[1] Two lines will suffice:--
Boswell and Thrale, retailers of his wit,
Will tell you how he wrote, and talk'd, and cough'd, and spit.
JEOPARDY, a term meaning risk or danger of death, loss or other injury.
The word, in Mid. Eng. _juparti_, _jeupartie_, &c., was adapted from O.
Fr. _ju_, later _jeu_, and _parti_, even game, in medieval Latin _jocus
partitus_. This term was originally used of a problem in chess or of a
stage in any other game at which the chances of success or failure are
evenly divided between the players. It was thus early transformed to any
state of uncertainty.
JEPHSON, ROBERT (1736-1803), British dramatist, was born in Ireland.
After serving for some years in the British army, he retired with the
rank of captain, and lived in England, where he was the friend of
Garrick, Reynolds, Goldsmith, Johnson, Burke, Burney and Charles
Townshend. His appointment as master of the horse to the lord-lieutenant
of Ireland took him back to Dublin. He published, in the _Mercury_
newspaper a series of articles in defence of the lord-lieutenant's
administration which were afterwards collected and issued in book form
under the title of _The Bachelor, or Speculations of Jeoffry Wagstaffe_.
A pension of £300, afterwards doubled, was granted him, and he held his
appointment under twelve succeeding viceroys. From 1775 he was engaged
in the writing of plays. Among others, his tragedy _Braganza_ was
successfully performed at Drury Lane in 1775, _Conspiracy_ in 1796, _The
Law of Lombardy_ in 1779, and _The Count of Narbonne_ at Covent Garden
in 1781. In 1794 he published an heroic poem _Roman Portraits_, and _The
Confessions of Jacques Baptiste Couteau_, a satire on the excesses of
the French Revolution. He died at Blackrock, near Dublin, on the 31st of
May 1803.
JEPHTHAH, one of the judges of Israel, in the Bible, was an illegitimate
son of Gilead, and, being expelled from his father's house by his lawful
brethren, took refuge in the Syrian land of Tob, where he gathered
around him a powerful band of homeless men like himself. The Ammonites
pressing hard on his countrymen, the elders of Gilead called for his
help, which he consented to give on condition that in the event of
victory he should be made their head (Judg. xi. 1-xii. 7). His name is
best known in history and literature in connexion with his vow, which
led to the sacrifice of his daughter on his successful return. The
reluctance shown by many writers in accepting the plain sense of the
narrative on this point proceeds to a large extent on unwarranted
assumptions as to the stage of ethical development which had been
reached in Israel in the period of the judges, or at the time when the
narrative took shape. The annual lamentation of the women for her death
suggests a mythical origin (see Adonis). Attached to the narrative is an
account of a quarrel between Jephthah and the Ephraimites. The latter
were defeated, and their retreat was cut off by the Gileadites, who had
seized the fords of the Jordan. As the fugitives attempted to cross they
were bidden to say "shibboleth" ("flood" or "ear of corn"), and those
who said "sibboleth" (the Ephraimites apparently being unused to _sh_),
were at once put to death. In this way 42,000 of the tribe were
killed.[1]
The loose connexion between this and the main narrative, as also the
lengthy speech to the children of Ammon (xi. 14-27), which really
relates to Moab, has led some writers to infer that two distinct
heroes and situations have been combined. See further the commentaries
on the Book of Judges (q.v.), and Cheyne, _Ency. Bib._, art.
"Jephthah." (S. A. C.)