blades, and much ornamental ware; there are many fine buildings,
and signs of returning prosperity.
ISRAEL, KINGDOM OF, the name given to the northern kingdom of the 10
tribes of the Israelites which revolted from the kingdom of Judah after
the death of Solomon.
ISRÄELS, JOSEF, a Dutch oil and water-colour artist and etcher, born
in Gröningen; studied in Amsterdam and Paris; devoting himself to _genre_
subjects, he has depicted the pathetic side of the life of the Dutch
fisher-folks with great sympathy and power; he won a _grand prix_ at the
Paris Exhibition of 1889; _b_. 1824.
ISRAFEEL, in the Mohammedan mythology an angel whose office it will
be to sound the trumpet on the resurrection morning.
ISSUS, a river in Cilicia, Asia Minor, where Alexander the Great
defeated Darius, 333 B.C.
ISSY (12), a village ½ m. SW. of Paris, where Davout was defeated by
Blücher on 3rd July 1815, and which suffered severely during the siege of
Paris by the Germans in 1870-71.
ISTAMBOUL, the Turkish name for Constantinople.
ISTHMIAN GAMES, one of the four Pan-Hellenic festivals; they were
periodically celebrated in honour of Poseidon or Neptune at the isthmus
of Corinth, in Greece, whence the name.
ISTRIA (299), a mountainous territory of Austria, in the NE. corner
of the Adriatic; yields olive-oil, figs, and vines, though often swept by
sirocco and bora winds.
ISUMBRAS, ST., a hero of mediæval romance, a proud man subdued by
God's justice into a penitent and a humble.
ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE. The style of architecture called Italian was
first developed by Filippo Bruneschelli, and flourished during the 15th,
16th, and 17th centuries; it was an adaptation of classical circular-arch
form to modern requirements. In Rome it conformed most to ancient types;
in Venice it assumed its most graceful form. It was more suitable to
domestic than to ecclesiastical work; but the dome is an impressive
feature, and St. Peter's a noble church.
ITALIC SCHOOL, the name given to the school of PYTHAGORAS
(q. v.) who taught philosophy in Italy.
ITALIC VERSION, THE, a version of the Scriptures into Latin on the
basis of the Septuagint, executed in N. Italy under episcopal authority
from other versions in circulation; being of mixed quality and far from
satisfactory, JEROME (q. v.) undertook its revision with the
view of a new translation into Latin known as the Vulgate direct from the
Hebrew and Greek originals.
ITALY (30,536), the central one of three peninsulas stretching into
the Mediterranean Sea, in the S. of Europe, has the Adriatic and
Tyrrhenian Seas respectively on the E. and W., and is separated from
France, Switzerland, and Austria in the N. by the various ranges of the
Alps. Between the Alps and the Apennines lies the extensive, fertile
plain of Lombardy, watered by the river Po, and containing several large
lakes, such as Garda, Como, and Maggiore. The Apennines form a very
picturesque chain of mountains 5000 ft. high down the centre of the
country. The climate varies in different districts, but is mostly warm.
Malaria curses many parts in autumn. Agriculture is extensive, but
primitive in manner, and the peasantry are very poor. The most important
crops are cereals, including rice and maize, grapes, olives, and
chestnuts, and in the S. oranges and lemons. Italian wines are of
indifferent quality. Coal and iron are scarce; sulphur is produced in
large quantities in Sicily. There are large quarries of marble and
alabaster. The most important industries are silk, glass, and porcelain.
There is an extensive foreign trade, chiefly with France and Great
Britain; the exports consist of silk, sulphur, marble, fruit, and wine;
the imports of coal, iron, and textile goods. The religion is Roman
Catholic; education is now compulsory. The Gothic kingdom of Italy was
founded on the ruins of the Roman Empire, A.D. 489. In succession the
country was conquered by the forces of the Byzantine Empire, by the
Lombards, and by the Franks. From the 11th century onwards its history
has been one of constant internal strife and confusion. The presence of
the papal power in Rome, the rise of such rich trading republics as the
cities of Milan, Florence, Naples, Genoa, and Venice, the pretensions of
French kings and German emperors, and factions like those of the Guelphs
and Ghibellines, produced endless complications and ruinous wars. In the
16th century the influence of the Austro-Spanish house of Charles V.
became dominant; his son, Philip II., was king of Milan and Naples. In
more recent times the small states of Italy were continually involved in
the wars which devastated Europe, and passed in alliance or in
subordination into the hands of Austria, France, and Spain alternately.
The last 50 years have seen the unification of the kingdom. After the
abortive movement of Mazzini came Cavour and Garibaldi, who, after severe
struggles against the Austrians in the North and the despots of Southern
Italy, proclaimed Victor Emmanuel king of Italy in 1861. By various steps
the whole of the peninsula, with the islands of Sardinia and Sicily, have
been brought into the kingdom. The temporal power of the Pope ceased in
1870. The Government is a constitutional monarchy. Franchise is
exercised by every citizen who can read and write. Conscription is in
force for army and navy. These are both strong, the navy one of the best
in Europe. Finances are bad; the debt amounts to £520,000,000, and
taxation is ruinous.
ITHACA (10), one of the Ionian Islands, and one of the smallest,
known now under the name Thiaki; it was the home of Ulysses, and his
domain as king when he set out for the Trojan War, and which he did not
see again till his return after twenty years. Also a town (11) in New
York State, U.S., seat of CORNELL UNIVERSITY (q. v.).
ITHURIEL, an angel whom Milton represents as sent by Gabriel to
search for Satan in Paradise, who had found entrance by eluding the
vigilance of the guard; he was armed with a _spear_, the touch of which
could unmask any disguise, and by means of which he discovered Satan
lurking in the garden in the form of a toad.
ITINERARY, a name given among the Romans to an account or a map of
the principal routes through the empire and the stations along them.
ITURBIDE, AUGUSTINE DE, a Mexican general, emancipated Mexico from
the yoke of Spain; seized the crown and was proclaimed emperor in 1822,
was obliged to abdicate next year and leave the country, but returning,
was immediately arrested, and shot (1783-1824).
IVAN (i. e. John), the name of two grand-dukes and four czars of
Russia; the two grand-dukes were Ivan I., grand-duke from 1328 to 1340,
and Ivan II., his son, grand-duke from 1353 to 1359.
IVAN III., surnamed The Threatening, sought to free Russia from the
yoke of the Tartars who had held it tributary for two centuries; gained
victories over the Tartars and the Poles, and was the first to receive at
Moscow ambassadors from other Powers of Europe; reigned from 1462 to
1505.
IVAN IV., surnamed The Terrible, grandson of the preceding, assumed
the sovereignty at 14, had himself crowned in 1545, and took the title of
Czar; his first great ambition was to destroy the Tartar power, which he
did at Kasan and Astrakhan, receiving homage thereafter from almost all
the Tartar chiefs; on the death of his wife in 1563 he lost all
self-restraint, and by the ferocity of his wars provoked hostility which
the Pope, who had been appealed to, interposed to appease; in a fit of
passion he killed his eldest son, whom he loved, remorse for which
embittered his last days and hastened his end (1530-1584).
IVANHOE, the hero of Sir Walter Scott's novel of the name, the
disinherited son of Cedric of Rotherwood, who falls in love with Rowena,
a ward of his father, but by the exhibition of his prowess as a knight is
at the intercession of King Richard, reconciled to his father, with the
result that he marries Rowena.
IVANOVA (32), a Russian town in Vladimir, 210 m. NE. of Moscow,
engaged in the manufacture of cotton, and known as the "Manchester of
Russia."
IVANOVITCH, IVAN, a lazy, good-natured impersonation of the typical
Russian, as John Bull is of the Englishman, and Brother Jonathan of the
American.
IVES, ST., a town on the Ouse, in Huntingdonshire, 50 m. N. of
London, where Oliver Cromwell resided from 1631 to 1635; the chief
industries are malting and brewing.
IVIZA (22), the most westerly of the Balearic Isles, is hilly and
well wooded, with fertile valleys and important fisheries.
IVORY COAST, a territory on the K. of the Gulf of Guinea, belonging
partly to Liberia and partly to France and Britain.
IVORY GATE, the gate spoken of in Virgil through which dreams pass
that do not turn out true. See HORN GATE.
IVRY, a village in the dep. of Eure, NE. of Dreux, famous for the
victory of Henry of Navarre over the Leaguers in 1590.
IXION, the king of the LAPITHÆ (q. v.), who being admitted
to heaven attempted to do violence to Hera, and whom Zeus deluded to
embrace a phantom image of her instead, whereby he became the father of
the Centaurs, and whom Zeus thereafter punished by fastening him hands
and feet to an eternally revolving wheel in hell.
IZALIO, a volcano in the republic of San Salvador, which first
announced its existence by a fissure opening in 1798 on the plain that
now surrounds it, from which there vomited lava and cinders, accompanied
with earthquake.
J
JABALPUR (84), a town, district, and one of the four divisions of
the Central Provinces, India; the town is an important commercial and
railway centre, situated 228 m. SW. of Allahabad; cotton and carpets are
amongst its chief manufactures.
JACK, a familiar form of John, the most widely spread of Christian names,
and said to be derived from the French JACQUES or, as others maintain,
from JANKIN, a distinctive form of JOHAN or JOHN; JOHNKIN gives us JOCK
and JOCKEY; from its extreme commonness it has acquired that slightly
contemptuous signification observable in such compounds as "every man
JACK," "JACK-of-all-trades," "JACK-an-apes," and the name as applied to
the _knaves_ in playing-cards, and to the small white ball used as a mark
in the game of bowls is an example of its transferred sense.
JACKAROO, name given in Australia to a green-horn from England
inexperienced in bush life.
JACKDAW OF RHEIMS, one of the INGOLDSBY LEGENDS (q. v.).
JACKSON, 1, a prosperous manufacturing city (21) in Michigan,
U.S.A., on the Grand River, 70 m. W. of Detroit; has various mills,
iron-works, breweries, &c., and bituminous coal-mines on its outskirts.
2, A cotton market-town (10), capital of Madison County, Tennessee, on
the South Fork of the Forked Deer River, 107 m. SE. of Cairo, Illinois.
JACKSON, ANDREW, GENERAL, president of the United States, born at
Waxhaw, N. Carolina, adopted law as a profession, and in 1788 became
public prosecutor at Nashville; took a prominent part in establishing the
State of Tennessee, of which he subsequently became a senator and a,
judge; during the war with Britain (1812-14) be came to the front and
crowned a series of successes by his great victory over Sir E. Pakenham
at New Orleans; for a time he was governor of the newly purchased State
of Florida, but resigning, he again entered the U.S. Senate in 1823;
five years later he became President, and in 1832 was again elected; his
Presidency is associated with the readjustment of the tariff on a purely
protective basis, which led to disputes with S. Carolina, the sweeping
away of the United States Bank, the wiping out of the national debt in
1835, and the vigorous enforcement of claims against the French for
damage done during the Napoleonic wars; his imperious yet honest nature
led him to make a more frequent use of the President's veto than any of
his predecessors (1767-1845).
JACKSON, THOMAS JONATHAN, known as Stonewall Jackson, an American
general, born in Virginia; bred for the army; distinguished himself in
the Mexican War; retired from the army in 1853, and became a professor in
Mathematics and Military Science in Virginia; was appointed
brigadier-general in the Confederate army at the outbreak of the Civil
War, and earned the _nom de guerre_ of "Stonewall" by his firmness at the
battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861; distinguished himself in subsequent
engagements; at Chancellorville was by mistake fired at in the dark and
mortally wounded by his own men on May 6, 1863; he was a man of the
Cromwell stamp, and his death was not only a blow to his own party, but
matter of grief to the whole American nation (1824-1863).
JACKSONVILLE, 1, the chief seat of commerce (17) in Florida State,
is situated on St. John's River, some 20 m. from its mouth; is a busy
railway centre, and has an active river trade in lumber, cotton, fruits,
&c., and is a health resort. 2, Capital (13) of Morgan County, Illinois,
is pleasantly situated on a fertile plain, 34 m. SW. of Springfield; is
noted as an educational centre, and for its many charity asylums; its
manufactures embrace woollens, paper, &c.
JACOB, a Hebrew patriarch, younger son of Isaac and Rebecca, the
favourite of his mother, and had twelve sons, the fathers of the twelve
tribes of Israel; his character and the story of his life are naïvely
delineated in the book of Genesis.
JACOB, JEAN CLAUDE, a serf from the Jura Mountains, 120 years old,
who was brought from his native place to figure as "dean of the human
race" in Paris at the great federation festival of June 1790.
JACOBI, FRIEDRICH HEINRICH, a German philosopher, born at
Düsseldorf; bred for business, and after engaging in it for a time threw
it up for a revenue appointment; devoted all his by-hours to philosophy
and correspondence with eminent men, and was appointed President of the
Academy of Sciences at Münich in 1807; he formed no system and he founded
no school; his thoughts present themselves in a detached form, and are to
be gathered from letters, dialogues, and imaginative works; he contended
for the dogma of "immediate cognition as the special organ of the
supersensuous," and failed to see, as SCHWEGLER notes, that said
cognition "has already described a series of subjective intermediating
movements, and can pretend to immediacy only in entire oblivion of its
own nature and origin" (1743-1819).
JACOBI, KARL GUSTAVO, a celebrated German mathematician, born at
Potsdam, of Jewish birth; was professor at Königsberg and Berlin, and one
of the founders of the theory of determinants (1801-1851).
JACOBINS, a political club, originally known as the Club Breton,
which was founded in Paris during the French Revolution; so called from
its place of meeting in the Rue St. Honoré, which had previously been a
Jacobin friar convent; it exercised a great influence over the course of
the Revolution, and had affiliated societies all over the country,
working along with it; its members were men of extreme revolutionary
views, procured the death of the king, exterminated the Girondists,
roused the lowest classes against the middle, and were the ruling spirits
during the Reign of Terror, of whom Robespierre was the chief, the fall
of whom sealed their doom; they were mobbed out of their place of meeting
with execrations on Hallow-Eve 1794.
JACOBITES, a name given to certain partisans of Eutychean sect in
the 17th century in the East, from the name of their leader.
JACOBITES, the name given to the adherents of the Stuart dynasty in
Great Britain after their expulsion from the throne in 1688, and derived
from that of James II., the last Stuart king; they made two great
attempts to restore the exiled dynasty, in 1715 and 1745, but both were
unsuccessful, after which the movement exhausted itself in an idle
sentimentality, which also is by this time as good as extinct.
JACOBS, a German Greek scholar, born at Gotha; editor of "Anthologia
Græca" (1767-1847).
JACOBUS, a gold coin of the reign of James I., worth 25 shillings.
JACOBY, JOHAN, a Prussian politician, born in Königsberg; bred to
medicine, but best known as a politician in a liberal interest, which
involved him in prosecutions; was imprisoned for protesting against the
annexation of Alsace and Lorraine; he was a man of fearless honesty, and
one day had the courage to say to the Emperor William I., "It is the
misfortune of kings that they will not listen to the truth" (1805-1877).
JACOTOT, JEAN JOSEPH, a celebrated educationalist, born at Dijon,
France; after holding various educational appointments, he in 1818 became
professor of the French Language and Literature at Louvain, and
subsequently held the post of Director of the Military Normal School; he
is noted for his "Universal Method" of education, which is based on his
assumption that men's minds are of equal calibre (1770-1840).
JACQUARD LOOM, a loom with an apparatus for weaving figures in
textiles, such as silks, muslins, and carpets, which was the invention of
an ingenious Frenchman, born in Lyons, of the name of Joseph Marie
Jacquard (1752-1834).
JACQUERIE, the name given to an insurrection of French peasants
against the nobles in the ILE OF FRANCE (q. v.), which broke out
on May 21, 1358, during the absence of King John as a prisoner in
England; it was caused by the oppressive exactions of the nobles, and was
accompanied with much savagery and violence, but the nobles combined
against the revolt, as they did not do at the time of Revolution,
preferring rather to leave the country in a pet, and it was extinguished
on the 9th June following.
JACQUES BONHOMME, a name given to a French peasant as tamely
submissive to taxation.
JADE, is the common name of about 150 ornamental stones, but belongs
properly only to nephrite, a pale grey, yellowish, or white mineral found
in New Zealand, Siberia, and chiefly in China, where it is highly valued.
JAEL, the Jewish matron who slew Sisera the Canaanitish captain,
smiting a nail into his temples as he lay asleep in her tent, Judges iv.
18, 21.
JAEN (26), a picturesque cathedral city, capital of a province of
the same name, in Andalusia, Spain, on a tributary of the Guadalquivir,
50 m. NW. of Granada; the province (438) lies along the valley of the
Guadalquivir, and was once a Moorish kingdom.
JAGGANNATHA. See JUGGERNAUT.
JAGHIR, revenue from land or the produce of it, assigned in India by
the Government to an individual as a reward for some special service.
JAHN, FRED. L., a German patriot, born in Pomerania; did much to
rouse his country into revolt against the domination of France in 1813
(1778-1852).
JAHN, JOHAN, a Catholic theologian and Orientalist, born in Moravia;
held professorships in Olmütz and Vienna; was distinguished as a Biblical
scholar, author of "Biblical Archæology," in five vols., as well as an
Introduction to the Old Testament, with Grammar, Lexicons, &c., in
connection with the Biblical languages (1750-1816).
JAHN, OTTO, philologist and archæologist, born at Kiel; after
holding the post of lecturer at Kiel and Greifswald he, in 1847, was
appointed to the chair of Archæology in Leipzig; becoming involved in the
political troubles of 1848-49, he lost his professorial position, but
subsequently held similar appointments at Bonn and Berlin; his voluminous
writings, which cover the field of Greek and Roman art and literature,
and include valuable contributions to the history of music, are of
first-rate importance (1813-1869).
JAIL FEVER, the popular name of a fever now known to be a severe
form of typhus, such as happened in 1579 at the "Black Assize," so called
as so many of those in the conduct of it died infected by the prisoners.
JAINAS, sects of Hindus scattered up and down India, allied to the
Buddhists, though ecclesiastically in open antagonism to them; they
reject the Veda of the Brahmans, and oppose to it another of their own,
as also their caste and their sacerdotalism, though they observe the
rules of caste among themselves; like the Buddhists, they are divided
into an ascetic class and a lay, but monasticism is not developed to the
same degree among them. There are two principal sects, "the white-gowns"
and "the air-clad," i. e. naked, though it is only at meals, which they
eat in common, that the latter strip naked; "Not only do they abstain
from animal food, but they drink only filtered water, breathe only
through a veil, and go sweeping the ground before them for fear of
swallowing or crushing any smallest animalcule." In religion they are
atheists, and admit of no Creator or of any perfection of being at the
beginning, only at the end. They distinguish between soul and body, and
regard the former as eternal; evil is not in mere existence, but in life,
and their Nirvâna is a blessedness without break or end. We know little
or nothing of the history of these sects; with them conduct is
everything; their origin is of later date than that of the Buddhists. See
BARTH'S "RELIGIONS OF INDIA," translated by the Editor.
JALAPA (16), capital of the Mexican State of Vera Cruz, is prettily
situated at the base of the Cordilleras, 60 m. NW. of Vera Cruz city.
JALISCO (1,250), a maritime state in Mexico facing the Pacific;
consists chiefly of elevated plateau; enjoys a fine climate; has
long-established mining industries, some agriculture, and a growing trade
in cotton and woollen goods, tobacco, &c.; capital, Guadalajara.
JAMAICA ("Land of Springs") (640, of which 15 are whites), a British
crown colony, the largest and most important of the British West India
Islands; is one of the Greater Antilles group, and lies some 90 m. S. of
the eastern end of Cuba; its greatest length E. and W. 144 m.; is
traversed by the Blue Mountains (7400 ft.), whose slopes are clad with
luxuriant forests of mahogany, cedar, satin-wood, palm, and other trees;
of the numerous rivers, only one, the Black River, is navigable and that
for only flat-bottomed boats and canoes; there are many harbours
(Kingston finest), while good roads intersect the island; the climate is
oppressively warm and somewhat unhealthy on the coast, but delightful in
the interior highlands; for administrative purposes the land area is
divided into three counties, Surrey, Middlesex, and Cornwall; the chief
trade-products are dye-woods, fruit, sugar, rum, coffee, and spices;
discovered in 1494 by Columbus, and since 1670 a possession of England.
JAMES, the name of three disciples of Christ; James, the elder son
of Zebedee, by order of the high-priest was put to death by Herod
Agrippa; James, the younger son of Alphæus; and James, the brother of the
Lord, stoned to death.
JAMES I., king of Scotland from 1406 to 1437, son of Robert III.,
born at Dunfermline; in 1406, while on a voyage to France, he was
captured by the English and detained by Henry IV. for 18 years, during
which time, however, he was carefully trained in letters and in all
knightly exercises; returning to Scotland in 1424 with his bride, Jane
Beaufort, niece of the English king, he took up the reins of government
with a firm hand; he avenged himself on the nobles by whose connivance he
had been kept so long out of his throne, reduced the turbulent
Highlanders to order, and introduced a number of beneficial reforms (e. g.
a wider parliamentary franchise, a fixed standard for the coinage, a
supreme court of civil jurisdiction, a renovated system of weights and
measures), and widened Scotland's commercial relations with the
Continent; he was a man of scholarly tastes, a patron of learning, and
exhibits no mean poetic gift in his well-known poem the "King's Quhair";
his vigorous and sometimes harsh and vindictive efforts to lower the
powers of the nobility procured him their inveterate hatred, and in 1437
he was murdered in the Dominican monastery at Perth by a band of
conspirators (1394-1437).
JAMES II., king of Scotland from 1437 to 1460, son of preceding;
during his minority the country was torn by rival factions amongst the
nobility, the chief point of contest being the wardship of the young
king; an attempt on the part of the conspirators who had murdered James
I. to place their leader, the Earl of Athole, on the throne, was
frustrated; in 1449 James assumed the duties of his kingship, and in the
same year married Mary, the daughter of the Duke of Gueldres; an English
war then being waged on the Borders was brought to a close, and the young
king entered vigorously upon administrative reforms; in these efforts he
was hampered by the opposition of the nobility, and his fiery temper led
him to participate in the murder of the chief obstructionist, the Earl of
Douglas; protection given to the exiled Douglases by the Yorkists led
James to support the claims of Henry VI. in England; he was killed by the
bursting of a cannon at the siege of Roxburgh Castle (1430-1460).
JAMES III., king of Scotland from 1460 to 1488, son of James II.;
was during his minority under the care of his mother and Bishop Kennedy
of St. Andrews, the Earl of Angus being lieutenant-general of the
kingdom; but the bishop and the earl died before he was 14, and the
nobility fell into faction and disorder again; the first to gain power
was Lord Boyd (whose son married the king's sister), but a charge of
treason brought about his downfall and exile; the king married Princess
Margaret of Denmark in 1469, and gave himself up to a life of quiet ease
surrounded by men of art and culture, while his brothers Albany and Mar,
by their military tastes and achievements, won the affections of the
nobles; James, becoming jealous, imprisoned them; Albany, who had
intrigued with Edward IV., fled to France, Mar died in Craigmillar
Castle; while the king and his army were marching to meet expected
English action in 1482 the nobles, instigated by Archibald, Bell-the-Cat,
seized and hanged the royal favourites at Lauder, and committed the king
to Edinburgh Castle; a short reconciliation was effected, but was soon
broken, and civil war ensued; the defeat of the royalist forces at
Sauchieburn took place in 1488; the king escaped from the field, but was
thrown from his horse, and taking refuge in a house at Beaton's Mill, was
there slain (1462-1488).
JAMES IV., king of Scotland from 1488 to 1513, participated in the
rebellion which overthrew his father, James III., and succeeded him; but
in remorse for his unfilial conduct wore an iron belt all his life;
during his youth his supporters carried on the government in their own
interests, and despoiled the nobles who had been loyal to the late king;
but when he came of age he showed his independence in choosing good
advisers, among them Sir Andrew Wood; his reign was marked by resistance
to the claims of the Roman pontiff, by the firm and wise administration
of law, the fostering of agriculture, of shipbuilding, and other
industries; in 1503 James married Margaret, daughter of Henry VII.; after
that king's death relations between the two countries became strained;
two English men-of-war captured Andrew Barton's privateers; the jewels
which the queen inherited from her father were retained by Henry VIII.,
and James maintained an alliance with Henry's enemy, France; at the
solicitation of the French queen, against the advice of his own queen and
nobles, he invaded England in 1513, but the invasion ended in disaster at
Flodden, where he and the flower of his army perished; he was an able but
a headstrong, a pleasure-loving, and an extravagant man (1472-1513).
JAMES V., king of Scotland from 1513 to 1542, was only an infant
when he succeeded to his father's throne; his mother was regent till her
marriage with young Angus, when the nobles called James IV.'s cousin,
Albany, from France to assume the regency; French and English factions
sprang up; Henry VIII. intrigued in the affairs of the country; anarchy
and civil war ensued, and Albany retired to France in 1524; in that year
the queen-mother, aided by Henry, took the young king from Sir David
Lyndsay, to whom he had been entrusted, and assumed the government again
in his name; the Douglas family usurped his person and the government in
1525; but James asserted himself three years later, and began to reign in
person, displaying judgment and resolution, banishing the Douglases,
keeping order in the Highlands and on the Borders, establishing the
College of Justice, protecting the peasantry from the tyranny of the
barons, and fostering trade by a commercial treaty with the Netherlands;
he married (1) Princess Magdalene of France in 1537, and (2) Mary of
Guise in 1538; Henry, aggrieved by James's failure to meet him in
conference on Church matters, and otherwise annoyed, sent 30,000 men into
Scotland in 1542; disaffection prevented the Scottish forces from acting
energetically, and the rout of Solway Moss took place; the king, vexed
and shamed, sank into a fever and died at Falkland; in this reign the
Reformation began to make progress in Scotland, and would have advanced
much farther but that James had to support the clergy to play off their
power against the nobles (1512-1542)
JAMES VI. OF SCOTLAND AND I. OF ENGLAND, son of Mary, Queen of
Scots, and Darnley, born in Edinburgh Castle; was proclaimed king of
Scotland when only 13 months old, in 1567; entrusted to the Earl of Mar,
and educated by George Buchanan; Moray, Lennox, Mar, and Morton were
successively regents, till James assumed the government in 1581,
executing Morton and choosing Arran and Lennox for his advisers; plots
and counter-plots, the Raid of Ruthven (1582), the siege of Stirling by
some of the nobles with 10,000 troops, mostly from England, the surrender
of the king and the fall of Arran in 1585, the insurrection of the
Catholic nobles 1491-94, and the Gowrie Conspiracy in 1600, betrayed the
restlessness of the kingdom, and the weakness of the king; James married
Anne of Denmark 1589; on the death of Elizabeth, in 1603, he succeeded to
the throne of England as JAMES I.; was at first popular, but soon
forfeited all confidence by his favouritism; he governed through
creatures like Carr, Earl of Somerset, and the infamous Buckingham, whose
indiscretion brought about a war with Spain in 1624; James died
immediately afterwards; he has been described by Sully as "the wisest
fool in Christendom"; his conduct was certainly much less creditable than
his conversation; he held absurdly high views of the royal prerogative;
but he sold patents of nobility, and was careless of the misdeeds of his
ministers; he did not live to see revolution, but he saw its precursor in
the loosening of the bonds of sympathy between sovereign and people
(1566-1625).
JAMES II. OF ENGLAND AND VII. OF SCOTLAND, the son of Charles I.,
reigned in succession to Charles II. from 1685 to 1688; during the
Commonwealth he was a soldier in France and Spain; at the Restoration
returned to England as Duke of York, and became Lord High Admiral;
avowing himself a Catholic in 1671, the Test Act of 1673 enforced his
resignation, and thenceforward repeated attempts were made to exclude him
from the succession; on becoming king he promised to maintain the Church
and to respect the liberties of the people, but his government all the
same was arbitrary and tyrannical; he paraded his Catholicism, persecuted
the Covenanters, subordinated English interests to French, permitted the
"Bloody Assize," suspended the Test Act, violated the rights of the
Universities, gave Church offices to Roman Catholics, and by these and
many other acts of despotism made his deposition necessary; leading
statesmen invited William of Orange to assume the throne, and James fled
to France; an invasion of Ireland in 1689 ended in his defeat at Boyne
Water; he retired again to France, and lived at St. Germains till his
death (1633-1701).
JAMES, EPISTLE OF, a Catholic epistle of the New Testament, presumed
to have been written by James, the brother of the Lord, addressed to
Jewish Christians who, in accepting Christianity, had not renounced
Judaism, and the sphere in which it moves is that of Christian morality,
agreeably to the standard of ethics given in the Sermon on the Mount. The
author looks upon Judaism as the basis of Christianity, and as on the
moral side leading up to it, in correspondence with the attestation of
Christ, that "salvation is of the Jews."
JAMES, G. P. R., historical novelist, born in London; wrote as many
as a hundred novels, beginning with "Richelieu" in 1829, which brought
him popularity, profit, and honour; was burlesqued by Thackeray
(1801-1860).
JAMES, SIR HENRY, military engineer; superintended the geological
survey of Ireland, and became in 1854 director-general of the Ordnance
Survey (1803-1877).
JAMES, HENRY, an American theological writer, a disciple of
Swedenborg, and an exponent of his system (1811-1882).
JAMES, HENRY, American novelist, born in New York: studied law at
Harvard, but was eventually drawn into literature, and after a spell of
magazine work established his reputation as a novelist in 1875 with
"Roderick Hudson"; most of his life has been spent in Italy and England,
and the writing of fiction has been varied with several volumes of
felicitous criticism, chiefly on French life and literature; his novels
are characterised by a charming style, by a delicate discriminating
analysis of rather uneventful lives, and by an almost complete absence of
strong dramatic situation; _b_. 1843.
JAMES, JOHN ANGELL, most influential Congregationalist of his time,
born in Dorsetshire; was pastor of Carr's Lane Chapel, Birmingham, from
1805 to 1859; won the esteem of all parties; published the "Anxious
Inquirer," and many other works (1785-1859).
JAMES, ST., James, the son of Zebedee, the patron saint of Spain;
his attribute the sword, by which he was decapitated.
JAMES RIVER, an important river of Virginia, U.S., formed by the
junction of the Jackson and the Cowpasture, and flows in a south-easterly
direction across Virginia, falling into the Atlantic at the S. end of
Chesapeake Bay. It has a course of 450 m., and is navigable as far as
City Point.
JAMESON, ANNA, _née_ Murphy, English literary lady and art critic,
born in Dublin; authoress of "Sacred and Legendary Art," "Legends of the
Monastic Orders," "Legends of the Madonna," &c.; left unfinished at her
death a work on Our Lord and John the Baptist as represented in art,
which was completed afterwards by Lady Eastlake (1794-1860).
JAMESON, GEORGE, a Scotch portrait-painter, born in Aberdeen; many
of his portraits are to be met with in Scottish mansion-houses; his work
has been unduly lauded, and himself extravagantly designated the
"Scottish Vandyck" (1586-1644).
JAMESON, DR. LEANDER STARR, leader of the raid upon Johannesburg,
born at Edinburgh; studied medicine in his native city and in London;
established himself at Kimberley in 1878, and under the patronage of Mr.
Rhodes became the popular administrator for the South Africa Company at
Fort Salisbury in 1891; from Mafeking in December of 1896 he started,
with a body of 500 troopers, upon his ill-fated incursion into the
Transvaal to assist the Uitlanders of Johannesburg; at Krugersdorp the
raiders, exhausted by a 24 hours' ride, were repelled by a superior force
of Boers, and compelled to surrender; having been handed over to the
British authorities, "Dr. Jim," as he was familiarly called, was tried in
London, and condemned to 15 months' imprisonment, but was liberated on
account of ill-health after about five months' incarceration; _b_. 1853.
JAMESON, ROBERT, naturalist, born in Leith; appointed professor of
Natural History in Edinburgh University in 1804; wrote several works on
mineralogy and geology (1773-1853).
JAMES'S PALACE, ST., a palace, a brick building adjoining St.
James's Park, London, where drawing-rooms were held, and gave name to the
English Court in those days as St. Stephen's does of the Parliament.
JAMIESON, DR. JOHN, a Scotch antiquary, born in Glasgow; bred for
the Church; was Dissenting minister in Nicolson Street Church, Edinburgh;
widely known as author of the "Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish
Language"; wrote other works of less note (1759-1838).
JAMYN, AMADIS, a French poet, a protégé of Ronsard's; was a good
Greek scholar.
JAN MAYEN LAND, a volcanic island, 35 m. in length, situated in the
Arctic Ocean between Iceland and Spitzbergen; is the head-quarters of
considerable seal and whale fisheries; discovered in 1611 by a Dutch
navigator.
JANE EYRE, a novel by Charlotte Brontë; published in 1847.
JANICULUM, one of the hills of Rome, on the right bank of the Tiber.
JANIN, JULES GABRIEL, critic and novelist, born at St. Étienne,
France; took to journalism early, and established a reputation by his
lively dramatic criticisms in the _Journal des Débats_; his gift of ready
composition betrayed him into a too prolific output of work, and it is
doubtful if any of his many novels and articles will long survive his day
and generation; they, however, brought him wealth and celebrity in his
own lifetime; he succeeded in 1870 to Sainte-Beuve's chair in the French
Academy (1804-1874).
JANIZARIES, a Turkish military force organised in 1330, and more
perfectly in 1336; composed originally of Christian youths taken
prisoners in war or kidnapped, and trained as Mohammedans; from being at
first 10,000, and fostered by the privileges granted them, increased to
300,000 or 400,000 strong, till they became unruly and a danger to the
State, when, after various unsuccessful attempts to crush them, they were
in 1826 overborne by the Sultan Mahmoud II. and dissolved.
JANNÆUS, ALEXANDER, the second of the Asmonæan kings of Judea;
reigned in the beginning of the century before Christ; insulted the Jews
by profaning the rites of their religion, and roused a hostility against
him which was appeased only by his death, the news of which was received
with expressions of triumphant exultation.
JANNES AND JAMBRES, the two Egyptian magicians who thought to
outrival Moses in the performance of his miracles; supposed to be
referred to in 2 Tim. iii. 8 as "withstanding" him.
JANSEN, CORNELIUS, a Dutch theologian and bishop of Ypres, born in
Louvain; studied the works of Augustine, and wrote a book entitled
"Augustinus" in exposition of that great Father's doctrine of grace,
which was published after his death, and which gave occasion to a great
controversy between his followers, in France especially, and the Jesuits
(1585-1638).
JANSENISTS, a party in the Roman Catholic Church, supporters of
Jansen's views, who, in opposition to the Jesuits, maintained the
Augustinian principle of the sovereign and irresistible nature of divine
grace. The most celebrated members of the party were the
PORT-ROYALISTS (q. v.) of France, in particular Arnauld and
Pascal, and they were opposed not only by the Jesuits, but by both Louis
XIV. and the Pope. Driven from France on the death of Louis, they took
refuge in Holland, and thither the Pope Clement XI. followed them, first
in 1713, hurling a bull against them, and then in 1719 by
ex-communicating them and driving them for good from within the pale of
the Catholic Church.
JANUARIUS, ST., a Christian who suffered martyrdom under Diocletian,
and whose head is preserved in Naples with a phial containing his blood
which, on certain occasions, liquefies when brought into contact with the
head. Recourse is had to it on the occasion of public calamities, not
without desired effects, and it is an object of worship. Festival,
September 19.
JANUARY, the first month of the year, so called as sacred to
JANUS (q. v.).
JANUARY, EDICT OF, edict of date January 17, 1562, on which
Catherine de Médecis granted certain concessions to the Protestants.
JANUS, a very ancient Italian deity who presided over the beginning
of the several divisions of time, as well as the beginning of all
enterprises, in connection with which he was worshipped; he had two
heads, or faces, one of which looked behind into the past and the other
before into the future, and this power of penetrating into both it is
said Saturn endowed him with as a reward for receiving him on earth when
he was driven out of heaven.
JAPAN (40,719), an island empire of the N. Pacific, lying along the
E. coast of Asia, and separated from Corea and Primorsk by the Sea of
Japan, consists of Honshiu (31,000), Shikoku (3,000), Kyushu (6,000),
Yezo (314), and 4000 small islands; though not of volcanic origin, the
islands are the most mountainous in the world, have many volcanoes and
sulphur springs, and are subject to earthquakes; they are very
picturesque, and have peaks from 8000 to 12,000 ft. high; the rivers are
too swift for navigation; the coast, not much indented, has yet some good
harbours; the valleys are well wooded, but the soil not very fertile;
temperature and climate are various; nowhere is the heat intense, but in
some parts the winter is very cold; there is much rain, but on the whole
it is healthy; the chief industry is agriculture; farming is careful and
intelligent; rice, cereals, pulse, tea, cotton, and tobacco are raised,
and many fruits; gold, silver, all the useful metals, coal, granite, some
decorative stones are found, but good building-stone is scarce; the
manufacture of porcelain, lacquer-work, and silk is extensive, and in
some artistic work the Japanese are unrivalled; the chief ports are
Yokohama (143), on the E. of Honshiu, which has grown up since 1854, when
the country was opened to trade; and Hyogo (143), on the S. coast of the
same island, where are also shipbuilding yards; the chief exports are
tea, silk, and rice; imports cotton, woollen, iron goods, and chemicals;
the Japanese, sprung from an ancient union of Tartars with Ainos and with
S. Malays, are a kindly, courteous, law-abiding folk, with highly
developed artistic tastes; education is compulsory, and well provided
for; religion is Shintoism and Buddhism, but Christianity is gaining
rapid ground; the government is in the hands of the Mikado, who rules now
with the aid of ministers and two houses of parliament; education,
government, army, and navy--indeed the whole modern civilisation of the
country--is on Western lines, though until 1853 foreigners were excluded;
a civil war in 1867-68 effected the change from the old feudalism, and
the amazing success of Japan in the war against China in 1894 has proved
that the new civilisation is no mere veneer; the capital is Tokyo
(1,162).
JAPHETH, one of the three sons of Noah and the ancestor of the
Gentiles, as distinct from the descendants of Shem, or the Semites, and
of Ham, or the Hamites. See IAPETOS.
JAQUES, or the "melancholy" a cynical moraliser in Shakespeare's "As
You Like It."
JARNAC, a town on the Charente, celebrated as the scene of a victory
which the Catholics, commanded by the Duc d'Anjou, afterwards Henry III.
obtained in 1569 over the Huguenots commanded by Condé.
JAROSLAV (79), on the Volga, 160 m. NE. of Moscow, is capital of the
government of Jaroslav; is an important river-port, a seat of theological
and legal culture, and has cotton manufactures.
JARPNOONK, a mesmeric or hypnotic state produced by Hindu conjurers.
JARROW (34), in Durham, on the Tyne, 7 m. below Newcastle; is a
coal-shipping port, and has extensive shipbuilding and iron manufactures;
in ancient times its monastery was made famous by the Venerable Bede.
JARVIE, BAILIE NICOL, a Glasgow magistrate; an original character in
Scott's "Rob Roy."
JASHER, BOOK OF, a Hebrew book twice quoted in the Old Testament, no
longer extant; believed to have been a collection of national ballads.
JASMIN, JACQUES, a Gascon barber and poet, who by his romances,
burlesques, and odes, published between 1835 and 1849, raised the patois
of the S. of France to the status of a literary language, and created a
wholesome influence on French life and letters (1778-1864).
JASON, a mythological Greek hero, son of Æson, king of Iolcos;
brought up by the centaur Chiron, was supplanted on the throne by his
half-brother Pelias; undertook the leadership of the Argonautic
expedition, assisted by Medea in this enterprise; he took her to wife,
but cast her off for Creusa, whom Medea to avenge herself killed, with
her father and her two sons by Jason, she herself escaping to Athens in a
chariot drawn by winged dragons; Jason took refuge from her fury in the
sanctuary of Poseidon near Corinth, where the timber of the ship Argo
deposited there breaking up fell upon him and crushed him to death.
JASPER, an opaque quartz found in all colours, and spotted, striped,
and clouded; is valued in ornamental lapidary work because of the polish
it takes.
JASSY (90), ancient capital of Moldavia, situated 89 m. NE. of
Bucharest; is the seat of an archbishop and a university, and has a large
community of Jews; trades largely with Russia in corn, spirits, and wine.
JÂTAKA, a Pâli collection of stories recounting 550 previous
"births" of the Buddha, the earliest collection of popular tales, and the
ultimate source of many of Æsop's fables and Western folk-lore legends.
JATS, are the principal race in the Punjab, where they number 4½
millions, and are engaged in agriculture. There is much debate as to
their origin and their racial relationship.
JAVA (23,868), the finest island of the Indian Archipelago, lying
between Sumatra and Bali, with the Indian Ocean on the S. and the Java
Sea separating it from Borneo on the N., lies E. and W., traversed by a
mountain chain with a rich alluvial plain on the N.; there are many
volcanoes; the climate is hot, and on the coast unhealthy; the mountains
are densely wooded, and the teak forests are valuable; the plain is
fertile; coffee, tea, sugar, indigo, and tobacco are grown and exported;
all kinds of manufactured goods, wine, spirits, and provisions are
imported; the natives are Malays, more civilised than on neighbouring
islands; there are 240,000 Chinese, many Europeans and Arabs; the island
is nearly as large as England, and belongs to Holland; the chief towns
are Batavia (105) and Samarang (70), both on the N.
JAY, JOHN, American statesman, born in New York, and called to the
bar in 1768; took a part in the struggle for independence second only to
Washington's; represented his country subsequently in Madrid and London;
was first Chief-Justice of the United States, and from 1795 to 1801
governor of New York (1745-1829).
JAY, WILLIAM, eminent Congregationalist minister, born in Wiltshire;
was first a stone-mason, but entered the ministry, and after a short term
of service near Chippenham was pastor of Argyle Chapel, Bath, for 62
years. He was an impressive preacher and a popular writer (1769-1853).
JAYADEVA, a Hindu poet, born near Burdwân, in Bengal, flourished in
the 12th century, whose great work, the "Gita Govinda," the "Song of the
Shepherd Krishna," has been translated by Sir Edwin Arnold as the "Indian
Song of Songs," in celebration of the love of Krishna and his wife Radha;
it has often been compared with the "Song of Songs," in the Hebrew
Scriptures.
JEAN D'ÉPEE (Jean, i. e. the Frenchman with the sword), a name
given to Napoleon by his partisans who conspired for his restoration in
1814.
JEAN JACQUES, Rousseau, from his Christian name.
JEAN PAUL, RICHTER (q. v.), from his Christian name.
JEANNE D'ALBRET. See D'ALBRET, JEANNE.
JEANNE D'ARC. See JOAN OF ARC.
JEBB, PROFESSOR, eminent Greek scholar, born in Dundee; elected in
1889 Regius Professor of Greek in Cambridge; has represented Cambridge in
Parliament since 1891; edited "Sophocles," "The Attic Orators,"
"Introduction to Homer," &c.; B. 1841.
JEDBURGH (3), county town of Roxburghshire, picturesquely situated
on the Jed, 30 m. SW. of Berwick, and 10 m. SW. of Kelso; is an ancient
town of many historic memories; made a royal burgh by David I.; contains
the ruins of an abbey, and has some woollen manufactures.
JEDDAH (46), a town on the Red Sea, 65 m. W. of Mecca, of which it
is the port, where the pilgrims disembark for the holy city; is a place
of trade, less considerable than it once was.
JEEJEEBHOY, SIR JAMSETJEE, Indian philanthropist, a Parsee by birth
and creed, born in Bombay; realised a fortune as a merchant, and employed
it in releasing debtors from jail by paying their debts, and in founding
a hospital and schools; in 1857 was made a baronet (1783-1859).
JEFFERIES, JOHN RICHARD, writer on rural subjects, born near
Swindon, Wilts, son of a gamekeeper; was first a journalist and novelist,
but attained success in "The Gamekeeper at Home," 1878; other books
display a very accurate faculty of observation and description, a
reverence for nature, for rural scenes and people; "The Story of my
Heart," 1883, is an introspective and somewhat morbid autobiography; he
died after six years' illness at Goring, Sussex; Prof. Saintsbury
pronounces him "the greatest minute describer of English country life
since White of Selborne" (1848-1887).
JEFFERSON, JOSEPH, comedian, born in Philadelphia, of theatrical
lineage; was on the stage at the age of 3; made his first success in New
York as Dr. Pangloss in 1857, and in London in 1865 began to play his
most famous rôle, Rip van Winkle, a most exquisite exhibition of
histrionic genius; B. 1829.
JEFFERSON, THOMAS, American statesman, born at Shadwell, Virginia;
took a prominent part in the Revolution, and claimed to have drawn up the
Declaration of Independence; he secured the decimal coinage for the
States in 1783; was plenipotentiary in France in 1784, and subsequently
minister there; third President, 1801-1807, he saw the Louisiana purchase
and the prohibition of the slave-trade; after his retirement he devoted
himself to furthering education till his death at Monticello, Va.; he was
a man of extremes, but honest and consistent in his policy (1743-1826).
JEFFREY, FRANCIS, LORD, a celebrated critic and lawyer, born in
Edinburgh; trained for and called to the bar in 1794; with a fine
cultivated literary taste devoted himself principally to literary
criticism, and being a Whig in politics was associated with the
originators of the _EDINBURGH REVIEW_ (q. v.), and became its
first editor in 1802, which he continued to be till 1829, contributing to
its pages all along articles of great brilliancy; he was distinguished
also at the bar in several famous trials; became Lord Advocate of
Scotland in 1830, M.P. for Edinburgh in 1832, and finally, in 1834, one
of the judges in the Court of Session; lie was a dark-eyed, nimble little
man, of alert intelligence and quick in all his movements; died at
Craigcrook, near Edinburgh (1773-1850).
JEFFREYS, BARON, of infamous memory, born in Wales; became
Chief-Justice of England in 1863; was one of the advisers and promoters
of the tyrannical proceedings of James II.'s reign, and notorious for his
cruel and vindictive judgments as a judge, to the indignation of the
people; tried to escape on the arrival of William; was discovered lurking
in a public-house at Wapping, and apprehended and committed to the Tower,
where he died (1648-1689).
JEHOVAH, the name of God in the Hebrew Scriptures as
_self-existent_, and the Creator and Lord of all things, in the regard of
the Jews too sacred to be pronounced, and which in the Authorised Version
is often rendered by the word LORD in small capital letters.
JEHOVIST, the presumed author of the Jehoistic portions of the
Pentateuch. See ELOHIST.
JEKYLL, DR., AND MR. HYDE, the good nature and the bad struggling
for the ascendency in the same person, generally to the defeat of the
former.
JELF, RICHARD WILLIAM, Principal of King's College, London; was
educated at Oxford, became Fellow of Oriel, canon of Christ's Church, and
Principal of King's College; is remembered chiefly for his rigid
orthodoxy and for the part he played in depriving Maurice of his
professorship at King's College (1798-1871).
JEMAPPES (11), a manufacturing Belgian town, 3 m. W. of Mons, where
Dumouriez in the name of the French Republic defeated the Austrians in
1792.
JEMINDAR, a native officer in the Indian army of rank equal to that
of lieutenant in the British.
JENA (13), in Saxe-Weimar, on the Saale, 14 m. SE. of Weimar, an old
town with memories of Luther, Goethe, and Schiller; has a university
founded to be a centre of Reformation influence, and since associated
with Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and the Schlegels, who were teachers
there; on the same day in October 14, 1806, two victories were won near
the town by French troops over the Prussians, the collective name for
both being "the battle of Jena."
"JENKINS'S EAR," refers to an incident which provoked a war with
Spain in 1739, viz., the conduct of the officer of a Spanish guardship
not far from Havana towards the captain of an English trading ship of the
name of Jenkins; the Spaniards boarded his ship, could find nothing
contraband on board, but treated him cruelly, cut off his left ear, which
he brought home in wadding, to the inflaming of the English people
against Spain, with the above-named issue.
JENNER, EDWARD, an English physician, born in Berkeley, and
practised there; was the discoverer of inoculation with cowpox as a
preventive of smallpox, or vaccination as it is called, a discovery which
has immortalised his name (1749-1822).
JENNER, SIR WILLIAM, an eminent physician, born at Chatham; held
several professorships in University College; was physician to the Queen
and the Prince of Wales; discovered the symptoms which differentiate
typhus from typhoid fever (1815-1899).
JEPHTHAH, one of the Judges of Israel, famed for his rash vow in the
event of victory to offer in sacrifice the first object that came out of
his house on his return, and which happened to be his daughter and only
child, and whom it would seem he sacrificed, after allowing her two
months to bewail her fate along with her maidens; it is not said her
father sacrificed her, and it is thought she was only doomed to perpetual
virginity.
JEREMIAD, a lament over degeneracy in modern times.
JEREMIAH, a Hebrew prophet, born at Anathoth, a priestly city 3 m.
N. of Jerusalem, where, after his removal thither, he spent as a prophet
the greater part of his life, viz., from 629 to 588 B.C.; his prophecy
was a lifelong protest against the iniquity and folly of his countrymen,
and was conceived in bitter foreboding of the hopeless ruin they were
bringing down upon their heads; his faithfulness offended friend and foe
alike, and more than one plot was laid against his life, which was one of
ever-deepening sadness and one long wail over the ruin of the country he
so loved; he lived to see the issue of his prediction in the captivity of
the people, though he did not go into captivity with them, the conqueror
having allowed him to remain as he wished; he appears to have died in
Egypt; he was the author of "Lamentations," and it is thought of sundry
of the Psalms. See HEBREW PROPHECY.
JERICHO, an ancient city of Palestine, in the SW. of a plain of the
same name that extends W. of the Jordan and NW. of the Dead Sea; it was
the first city taken by the Israelites when they entered the Holy Land,
the walls falling down before them after being compassed for seven days
by the priests blowing on rams' horns and followed by the people.
JEROME, JEROME KLAPTA, dramatist, journalist, &c., author of "Idle
Thoughts of an Idle Fellow," "Three Men in a Boat," "Diary of a
Pilgrimage," &c., as also of plays; editor of the _Idler_ and of a weekly
magazine journal, _To-Day_; _b_. 1861.
JEROME, ST., a Father of the Church, born in N. Illyria, of rich
parents, presumably Christian, although he first became Christian himself
of his own election after he was grown up; and from the day of his
baptism, "he left," as he says, "not only parents and kindred, but the
accustomed luxuries of delicate life"; his fame rests on a translation of
the Scriptures into Latin, known as the Vulgate, which he executed at
Bethlehem at intervals from A.D. 385 to 404, with the design of showing
to the Latin world what was and what was not contained in the original
documents for the faith of the Church, and with the result, that in the
long run the Old and the New Testaments were for the first time presented
to and received by the Church as both of equal, or at least common
authority, and as both sections of one book (331-420).
JEROME OF PRAGUE, born at Prague; studied there and at Oxford (where
he came under Wycliffe's influence), Paris, Heidelberg, and Cologne;
acquired great learning, and displayed great energy and oratorical power;
attracted the notice of the Kings of Poland and Hungary; joined John Huss
in his agitation against the abuses of the Church; became involved in the
movement against Huss, and though he recanted, afterwards withdrew his
recantation, and was burned at Constance (about 1365-1416.)
JERROLD, DOUGLAS, dramatist and celebrated wit, born in London, son
of a theatrical magistrate; began life as a printer; composed "Black-eyed
Susan"; contributed to _Punch_ "Mrs. Caudle's Lectures" among other
pieces, and edited magazines; the keenness of his satire was the reflex
of a feeling heart (1803-1857).
JERSEY (55), the largest and richest of the Channel Islands, lies 15
m. off the French coast, 100 m. S. of Portland Bill, is oblong in shape,
with great bays in the coast, and slopes from the N. to the SW.; the soil
is devoted chiefly to pasture and potato culture; the exports are early
potatoes for the London market and the famous Jersey cattle, the purity
of whose breed is carefully preserved; the island is self-governing, has
a somewhat primitive land tenure, is remarkably free from poverty and
crime, has been under the English crown since 1066; the capital is St.
Helier (29), where there is a college, a public library, a harbour, and a
good market.
JERSEY CITY (206), the most populous city in New Jersey, is
separated from New York, of which it is practically a part, only by the
Hudson River; has no pretension to beauty, but is a busy railway centre;
has very varied manufactures, including sugar, flour, machinery, and
chemicals, extensive shipping interests, and great trade in iron, coal,
and agricultural produce.
JERUSALEM (41), the capital of Palestine, holy city of the Jews,
belonged originally to the Jebusites, but was captured by David and made
his capital; a strong place, built on four hills 2000 ft. above the
Mediterranean, enclosed within walls and protected nearly all round by
deep valleys and rising grounds beyond; it has been so often besieged,
overthrown, and rebuilt that the present city stands on rubbish heaps,
the ruins of ancient structures.
JERUSALEM, KINGDOM OF, kingdom founded by Godfrey of Bouillon in
1099 and overthrown by Saladin in 1187.
JERUSALEM DELIVERED, an epic poem in 20 cantos by Tasso and
published in 1575, the appearance of which constitutes one of the great
epochs in the history of literature.
JERVIS, SIR JOHN, an English admiral, born in Staffordshire; entered
the navy at 10, rose to be Rear-Admiral of the White in 1790; his great
feat his defeat of the Spanish fleet of 27 ships with one of 15 ships off
St. Vincent in 1797, in consequence of which he was raised to the peerage
as Earl St. Vincent; was buried in St. Paul's, London (1734-1823).
JESSICA, Shylock's daughter, in the "Merchant of Venice".
JESUITISM, popularly regarded as an attempt to achieve holy ends by
unholy means, but really and radically the apotheosis of falsehood and
unreality to the dethronement of faith in the true, the genuine and the
real, a deliberate shutting of the eyes to the truth, a belief in a lie
in the name of God, a belief in symbols and formulas as in themselves
sacred, salutary, and divine, fiction superseding fact, and fancy faith
in God or the divine reality of things, the embodiment of the genius of
cant persuading itself to believe that _that which is not is_, while
atheism, on the other hand, tries to persuade itself to believe that
_that which is is not_.
JESUITS, or SOCIETY OF JESUS, the religious order founded by
Ignatius Loyola in 1534, and approved of by bull of Paul III. in 1540,
for the conversion of heretics and the propagation of the Roman Catholic
faith, and reputed, however self-denying at times, to be unscrupulous in
the means they employ to achieve their ends, which is, broadly speaking,
re-establishing over Christendom the tyranny of the Church; they
established themselves in the several countries of Europe, but their
policy was found dangerous to political liberty as well as religious, and
they are now everywhere nearly stamped out; there are nevertheless still
several communities of them in the south of Europe, and even colleges in
England, Ireland, and the United States, as well as missions under them
in heathen parts.
JESUS, THE SON OF SIRACH, the author of the book of
ECCLESIASTICUS (q. v.).
JESUS CHRIST (i. e. the anointed Divine Saviour), the Son of God
and the hope of Israel, Saviour of mankind, born in Bethlehem of the
Virgin Mary four years before the commencement of the Christian era, and
who suffered death on the cross for the salvation of His people in A.D.
33, after a life of sorrow over the sins of the world and an earnest
pleading with men to turn from sin unto God as revealed in Himself, in
the life He led, the words He spoke, and the death He died, and after
leaving behind Him a Spirit which He promised would guide those who
believed in Him unto all truth, a Spirit which was and would prove to be
the spirit of His manifestation in the flesh from birth onwards to death,
and through death to the very grave. See CHRISTIANITY.
JET, a hard, black, bituminous lignite, capable of an excellent
polish and easily carved, hence useful for trinkets and ornaments, which
have been made of it from very early times; is found in France, Spain,
and Saxony, but the best supplies come from Whitby, Yorkshire.
JETSAM, part of the cargo of a ship thrown overboard to lighten her
in a case of peril.
JEU DE PAUME, an oath which the deputies of the Third Estate took on
June 13, 1789, not to separate till they had given France a constitution.
JEUNESSE DORÉE (lit. gilded youth), name given to a body of young
dandies who, after the fall of Robespierre, strove to bring about a
counter-revolution.
JEVONS, WILLIAM STANLEY, logician and political economist, born in
Liverpool; in 1866 was professor of Logic of Owens College, Manchester,
and 10 years later professor of Political Economy in University College,
London; distinguished himself in the departments of both chairs both as a
lecturer and a writer; was drowned while bathing at Bexhill, near
Hastings (1835-1882).
JEW, THE WANDERING, a Jew bearing the name of Ahasuérus, whom,
according to an old legend, Christ condemned to wander over the earth
till He should return again to judgment, because He drove Him brutally
away as, weary with the cross He carried, He sat down to rest on a stone
before his door; in symbolic token, it is surmised, of the dispersion of
the whole Jewish people over the earth as homeless wanderers by way of
judgment for their rejection of Christ.
JEWELL, JOHN, early English Protestant divine, born near Ilfracombe;
educated at Oxford; became Tutor of Corpus Christi; embraced the Reformed
faith, and was secretary to Peter Martyr in 1547; he received the living
of Sunningwell, Berks, in 1551, but on Mary's accession fled to
Strasburg; Elizabeth made him Bishop of Salisbury in 1559, and three
years later he published his "Apology for the English Church," in his
defence of which he sought to base the faith of the Church on the direct
teaching of Christ apart from that of the Fathers and tradition
(1522-1571).
JEWS, THE, a people of Semitic origin, descended from Abraham in the
line of Jacob; conspicuous for the profession of a religion that has
issued from them, and affected to the core the rest of the civilised
world. Their religion was determined by a moral standard; through them
more than through any other race has the moral principle, or the law of
conscience, been evolved in humanity as the sovereign law of life, and
this at length resolved itself into a faith in one God, the sole ruler in
heaven and on earth, the law of whose government is truth and
righteousness, only they stopped short with the assertion of this divine
unity, and in their hard monotheism stubbornly refused, as they do still,
to accept the doctrine of trinity in unity which, spiritually understood
is, as it has been well defined, the central principle of the Christian
faith, the principle that to have a _living_ morality one must have a
faith in a Divine Father, a Divine Son, and a Divine Spirit, all three
equally Divine. But, indeed, it is to be noted that the Jewish religion
never was nor ever has been the religion of the Jewish people, but was
from first to last solely the religion of the law-givers and prophets
sent to teach them, to whom they never as a race paid any heed. There was
never such antagonism of Yea to God and Nay to Him in the history of any
nation as among them; never such openness to whisperings, and such
callousness to the thunder of God's voice; on the one side, never such
tenderness, and on the other, never such hardness, of heart. Nor except
by their religion, which they did not believe at heart themselves, and of
which they have but been the vehicles, have they as a race contributed
anything to the true wealth of the world, "being mere dealers in money,
gold, jewels, or else old clothes, material and spiritual." And it has
been noted they have all along shown a want of humour, a want of gentle
sympathy with the under side, "a fatal defect, as without it no man or
people is good for anything." They were never good for much as a nation,
and they are still more powerless for good since it was broken up,
numerous as they have been, and are in their widely scattered state; for
there are 4,500,000 in Russia, 1,600,000 in Austria-Hungary, 1,567,000 in
Germany, 567,000 in Roumania, 300,000 in Turkey, 120,000 in Holland,
97,000 in France, 72,000 in England, 101,000 in Italy, 50,000 in
Switzerland, 4652 in Servia, and 15,792 in Greece, in all, 7,701,261 in
Europe; throughout the globe altogether 11,000,000, while the numbers in
Palestine are increasing.
JEYPORE (2,832), a native state in Rajputana; has been under British
protection since 1818, and was loyal at the Mutiny; the soil is rocky and
sandy, but there is much irrigation; copper, iron, and cobalt are found;
enamelled gold ware and salt are manufactured; education is well provided
for; at the capital, Jeypore (159), the handsomest town in India, there
is a State college and a school of art; its business is chiefly banking
and exchange.
JEZEBEL, the wicked wife of Ahab, king of Israel, whose fate is
recorded in 2 Kings ix. 30-37; gives name to a bold, flaunting woman of
loose morals.
JINA (lit. the "victorious" one as contrasted with Buddha the
merely "awakened" one) is in the religion of the JAINAS (q. v.)
a sage who has achieved _omniscience_, and who came to re-establish the
law in its purity where it has become corrupted among men; one of a
class, of which it appears there have been 24 in number, who have
appeared at intervals after long periods of time, in shapes less imposing
or awe-inspiring than at first, and after less and less intervals as time
goes on The Jainas claim that Buddha was a disciple of the Jina, their
founder, who had finished the faith to which the latter had only been
awakened.
JINGO, a name, of uncertain derivation, given to a political party
favourable to an aggressive, menacing policy in foreign affairs, and
first applied in 1877 to that political section in Great Britain which
provoked the Turco-Russian war.
JINN, in the Arabian mythology one of a class of genii born of fire,
some of them good spirits and some of them evil, with the power of
assuming visible forms, hideous or bewitching, corresponding to their
character.
JOAB, the nephew and a general of David's; put to death by order of
Solomon 1014 B.C.
JOACHIM, JOSEPH, a distinguished violinist, born near Presburg, in
Hungary; famous as a youthful prodigy; was encouraged by Mendelssohn; has
visited London every year since 1844, and has been principal leader in
the Monday and Saturday Popular Concerts from the first, and became head
of the Academy of Music at Berlin in 1869; the fiftieth anniversary of
his first appearance was celebrated on March 17, 1889, when his admirers
presented him with a magnificent violin; _b_. 1831.
JOACHIM, ST., the husband of St. Anne, and the father of the Virgin
Mary.
JOAN, POPE, a woman who, in the guise of a man with male
accomplishments, is said for two years five months and four days to have
been Pope of Rome between Leo IV. and Benedict III. about 853-855, and
whose sex was discovered by the premature birth of a child during some
public procession. She is said to have been of English parentage, and to
have borne the name of Gilberte. However, it is but fair to say that the
story is of doubtful authenticity.
JOAN OF ARC, OR MAID OF ORLEANS, a French heroine, born at Domrémy,
of poor parents, but nursed in an atmosphere of religious enthusiasm, and
subject, in consequence, to fits of religious ecstasy, in one of which
she seemed to hear voices calling to her from heaven to devote herself to
the deliverance of France, which was then being laid desolate by an
English invasion, occupied at the time in besieging Orleans; inspired
with the passion thus awakened she sought access to Charles VII., then
Dauphin, and offered to raise the siege referred to, and thereafter
conduct him to Reims to be crowned; whereupon, permission being granted,
she marched from Blois at the head of 10,000 men, whom she had inspired
with faith in her divine mission; drove the English from their
entrenchments, sent them careering to a distance, and thereafter
conducted Charles to Reims to be crowned, standing beside him till the
coronation ceremony was ended; with this act she considered her mission
ended, but she was tempted afterwards to assist in raising the siege of
Compiègne, and on the occasion of a sally was taken prisoner by the
besieging English, and after an imprisonment of four months tried for
sorcery, and condemned to be burned alive; she met her fate in the
market-place of Rouen with fortitude in the twenty-ninth year of her age
(1412-1431).
JOANNUS DAMASCENUS, theologian and hymn-writer, born at Damascus;
was a zealous defender of image-worship; was said to have had his right
hand chopped off by the machinations of his foes, which was afterwards
restored to him by the Virgin; _d_. 754, at the age of 70.
JOB, BOOK OF pronounced by Carlyle "one of the grandest things ever
written with pen; grand in its sincerity, in its simplicity, in its epic
melody and repose of reconcilement"; one perceives in it "the seeing eye,
the mildly understanding heart, true eyesight and vision for all things;
sublime sorrow and sublime reconciliation; oldest choral melody as of the
heart of mankind; so soft and great as the summer midnight, as the world
with its seas and stars"; the whole giving evidence "of a literary merit
unsurpassed by anything written in Bible or out of it; not a Jew's book
merely, but all men's book." It is partly didactic and partly biographic;
that is to say, the object of the author is to solve a problem in part
speculatively, or in the intelligence, and in part spiritually, or in the
life; the speculative solution being, that sufferings are to prove and
purify the righteous; and the spiritual, consisting in accepting them not
as of merely Divine appointment, but manifestations of God Himself, which
is accomplished in the experience of Job when he exclaims at last, "Now
mine eye seeth Thee." It is very idle to ask if the story is a real one,
since its interest and value do not depend on its historic, but its
universal and eternal truth; nor is the question of the authorship of any
more consequence, even if there were any clue to it, which there is not,
as the book offers no difficulty to the interpreter which any knowledge
of the author would the least contribute to remove. In such a case the
challenge of Goethe is _apropos_, "What have I to do with names when it
is a work of the spirit I am considering?" The book of Job was for long
believed to be one of the oldest books in the world, and to have had its
origin among a patriarchal people, such as the Arabs, but is now pretty
confidently referred to a period between that of David and the return
from the captivity, the character of it bespeaking a knowledge and
experience peculiarly Jewish.
JOCASTE, the wife of Laius, king of Thebes, and mother of Oedipus;
she afterwards married him not knowing that he was her son, and on
discovery of the crime put an end to herself, though not till after she
had become the mother of Etéocles, Polynices, Antigone, and Ismenë.
JOCELIN DE BRAKELONDA, an old 12th-century St. Edmundsbury monk, who
left behind him a "Chronical" of the Abbey from 1173 to 1202, and which,
published in 1840 by the Camden Society, gave occasion to the "Past and
Present" of Thomas Carlyle; he had been chaplain to the Abbot Samson, the
hero of his book, living beside him night and day for the space of six
years, "an ingenious and ingenuous, a cheery-hearted, innocent, yet
withal shrewd, noticing, quick-witted man"; _d_. 1211.
JODHPUR (2,522), largest Rajputana State, under British protection
since 1818; is backward in government, education, agriculture, and
manufactures; tin, lead, and iron are found; salt is made at Sambhar
Lake. The state revolted at the Mutiny. JODHPUR (62), the capital,
is 350 m. SW. of Delhi, and is connected by rail with Jeypore and Bombay.
JOE MILLER, an English actor, the author of a book of jests
(1684-1738).
JOEL, a Hebrew prophet, author of a book of the Old Testament that
bears his name, and which is of uncertain date, but is written on the
great broad lines of all Hebrew prophecy, and reads us the same moral
lesson, that from the judgments of God there is no outlet for the sinner
except in repentance, and that in repentance lies the pledge of
deliverance from all evil and of the enjoyment of all good.
JOHANNESBURG (40), the largest town in the Transvaal, 30 m. S. of
Pretoria, and 800 m. NE. of Cape Town; is the centre of Witwatersrand
gold-mining fields. Until recently an ill-equipped town, it has made
rapid progress. Since 1892 railways connect it with Delagoa Bay, Durban,
Port Elizabeth, and Cape Town. Magnificent buildings and residential
suburbs are springing up. The water-supply is bad, and dust-storms are
frequent, otherwise the climate is very healthy. Johannesburg was the
seat of the dissatisfaction among the Uitlanders in 1895, which led to
Dr. Jameson's raid.
JOHN, king of England from 1199 to 1216, was clever and vivacious,
but the most vicious, profane, false, short-sighted, tyrannical, and
unscrupulous of English monarchs; the son of Henry II., he married Hawisa
of Gloucester, and succeeded his brother Richard I., being Richard's
nominee, and the tacitly elect of the people; his nephew, Arthur, claimed
the French dominions, and was supported by the French king, Philip; in
1200 he divorced Hawisa, and married Isabel of Angoulême, a
child-heiress; this provoked the French barons; in the war that ensued
Arthur was captured, and subsequently murdered either by John himself or
by his orders; Philip invaded Normandy, and with the fall of the
Château-Gaillard in 1204, most of the French possessions were lost to the
English crown; then followed John's quarrel with Pope Innocent III. over
the election of an archbishop of Canterbury; the Pope consecrated Stephen
Langton; John refused to receive him; in 1208 the kingdom was placed
under an interdict, and next year the king was excommunicated; John on
his side confiscated Church property, exiled the bishops, exacted homage
of William of Scotland, and put down risings in Ireland and Wales; but a
bull, deposing him and absolving his vassals from allegiance, forced him
to submit, and he resigned his crown to the Pope's envoy in 1213; this
exaction on Innocent's part initiated the opposition to Rome which
culminated in the English Reformation; the rest of the reign was a
struggle between the king, relying on his suzerain the Pope, and the
people, barons, and clergy, for the first time on one side; war broke
out; the king was forced to sign Magna Charta at Runnymede in 1215, but
the Pope annulled the Charter; the barons appealed for help to the
Dauphin, and were prosecuting the war when John died at Newark
(1167-1216).
JOHN, the name of no fewer than 23 popes. J. I., Pope from 523
to 526, was canonised; J. II., pope from 532 to 535; J. III.,
Pope from 560 to 578; J. IV., pope from 640 to 642; J. V., Pope
from 686 to 687; J. VI., pope from 701 to 705; J. VII., Pope
from 705 to 707; J. VIII., pope from 872 to 882; J. IX., Pope
from 898 to 900; J. X., pope from 914 to 928; J. XI., Pope from
931 to 936; J. XII., Pope from 956 to 964--was only 18 when elected,
led a licentious life; J. XIII., pope from 965 to 972; J. XIV.,
Pope from 984 to 985; J. XV., pope in 985; J. XVI., Pope from
985 to 996; J. XVII., pope in 1003; J. XVIII., Pope from 1003
to 1009; J. XIX., pope from 1024 to 1033; J. XX., Anti-Pope
from 1043 to 1046; J. XXI., Pope from 1276 to 1277; J. XXII., Pope
from 1316 to 1334--a learned man, a steadfast, and a courageous; J.
XXIII., Pope in 1410, deposed in 1415--was an able man, but an
unscrupulous.
JOHN, EPISTLES OF, three Epistles, presumed to have been written by
the author of the Gospel, from the correspondence between them both as
regards thought and expression; the occasion of writing them was the
appearance of Antichrist within the bounds of the Church, in the denial
of Christ as God manifest in flesh, and the object of writing them was to
emphasise the fact that eternal life had appeared in Him.
JOHN, KNIGHTS OF ST., a religious order of knights, founded in 1048,
and instituted properly in 1110, for the defence of pilgrims to
Jerusalem; established a church and a cloister there, with a hospital for
poor and sick pilgrims, and were hence called the Hospital Brothers of
St. John of Jerusalem; the knights consisted of three classes, knights of
noble birth to bear arms, priests to conduct worship, and serving
brothers to tend the sick; on the fall of Jerusalem they retired to
Cyprus, conquered Rhodes, and called themselves Knights of Rhodes; driven
from which they settled in Malta and took the name of Knights of Malta,
after which the knighthood had various fortunes.
JOHN, PRESTER, a supposed king and priest of a mediæval kingdom in
the interior of Asia; converted to Christianity by the Nestorian
missionaries; was defeated and killed in 1202 by Genghis Khan, who had
been tributary to him but had revolted; he was distinguished for piety
and magnificence.
JOHN, ST., the Apostle, the son of Zebedee and Salome, the sister of
the virgin Mary; originally a fisherman on the Galilæan Lake; after being
a disciple of John the Baptist became one of the earliest disciples of
Christ; much beloved and trusted by his Master; lived after His death for
a time in Jerusalem, and then at Ephesus as bishop, where he died at a
great age; he lived to see the rise of the Gnostic heresy, against which,
as a denial that Christ had come in the flesh, he protested with his last
breath as an utter denial of Christ; he is represented in Christian art
as either writing his Gospel, or as bearing a chalice out of which a
serpent issues, or as in a caldron of boiling oil.
JOHN, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO, the fourth Gospel, of which tradition
alleges St. John was the author, and which is presumed to have been
written by him at Ephesus about A.D. 78; its great design is to bear
witness to the Son of God as having come in the flesh, as being not an
ideal, therefore, but a real incarnation, and as in the reality of that
being the light and life of man; whereas the scene of the other Gospels
is chiefly laid in Galilee, that of John's is mostly in Judea, recording,
as it does, no fewer than seven visits to the capital, and while it
portrays the person of Christ as the light of life, it represents him as
again and again misunderstood, even by those well disposed to Him, as if
the text of his Gospel were "the light shineth in darkness, and the
darkness comprehendeth it not"; the authenticity of this Gospel has been
much debated, and its composition has by recent criticism been referred
to somewhere between A.D. 160 and 170.
JOHN BULL, a humorous impersonation of the English people, conceived
of as well fed, good natured, honest hearted, justice loving, and plain
spoken.
JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster, third son of Edward III.; an
ambitious man; vainly seized the crown of Castile; supported the
Wycliffites against the clergy; married Blanche of Lancaster, and was
made duke by Henry IV. (1340-1399).
JOHN O' GROAT'S HOUSE, on the Caithness coast, 1¾ m. W. of Duncansby
Head, marks the northern limit of the Scottish mainland; the house was
said to be erected, eight-sided, with a door at each side and an
octagonal table within, to compromise the question of precedence among
eight branches of the descendants of a certain Dutchman, John o' Groot.
JOHN OF LEYDEN, originally a tailor; attained great power as an
orator; joined the Anabaptists, and in 1534 established at Münster, in
Westphalia, a society based on communistic and polygamic principles; but
the bishop of Münster interfered, and next year John was put to death
with great cruelty (1509-1536).
JOHN OF SALISBUSY, bishop of Chartres, born at Salisbury, of Saxon
lineage; was a pupil of Abelard; was secretary first to Theobald and then
to Thomas á Becket, archbishop of Canterbury; was present at the
assassination of the latter; afterwards he retired to France and was made
bishop; wrote the Lives of St. Thomas and St. Anselm, and other works of
importance in connection with the scholasticism of the time (1120-1180).
JOHN THE BAPTIST, the forerunner of Christ, who baptized with water
unto, or on the confession of, repentance, in anticipation of, and in
preparation for, the appearance in the immediate future of One who would
baptize with the Spirit and with fire; his fate is well known, and the
motive of it.
JOHN THE GOOD, king of France from 1350 to 1364, succeeded his
father Philip VI.; at the battle of Poitiers he was captured and carried
to England; four years later he was allowed to return on leaving his son
as hostage; the hostage made his escape; John chivalrously came back to
London, and died in captivity (1319-1364).
JOHN'S EVE, ST., a festival celebrated with fires on Midsummer Eve;
very universally observed and with similar rites throughout Europe, in
the Middle Ages, and the celebration of it was associated with many
superstitious practices.
JOHNSON, ANDREW, American President, born at Raleigh, N. Carolina;
was entirely self-educated, and became a tailor; settling in Tennessee he
entered the State legislature in 1839; he sat in Congress from 1843 till
1853; was for four years Governor of Tennessee, and sat in the Senate
from 1857 to 1863; though in favour of slavery, he discountenanced
secession and supported Lincoln, whom he succeeded as President in 1865,
and whose policy he continued; but he lost the confidence of Congress,
which indeed he treated somewhat cavalierly; his removal of Secretary
Stanton led to his impeachment for violation of the Tenure of Office Act;
he was tried before the Senate, but acquitted, and completed his term
(1808-1875).
JOHNSON, SAMUEL, the great English lexicographer, born in Lichfield,
the son of a bookseller; received his early education in his native town
and completed it at Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1728; in 1736 he married
a widow named Porter, who brought him £800; started a boarding-school,
which did not prosper, and in the end of a year he removed to London
along with David Garrick, who had been a pupil under him; here he became
connected with Cave, a printer, the proprietor of the _Gentleman's
Magazine_, with whom he had previously corresponded, and contributed to
the pages of the magazine, earning thereby a meagre livelihood, eking out
his means by reporting Parliamentary debates in terms which expressed the
drift of them, but in his own pompous language; in 1740 he published a
poem entitled the "Vanity of Human Wishes," and about the same time
commenced his world-famous Dictionary, which was Published in 1755, "a
great, solid, square-built edifice, finished, symmetrically complete, the
best of all dictionaries"; during the progress of the Dictionary Johnson
edited the _Rambler_, writing most of the contents himself, carrying it
on for two years; in 1758 he started the _Idler_; in 1762 the king
granted him a pension of £300, and by this he was raised above the
straitened circumstances which till then had all along weighed upon him,
and able to live in comparative affluence for the last 22 years of his
life; five years after he instituted the Literary Club, which consisted
of the most celebrated men of the time, his biographer, Boswell, having
by this time been introduced to him, as subsequently the family of Mr.
Thrale; in 1770 he began his "Lives of the English Poets," and in 1773 he
made a tour in the Highlands along with Boswell, of which journey he
shortly afterwards published an account; Johnson's writings are now dead,
as are many of his opinions, but the story of his life as written by
BOSWELL (q. v.) will last as long as men revere those qualities
of mind and heart that distinguish the English race, of which he is the
typical representative (1709-1783).
JOHNSTON, ALEXANDER KEITH, cartographer, born at Kirkhill,
Midlothian; was an engraver by trade, and devoted himself with singular
success to the preparation of atlases; the "National Atlas" was published
in 1843, and the "Royal Atlas of Geography" (1861) was the finest till
then produced; he also executed atlases physical, geological, and
astronomical, and constructed the first physical globe; honours were
showered upon him by home and foreign geographical societies; he died at
Ben Rhydding (1804-1871).
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 Renfrewshire manufacturing town, on the Black
Cart, 3½ 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.
JOHORE (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 Châlons-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 circumstantial records we have of mediæval 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 God's dealings with the
Ninevites he had himself been, to admonish the Jews that the heathen
nations whom they regarded as God'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 Washington
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 Göttingen; 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-classes, 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 ship of 18 guns; he in 1778 infested the
British coast, and made a descent on the shores 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
Assembly 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; passed
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 mediæval 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
trouvères.
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 laureateship, 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 "Sejanus" (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).
JOPPA, an ancient town and seaport, now Jaffa, on the coast of
Palestine, 35 m. NW. from Jerusalem; a place of note in sacred and
mediæval history; here Jonah took ship to Tarshish.
JORDAENS, JAKOB, a Dutch painter and engraver, born at Antwerp; was
a friend of Rubens, and ranks next him among the Flemings (1615-1678).
JORDAN, a river of Palestine, which rises on the western side of
Mount Hermon, and flows S. below Cæsarea-Philippi within banks, after
which it expands into lagoons that collect at length into a mass in Lake
Merom (Huleh), 2 m. below which it plunges into a gorge and rushes on for
9 m. in a torrent, till it collects again in the Sea of Galilee to lose
itself finally in the Dead Sea after winding along a distance of 65 m. as
the crow flies; at its rise it is 1080 ft. above and at the Dead Sea 1300
ft. below the sea-level.
JORDAN, MRS. DOROTHEA, the stage name of Miss Bland, daughter of an
actress, born at Waterford; played first in Dublin, then in Yorkshire,
and appeared at Drury Lane in "The Country Girl" in 1785; her popularity
was immense, and she maintained it for thirty years in the roles of boys
and romping girls, her wonderful laugh winning lasting fame; she attained
considerable wealth, and was from 1790 to 1811 the mistress of the Duke
of Clarence, who, when William IV., ennobled her eldest son; she died,
however, in humble circumstances in St. Cloud, near Paris (1762-1816).
JORTIN, JOHN, English divine, born in London, of Huguenot descent;
held various appointments, was a prebend of St. Paul's, wrote on
ecclesiastical history (1698-1770).
JORULLO, a volcano in Mexico, 150 m. SW. of Mexico city, rose one
night from a high-lying plateau on Sept. 8, 1759, the central crater at
a height 4625 ft. above the sea-level.
JOSEPH, the name of four persons in scripture. 1, JOSEPH, the
son of Jacob and Rachel, and the story of whose life is given in Genesis.
2, JOSEPH, ST. the carpenter, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the
reputed father of Jesus. 3, JOSEPH OF ARAMATHEA, a member of the
Jewish Sanhedrin, who begged the body of Jesus to bury it in his own
tomb. 4, JOSEPH, surnamed BARSABAS, one of the disciples of
Jesus, and deemed worthy to be nominated to fill the place vacated by
Judas.
JOSÉPHINE, the Empress of the French, born in Martinique; came to
France at the age of 15; was in 1779 married to Viscount Beauharnais, who
was one of the victims of the Revolution, and to whom she bore a
daughter, Hortense, the mother of Napoleon III.; married in 1796 to
Napoleon Bonaparte, to whom she proved a devoted wife as well as a wise
counsellor; she became empress in 1804, but failing to bear him any
children, was divorced in 1809, though she still corresponded with
Napoleon and retained the title of Empress to the last, living at
Malmaison, where she died (1763-1814).
JOSEPHUS, FLAVIUS, Jewish historian, born at Jerusalem, of royal and
priestly lineage; was a man of eminent ability and scholarly
accomplishments, distinguished no less for his judgment than his
learning; gained favour at Rome; was present with Titus at the siege of
Jerusalem, and by his intercession saved the lives of several of the
citizens; he accompanied Titus back to Rome, and received the freedom of
the city; devoting himself there to literary studies, wrote the "History
of the Jewish War" and "Jewish Antiquities"; he was of the Pharisaic
party, but his religious views were rationalistic; he discards the
miraculous; takes no note of the rise of Christianity or of the person of
its Founder (37-98).
JOSHUA, a Jewish military leader, born of the tribe of Ephraim, the
minister and successor of Moses, under whose leadership the Jews obtained
a footing in the Land of Canaan.
JOSHUA, THE BOOK OF, a book of the Bible, is closely connected with
the Pentateuch, and now regarded as the continuation and completion of
it, constituting along with it what is called the Hexateuch, or sixfold
book; it covers a period of 25 years, and contains a history of Israel
under the guidance of Joshua, commencing with his appointment as leader
and concluding with his death.
JOSIAH, a king of Judah from 639 to 609 B.C.; was zealous for the
restoration of the Jewish worship according to the ritual of Moses, as
recently come to light in the discovery by Hilkiah the high-priest of the
"Book of the Law"; he fell in battle before an invading Assyrian host.