The Nuttall encyclopædia : being a concise and comprehensive dictionary of…
Introduction to the Old Testament, with Grammar, Lexicons, &c., in
21752 words | Chapter 30
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.
JOSS, a Chinese god or his idol.
JÖTUNHEIM, the abode of the Jötuns in the Norse mythology, as
Asenheim is that of the Norse deities.
JÖTUNS, a race of giants in the Norse mythology, "huge, shaggy
beings of a demonic character, representing the dark hostile Powers of
Nature, such as Frost, Fire, Sea-tempest, who dwelt in Jötunheim, a
distant, dark chaotic land ... in perpetual internecine feud with the
gods, or friendly powers, such as Summer-heat and the Sun, and who dwelt
far apart."
JOUBERT, BARTHÉLEMI, French general; distinguished himself in the
Rhine and Italian campaigns, and fell mortally wounded at the battle of
Novi; one of the most promising generals France ever had (1769-1799).
JOUBERT, JOSEPH, author of "Pensées," born in Montignac, Périgord;
educated in Toulouse, succeeded to a small competency, came to Paris, got
access to the best literary circles, and was the most brilliant figure in
the salon of Madame de Beaumont; his works were exclusively _pensées_ and
maxims, and bear at once on ethics, politics, theology, and literature;
"There is probably," Professor Saintsbury says, "no writer in any
language who has said an equal number of remarkable things on an equal
variety of subjects in an equally small space and with an equally high
and unbroken excellence of style and expression;... all alike have the
characteristic of intense compression; he describes his literary aim in
the phrase 'tormented by the ambition of putting a book into a page, a
page into a phrase, and a phrase into a word'" (1754-1824).
JOUFFROY D'ABBANS, CLAUDE, MARQUIS DE, is claimed by the French as
the first inventor of the steamboat; he made a paddle-steamer ply on the
Rhône in 1783, but misfortunes due to the Revolution hindered his
progress, till he was forestalled by Fulton on the Seine in 1803
(1751-1832).
JOUGS, an iron collar hung by a chain in some public place, was
fastened round a culprit's neck, who was thus exposed in a sort of
pillory; in use in Scotland from the 16th to the 18th centuries.
JOULE, JAMES PRESCOTT, a celebrated physicist, born at Salford; was
a pupil of Dalton's, and devoted his time to physical and chemical
research; made discoveries in connection with the production of heat by
voltaic electricity, demonstrated the equivalence of heat and energy, and
established on experimental grounds the doctrine of the conservation of
energy (1818-1889).
JOURDAN, JEAN BAPTISTE, COMTE VON, marshal of France, born at
Limoges; gained for the Republic the victory of Fleurus in 1794, but was
in 1795 defeated at Höchst, and subsequently by the Archduke Charles of
Austria; served under Napoleon, and became Governor of the Hôtel des
Invalides under Louis Philippe (1762-1833).
JOWETT, BENJAMIN, Master of Balliol College, Oxford, born at
Camberwell; was a fellow and tutor of his college till his election to
the mastership in 1870; his name will always be associated with Balliol
College, where his influence was felt, and made the deepest impression;
he wrote an article "On the Interpretation of Scripture" in the "Essays
and Reviews," and a commentary on certain epistles of St. Paul, but he
achieved his greatest literary successes by his translations of Plato's
"Dialogues," the "History" of Thucydides, and the "Politics" of Aristotle
(1817-1893).
JUAN, DON, a poem of Byron's, a work which, as Stopford Brooke
remarks, "was written in bold revolt against all the conventionality of
social morality, religion, and politics, and in which--escaped from his
morbid self, he ran into the opposite extreme--he claimed for himself and
others absolute freedom of individual act and thought in opposition to
the force of society which tends to make all men after one pattern."
JUAN FERNANDEZ, a mountainous island 3000 ft. high, off the Chilian
coast, 420 m. W. of Valparaiso; was the lonely residence of ALEXANDER
SELKIRK (1704-1709) (q. v.); was used as a penal settlement from
1819 to 1835, and is inhabited by a few seal and sea-lion hunters.
JUAREZ, BENITO, president of Mexico, born in Oaxaca, of Indian
extraction; was elected to the Presidency twice over, in 1861 and 1867
(1806-1872).
JUBA, a great river rising in the Abyssinian mountains and flowing
S. into the Indian Ocean, with a town of the same name at its mouth;
marks the northern limit of British East Africa.
JUBILEE, a festival among the Jews every fiftieth year in
celebration of their emancipation from Egypt.
JUBILEE, YEAR OF, a year during which it was required that all land
which had passed out of the original owner's hands during the 50 years
preceding should be restored, all who during that time had been forced to
sell their liberty should be released, and all debts contracted in that
period should be remitted, a requirement, however, which does not appear
to have been very rigorously or regularly observed.
JUDÆA, a southern district of Palestine extending in one direction
between Samaria and the desert of Arabia, and in the other between the
Mediterranean and the Dead Sea.
JUDAH, KINGDOM OF, the kingdom in the S. of Palestine of the two
tribes of Judah and Benjamin that remained true to the house of David
after the revolt of the other ten under Jeroboam, who formed what was
called the kingdom of Israel, a larger, but a weaker.
JUDAIZERS, a party, called also EBIONITES, in the primitive
Church who sought to overlay the simple ordinances of Christianity with
Judaic observances and rites, "a yoke which neither they nor their
fathers were able to bear."
JUDAS, surnamed ISCARIOT, one of the twelve Apostles of Christ,
who from some infatuation that unaccountably possessed him, and to his
everlasting infamy, betrayed his Master to His enemies for 30 pieces of
silver; was designated by Christ as the Son of Perdition.
JUDAS MACCABÆUS, a son of MATTATHIAS (q. v.), who succeeded
his father in the leadership of the Jews against the Syrians in the war
of the Maccabees, and who gave name to the movement, a man of chivalric
temper, great energy, firm determination, dauntless courage, and powerful
physique; who, with the elect of his countrymen of kindred spirit
encountered and overthrew the Syrians in successive engagements, till
before a great muster of the foe his little army was overwhelmed and
himself slain in 160 B.C. See MACCABEES.
JUDE, EPISTLE OF, an epistle in the New Testament, of which Judas,
the brother of James, was the author; written to some unknown community
in the primitive Church, in which a spirit of antinomian libertinism had
arisen, and the members of which are denounced as denying the sovereign
authority of the Church's Head by the practical disobedience and scorn of
the laws of His kingdom. For the drift and modern uses of this epistle
see Ruskin's "Fors Clavigera," chaps. lxvi. and lxvii., where it is shown
that the enemies of the faith in Jude's day are its real enemies in ours.
JUDGES, BOOK OF, a book of the Old Testament; gives an account of a
series of deliverances achieved on behalf of Israel by ministers of God
of the nation so called, when, after their occupation of the land, now
this tribe and now that was threatened with extinction by the Canaanites;
these deliverers bore the character of heroes rather than judges, but
they were rather tribal heroes than national, there being as yet no king
in Israel to unite them into one; of these the names of twelve are given,
of which only six attained special distinction, and their rule covered a
period of 300 years, which extended between the death of Joshua and the
birth of Samuel; the story throughout is one: apostasy and consequent
judgment, but the return of the Divine favour on repentance insured.
JUDGMENT, PRIVATE, assumption of judgment by individual reason on
matters which are not amenable to a lower tribunal than the universal
reason of the race.
JUDITH, a wealthy, beautiful, and pious Jewish widow who, as
recorded in one of the books of the Apocrypha called after her, entered,
with only a single maid as attendant, the camp of the Assyrian army under
Holofernes, that lay investing Bethulia, her native place; won the
confidence of the chief, persuaded him to drink while alone with him in
his tent till he was brutally intoxicated, cut off his head, and making
good her escape, suspended it from the walls of the place, with the issue
of the utter rout of his army by a sally of the townsfolk.
JUDSON, ADONIRAM, Burmese missionary and scholar, born at Maiden,
Mass.; sailed for Burma 1812, and for 40 years laboured devotedly,
translating the Bible into Burmese, and compiling a Burmese-English
dictionary; he died at sea on his way home (1788-1850).
JUGGERNAUT (22) or PURI, a town on the S. coast of Orissa, in
Bengal; one of the holy places of India, with a temple dedicated to
Vishnu, and containing an idol of him called Jagannâtha (or the Lord of
the World), which, in festival times, attracts thousands of pilgrims to
worship at its shrine, on one of which occasions the idol is dragged
forth in a ponderous car by the pilgrims and back again, under the wheels
of which, till prohibited, multitudes would throw themselves to be
crushed to death in the hope of thereby attaining a state of eternal
beatitude.
JUGURTHA, king of Numidia; succeeded by violent measures to the
throne, and maintained his ground in defiance of the Romans, who took up
arms against him and at last led him captive to Rome to die of hunger in
a dungeon.
JUKES, JOSEPH BEET, geologist, born near Birmingham; graduated at
Cambridge; took part in several expeditions, and finally became lecturer
in the Royal College of Science, Dublin, where he died; he published
among other works a "Student's Manual of Geology" (1811-1869).
JULIA, daughter and only child of Augustus Cæsar; celebrated for her
beauty and the dissoluteness of her morals, and became the wife in
succession of Marcellus, Agrippa, and Tiberius.
JULIAN THE APOSTATE, Roman emperor for 18 months, from 361 to 363;
was born at Constantinople, his father being a half-brother of
Constantine the Great, on whose death most of Julian's family were
murdered; embittered by this event, Julian threw himself into philosophic
studies, and secretly renounced Christianity; as joint emperor with his
cousin from 355 he showed himself a capable soldier, a vigorous and wise
administrator; on becoming sole emperor he proclaimed his apostasy, and
sought to restore paganism, but without persecuting the Church; though
painted in blackest colours by the Christian Fathers, he was a lover of
truth, chaste, abstinent, just, and affectionate, if somewhat vain and
superstitious; he was killed in an expedition against Persia; several
writings of his are extant, but a work he wrote against the Christians is
lost (331-363).
JÜLICH, a duchy on the W. bank of the Rhine, its capital a place of
the same name, 20 m. W. of Köln.
JULIEN, STANISLAS AIGNAN, an eminent Sinalogue, born in Orleans,
originally eminent in Greek; turned his attention to Chinese, and in 12
months time translated a part of one of the classical works in that
language; originally professor of Greek, he became in 1827 professor of
Chinese in the College of France in succession to Rémusat; he was not
less distinguished as a Sanskrit and Pâli scholar (1797-1873).
JULIUS, the name of three popes: ST. J. I., Pope from 337 to
332; J. II., pope from 1502 to 1513; J. III., Pope from 1550 to
1555, of which only J. II. deserves notice. J. II., an Italian by
birth, was more of a soldier than a priest, and, during his pontificate,
was almost wholly occupied with wars against the Venetians for the
recovery of Romagna, and against the French to drive them out of Italy,
in which attempt he called to his aid the spiritual artillery at his
command, by ex-communicating Louis XII. and putting his kingdom under an
interdict in 1542; he sanctioned the marriage of Henry VIII. with
Catharine of Aragon, commenced to rebuild St. Peter's at Rome, and was
the patron of Michael Angelo and Raphael.
JULLIEN, LOUIS ANTOINE, a distinguished musical conductor, born in
the Basses-Alpes; did much to popularise music by large bands, but he was
unfortunate in his speculations, and died insane and in debt (1812-1860).
JULY, the seventh month of the year, so called in honour of Julius
Cæsar, who reformed the calendar, and was born in this month; it was
famous as the month of the outbreak of the second Revolution of France in
Paris in 1830.
JUMNA, the chief affluent of the Ganges, which it joins at
Allahabad, rises in the Punjab, and flows through the North-West
Provinces, having Delhi and Agra on its banks; its course is 860 m., and
it falls over 10,000 ft.; its waters are used for irrigation by means of
canals, being of little use for navigation.
JUMPERS, name of a certain religious sect in America, from the
dancing associated with its services.
JUNE, the sixth month of the year, so named from the Roman _gens_ or
clan Junius, or perhaps from Juno.
JUNG STILLING, a German mystic, born in Nassau; first a tailor, then
a schoolmaster; went to Strasburg, became intimate with Goethe, studied
medicine there, and afterwards practised in Elberfeld; became professor
of Political Economy at Marburg and in Heidelberg; is best known by his
autobiography: Kant and Lavater were friends of his (1740-1817).
JUNGFRAU (Maiden), a peak of the Bernese Alps, 13,671 ft. in height;
was first ascended by the brothers Meyer in 1811.
JUNIUS, LETTERS OF, seventy letters on public affairs which appeared
under that signature in the _Public Advertiser_ 1769 to 1772, and were
with others reprinted in book form; were, though severe in tone, the
prototype of the modern leading article. Their authorship has never been
discovered; but some hold that evidence points to Sir Philip Francis as
responsible for them.
JUNK, a Chinese boat with a flat bottom, a square prow, a high
stern, and a pole for mast.
JUNKER, a name given in Germany to the younger members of the
aristocracy, or of the landed gentry, as representing a reactionary party
in modern politics.
JUNO, a Roman goddess, the wife of Jupiter, and the queen of heaven,
corresponding to the HERA (q. v.) of the Greeks; the impersonation of
womanhood, and the special protectress of the rights of women, especially
married women, and bore the names of _Virginalis_ and _Matrona_. She was
the patroness of household and even state economy. See ZEUS.
JUNOT, ANDOCHE, DUC D'ABRANTES, French general; was Napoleon's
aide-de-camp in his first Campaign in Italy; took part in the expedition
to Egypt; distinguished himself in the invasion of Portugal, but soon
experienced reverse after reverse; in a fit of madness he threw himself
one day out of a window, and died from the effect (1771-1813).
JUNTO, the name given to a Whig faction in the reign of William
III., that for 20 years exercised a great influence in the affairs of the
nation, of which Russell, Lord-Keeper Somers, and Charles Montague were
the leading members.
JUPITER. See ZEUS.
JUPITER, one of the exterior planets of the solar system, and the
largest; revolves in an orbit outside that of the asteroids, at a mean
distance from the sun of 480 millions of miles, completing its revolution
round the sun in 4338 days, and taking 10 hours to revolve on its own
axis; it is surrounded by belts considered to be openings in the cloudy
atmosphere which invests it, and is accompanied by four moons, all nearly
of the same size but at different distances, and with different periods
of revolution round it; it is in volume 1300 times larger than that of
the earth, while its weight is only 300 times that of the earth, is
therefore less than one-fourth of the density of the earth.
JUPITER CARLYLE, a sobriquet given to the REV. ALEXANDER
CARLYLE (q. v.), from his resemblance to the artist's conception of
Jupiter, particularly in the head.
JUPITER SCAPIN, a nickname given by the Abbé de Pradt to Napoleon,
after a valet of the name of Scapin in a comedy of Molière's, noted for
his knaveries.
JURA, an Argyllshire island NE. of Islay, mountainous (2500 ft.);
the eastern slopes yield some crops, but most of the island is deer
forest and cattle-grazing land.
JURY, a body of citizens set to try a question of fact, or to assess
damages; in England and Ireland a jury numbers 12, and its verdict must
be unanimous; in Scotland the verdict is by majority, and the jury
numbers 12 in civil and 15 in criminal cases.
JUSSIEU, ANTOINE LAURENT DE, celebrated French botanist, born at
Lyons; his book, entitled "Genera Plantarum," published in 1789, lays
down the principle on which the modern classification of plants is based;
he was one of a family of botanists (1748-1836).
JUSTICE, 1, HIGH COURT OF, one of the two great sections of the
English Supreme Courts; 2, LORD CHIEF, the chief judge of the
Queen's Bench division of it; 3, LORD JUSTICE-GENERAL, supreme judge
in Scotland, the Lord President of the Court of Session; 4, OF THE
PEACE, the title of a petty county or borough magistrate of
multifarious duties and jurisdiction; 5, LORDS JUSTICES, judges of
the English Court of Appeal.
JUSTICE, BED OF, a formal session of Parliament of Paris under the
presidency of the king, for the compulsory registration of royal edicts.
JUSTICIARY COURT, the highest court for the trial of criminal cases
in Scotland.
JUSTIN, surnamed the Martyr, an early Christian apologist, born in
Sichem, Samaria; a heathen by birth, who studied philosophy in the Stoic
and Platonic schools, and was converted to Christianity from observing
the strength of the convictions with which it was embraced; was the
author of two "Apologies for the Christians," rather than for
Christianity or its dogmas, and a "Dialogue with Trypho the Jew," and
suffered martyrdom in 168. Festival, June 12.
JUSTINIAN I., Roman emperor and jurist, born in Illyria; became
co-emperor with Justin I. in 527; married the infamous Theodora, and for
38 years enjoyed a reign, the most brilliant of the late Empire, but not
without dangers from foes outside and factions within; his fame rests on
the codification and reform of the laws which he carried out; he improved
the status of slaves, revised the laws of divorce and of intestate
succession; and in his "Digest," "Institutes," and other sections of the
"Corpus Juris Civilis," first gave definiteness to Roman law and laid the
basis of the civil law of most modern nations (482-565).
JUSTINIAN PANDECTS, a code of Roman laws compiled under the
direction of the Emperor Justinian, with a digest of the commentaries of
the jurists thereupon.
JUTLAND, at the mouth of the Baltic Sea, is the only European
peninsula that stretches northward; it comprises the continental portion
of the kingdom of Denmark.
JUVENAL, a celebrated Latin poet and satirist, born at Aquinum; a
friend of Martial and contemporary of Statius and Quintilian; his
satires, 16 in number, are written in indignant scorn of the vices of the
Romans under the Empire, and in the descriptions of which the historian
finds a portrait of the manners and morals of the time (42-120).
JUXON, WILLIAM, archbishop of Canterbury, born in Chichester; became
in succession bishop of Worcester and bishop of London, and attended
Charles I. in prison and on the scaffold; lived in privacy till the
Restoration, four months after which he was made archbishop, and died
about two years after his elevation (1582-1663).
K
KAABA. See CAABA.
KABUL (70), on the Kabul River, at the foot of the Takht-i-Shah
Hills, 650 m. NW. of Delhi, is the capital of Afghanistan, an ancient,
mud-built city, but progressing; noted for its fruit and trading in
carpets, camel-hair cloth, and skins; the town was taken by General
Pollok 1842, avenging the death of Burnes and Macnaughten, and by General
Roberts in 1879, avenging the murder of Cavagnari.
KABYLES, the name given to a division of the Berbers of N. Africa,
who occupy the coast and tablelands of Mauritania, and are indigenous to
it.
KADIJAH, a rich widow, the wife of Mahomet, who had been her steward
and factotum, and whom he married when she was forty and himself only
twenty-five, and with whom he lived till her death, "loving her truly and
her alone," himself now a man of fifty; he had begun his mission as a
prophet before she died, and one service she did him he never forgot as
the greatest of them all: she believed in him, when no one else did.
KADRIS, a set of Mohammedan dervishes who lacerate themselves with
scourges, like the Flagellants.
KAFFIRS, including Kaffirs proper and Zulus, a division of the Bantu
negroes, found all over S. Africa, are a pastoral and latterly
agricultural people of fine physique, naturally hospitable, honest, and
truthful, but now much contaminated by the white man; Kaffir wars broke
out in 1834, 1846, 1850, and 1877; the name, which means infidel, was
originally applied by the Mohammedans to all pagans.
KAFIRISTAN (200), a lofty mountainous region in the E. of
Afghanistan, S. of the Hindu-Kush, with the Panjshir, Kabul, and Chitral
Rivers on the W., S., and E.; the people are undersized, pastoral, and
devoted to their Aryan faith, which here has its last stronghold, not
organised politically, but united in their love of independence and
hatred of Mohammedanism.
KAIRWAN` (5), the sacred city of Northern Africa, in Tunis, 80 m. S.
of Tunis, a _decayed_ town, was the chief seat of the Mohammedans in N.
Africa, and a sacred city; manufactures copper vessels, carpets, and
articles of leather.
KAISAR-I-HIND (i. e. Cæsar of India), a title applied to Queen
Victoria as Empress of India since 1876.
KAISER, the name, derived from the Latin Cæsar, given to the emperor
of the old German Empire or Reich, and resumed by the modern Emperor,
William I., and his successors.
KAISER WILHELM'S LAND (116), the N. of the eastern half of New
Guinea, belonging partly to Britain, partly to Holland, and partly to
Germany.
KAITHAL (15), in the Punjab, 90 m. NW. of Delhi, an ancient town,
with saltpetre refineries; has old associations with the Hindu
monkey-god, HANUMAN (q. v.).
KÂLA, the Hindu Chronus, or god of time, who, as in the Greek
mythology, at once produces and devours all things.
KALAHARI DESERT, in S. Africa, stretches far northward from the
Orange River between German SW. Africa and the Transvaal, an elevated
plateau, not really desert, but covered with scrub and affording coarse
pasturage for cattle.
KALAMAZOO` (18), a railway centre and flourishing town in the SW. of
Michigan, 144 m. NE. of Chicago; manufactures machinery, paper, and
flour.
KALEIDOSCOPE, an optical instrument, invented by Sir David Brewster
in 1817, consisting of a cylinder with two mirrors set lengthwise inside,
two plates of glass with bits of coloured glass loose between at one end
and an eye-hole at the other, presents varying patterns on rotation.
KALEVALE, a collection of popular songs current among the peasantry
of Finland from earliest times.
KALI (i. e. the black one), one of the names of the wife of SIVA (q. v.),
and of whom she is the female counterpart, and has been identified with
the GREEK HECATE (q. v.); she is represented with a necklace of human
heads.
KÁLIDÁSA, a great Indian dramatist and poet, probably of the 6th
century A.D.; was author of "The Lost Ring" and "The Hero and the
Nymph," translated by Sir William Jones, much praised by Goethe and Max
Müller.
KALMAR (12), seaport in SE. of Sweden, on an island in Kalmar Sound;
carries on a large timber trade, and manufactures of tobacco and matches.
KALMUCKS, the name given to the Western Moguls, inhabiting Central
Asia, and considerably intermingled with their neighbours, the Russians,
Persians, and Turks; they are Buddhists, nomadic, and have herds of
horses and cattle.
KALPA, a Braminical name for the immense period of time which
separates one destruction of the world from the next, a day and a night
of Brahma.
KALPI (14), a decaying town in the NW. Provinces of India, on the
Jumna, 50 m. SW. of Cawnpore; was the scene of the defeat of 12,000
mutineers in 1858; manufactures paper, and exports grain and cotton.
KÂMA, the Hindu Cupid, or god of love, a potent god of the Hindu
pantheon, able to subdue nearly all the rest of the gods except Siva, who
once with a single glance of his Cyclop eye reduced him to ashes for
daring to bring trouble into his breast; he is one of the primitive gods
of the Hindu pantheon, like the EROS (q. v.) of the Greeks.
KAMCHATKA (7), a long narrow peninsula on the E. coast of Siberia,
stretching southwards between the Behring Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk,
with a precipitous coast and a volcanic range of mountains down the
centre, has a cold, wet climate, grass and tree vegetation, and many hot
springs; the people live by fishing, hunting, and trading in furs; they
are Russianised, the peninsula having been Russian since the 17th
century.
KAMES, HENRY HOME, LORD, Scottish judge and philosopher, born in
Berwickshire; became an advocate in 1723 and judge in 1752; wrote books
on law, "Essays on Morality and Natural Religion," and other
philosophical works, in which he indulged in a wide and often fanciful
range of speculation; was noted for his sociality and public spirit, and
died at Edinburgh (1696-1782).
KAMPEN (19), a reviving Dutch town on the Yssel, 3 m. from the
Zuyder Zee, and 5½ m. W. of Zwolle; has shipbuilding and fishing
industries; the inhabitants are the proverbial fools of Holland.
KAMPTULICON, a floorcloth composed of cork and india-rubber or
similar substance.
KAMTHI (43), a town of recent origin in the Central Provinces of
India, 9 m. NW. of Nagpur; trades in cattle and grain, salt, and timber.
KANARA, a rainy district on the W. coast of India, between Goa and
Malabar, mostly malarial forest country, with the Ghat Mountains and many
rivers. NORTH KANARA (446) is in Bombay Presidency. SOUTH
KANARA (1,056), capital Mangalore, is in Madras.
KANARIS, CONSTANTIN, an intrepid Greek sea-captain who distinguished
himself by his exploits in the Greek War of Independence, particularly in
the destruction of the Turkish vessels by means of fire-ships; he
attained the rank of admiral in 1862, and took part in the revolution
which overthrew King Otho (1780-1877).
KANDAHAR, capital of Southern Afghanistan, near the Argandab River,
200 m. SW. of Kabul; a well-watered, regularly built town in the middle
of orchards and vineyards; is of great political and commercial
importance; a centre of trade with India, Persia, and Turkestan; it was
held by the British through the war of 1839-41, and again in 1880-81;
population variously estimated from 25,000 to 100,000.
KANDY (20), a town on a mountain lake in the middle of Ceylon, 75 m.
NE. of Colombo; is a railway centre; has the ruins of the palace of the
old native kings, and a temple with the famous tooth of Buddha.
KANE, ELISHA KENT, an American explorer, born in Philadelphia; bred
to medicine; became a surgeon in the navy; acquired a taste for
adventure; from his experiences in such accompanied, in 1850, the first
Grinnell expedition to the Arctic seas, and commanded the second in 1853,
after three years returning with many discoveries; he wrote accounts of
both expeditions (1820-1857).
KANE, SIR ROBERT, chemist, born in Dublin; originator of the _Dublin
Journal of Medical Science_ in 1832, and of the Irish Museum of Industry
in 1846; was President of Queen's College, Cork, and President of the
Royal Irish Academy in 1876; Published "Elements of Chemistry," and other
works (1810-1890).
KANSAS (1,427), the central State of the American Union; lies in the
basin of the Kansas and Arkansas Rivers, between Nebraska on the N. and
Oklahoma on the S., with Colorado on the W. and Missouri on the E. It is
a rolling prairie, with a fine climate subject to occasional extremes,
and a rainfall, except in some districts, sufficient; raises crops of
grain and sugar, and affords excellent grazing ground. Pork and beef
packing, flour-milling, and iron-founding industries are carried on. The
State University is at Lawrence, an agricultural college at Manhattan,
and good schools in every town. Previous to its admission to the Union in
1859 Kansas was the scene of violent conflicts between pro- and
anti-slavery parties for five years. In the Civil War it joined the
North. The capital is Topeka (31), and the largest other towns Kansas
City (38) and Wichita (23).
KANSAS CITY, two contiguous towns on the S. bank of the Missouri
River, 280 m. W. of St. Louis, are so called. The larger and more
easterly one (164) is the second city of Missouri; an important railway
centre, and distributes the agricultural products of a large region; has
pork-packing industries and iron manufactures. The smaller, westerly city
(51), is in Kansas, the largest town of that State; has a remarkable
elevated railway.
KANT, IMMANUEL, a celebrated German philosopher, born in Königsberg,
the son of a saddler, of Scotch descent, and fortunate in both his
parents; entered the university in 1740 as a student of theology; gave
himself to the study of philosophy, mathematics, and physics; wrote an
essay, his first literary effort, on "Motive Force" in 1747; settled at
the University as a private lecturer on a variety of academic subjects in
1755; became professor of Logic and Metaphysics in 1770, when he was 46,
and continued till his retirement, in 1797, from the frailties of age,
spending the last 17 years of his life in a small house with a garden in
a quiet quarter of the town; his great work, the "Kritic of Pure Reason,"
was published in 1781, and it was followed by the "Kritic of Practical
Reason" in 1788, and the "Kritic of Judgment" in 1790; his works
inaugurate a new era in philosophic speculation, and by the adoption of a
critical method dealt a death-blow to speculative dogmatism on the one
hand and scepticism on the other; it was, he says, the scepticism of Hume
that first broke his dogmatic slumber, so that had Hume not been, he had
not been, and the whole course of modern thought different; Kant by his
critical method did for philosophy what Copernicus did for astronomy; he
centralised the intelligence in the reason or soul, as the latter did the
planetary system in the sun; Kant was a lean, little man, of simple
habits, and was never wedded (1724-1804).
KAOLIN, a fine white clay, a hydrous silicate of alumina, which does
not colour when fired; used in making porcelain; called also China clay.
KAPELLMEISTER, director of an orchestra or choir, more particularly
of the band of a German prince.
KAPILA, the founder of the Sankhya system of HINDU PHILOSOPHY
(q. v.); was regarded as an incarnation of VISHNU (q. v.).
KARA, a gold-mining district in East Siberia, 300 m. from Chita, of
which the mines are the private property of the Czar, and are worked by
convicts, who are often disgracefully treated, many of them merely
political offenders.
KARA SEA is a portion of the Arctic Sea, on the NE. corner of
Russia, between Nova Zembla and the Yalmal; receives the rivers Obi and
Yenisei, and is navigable from July to September.
KARAITES, a Jewish sect which originated in the 8th century; adhered
to the letter of Scripture and repudiated all tradition; were strict
Sabbatarians.
KARAKORUM, a range of the Himalayas, extending from the Hindu-Kush
eastward into Thibet, and a pass in the centre of it 18,000 ft. high.
Also the name of the old capital of Mongolia.
KARAMSIN, a Russian historian; his first work was "Letters of a
Russian Traveller," in 6 vols., published in 1797-1801, which gained him
a high reputation, and it was followed by his "History of Russia," in 12
vols., published in 1816-1829, for the materials of which he had access,
to the most authentic documents as imperial historiographer, an office to
which he was appointed in 1803, and the work is a work in the highest
repute (1766-1826).
KARIKAL (93), a French possession in India, on the Coromandel coast,
150 m. S. of Madras; rears and exports rice in large quantities.
KARLI, a famous temple-cave in Bombay Presidency, on the
Bombay-Poona road; dates from the 1st century B.C. at latest.
KARMA, the unbroken sequence, according to the Theosophists, of
cause and effect, in which every effect is regarded the cause of the
next.
KARMAN, the name given in the Brahminical philosophy and in Buddhism
to that act of the soul by which, as is conceived, it determines its own
destiny, a truly serious conception, and in itself soul affecting.
KARMATHIANS, originally a secret society of the Ismaîlis, developed
into a religious and communistic sect, and waged a great peasants' war
under successive leaders between A.D. 900 and 950; Mecca was captured
930; the movement of the Karmathians did much to overthrow the power of
the Khalifate.
KARR, JEAN BAPTISTE ALPHONSE, French novelist, born at Paris;
entered journalism, became editor of the _Figaro_ 1839, started _Les
Guepes_ the same year, retired to Nice 1855, and there died; his chief
novel is "Géneviève," and best known book, "Voyage autour de mon Jardin"
(1808-1890).
KARROO, the name of a barren tract of tableland in South Africa with
a clay soil, which, however, bursts into grassy verdure and blossom after
rain; the Great Karroo, which is 850 m. long and about 80 m. broad, is
3000 ft. above the sea-level, while the Little Karroo is 1000 ft. lower;
large flocks of sheep are pastured on them, and the value of the land has
immensely increased within late years.
KARS (9), an almost impregnable fortress on the Russo-Turkish
frontier in Asia, 100 m. E. of the Caspian Sea; was successfully held by
the Turks under General Williams in 1855, of which Laurence Oliphant
wrote an account, but captured by Russia in 1877, and ceded to her by the
Treaty of Berlin, 1878; it is a strong place, and a prize to any power
that possesses it.
KARUN RIVER, rising in the Zarduh Koh Mountains W. of Ispahân; flows
W. and S. past Shuster into the Persian Gulf; is the sole navigable
waterway of Persia, and was thrown open to trade 1888.
KASCHAU (29), a beautiful town in Northern Hungary, on the Hernad
River, 140 m. NW. of Budapest; has a royal tobacco factory, is noted for
hams, has an agricultural school and a Jesuit university.
KASHGAR (120), political capital and second largest city of Chinese
Turkestan, on the Kizil River; has cotton, silk, carpet, and saddlery
industries, and trades with Russia; it is the centre of Mohammedanism in
Eastern Turkestan, a pilgrim city; has been in Chinese hands since 1758,
but is chiefly under Russian influence.
KASSALA (3), a fortified town in the Soudan, near the Abyssinian
boundary, on the Chor-el-Gash, a tributary of the Atbara, is 260 m. S. of
Suakim; suffered severely from the Madhist rising of 1883-1885.
KATAKAMA, the square style of writing of the Japanese.
KATER, HENRY, a physicist, born in Bristol; bred to the law, but
entered the army, and went out to India, where, to the injury of his
constitution, he was for seven years engaged on the trigonometrical
survey of the country; devoted the rest of his life to scientific
research; he contributed to the _Philosophical Transactions_, determined
the length of the seconds pendulum at the latitude of London, and
invented the floating collimator (1777-1835).
KATKOFF, MICHAEL NIKIFOROVITCH, Russian journalist and publicist,
born at Moscow, educated at Moscow, Königsberg, and Berlin; became
professor of Philosophy in Moscow and in 1801 editor of the _Moscow
Gazette_; though at first an advocate of parliamentary government, he
became a violent reactionary, made his paper the most influential in
Russia, and had great influence in public affairs; he is said to have
determined the reactionary policy of Alexander III. (1818-1887).
KATRINE, LOCH, a long narrow beautiful lake in the Trossachs,
Scotland, about 30 m. N. of Glasgow, to which it affords an abundant
water supply, is 8 m. long and ¾ broad; the splendid scenery of it is
described in Scott's "Lady of the Lake."
KAUFFMANN, ANGELICA, painter, born in the Tyrol; gave early evidence
of artistic talent; came to London, and became one of the first members
of the Royal Academy; produced pictures on classical and mythological
subjects, as well as portraits of the royal family among others; her
story forms the basis of a fiction by Miss Thackeray (1741-1807).
KAUFMANN, CONSTANTINO VON, Russian general, of German descent; did
much to contribute to the establishment of the Russian power in Central
Asia (1818-1882).
KAULBACH, WILHELM VON, German painter, head of the new German
school, born in Waldeck; was a pupil of Cornelius, and associated with
him in painting the frescoes in the Glyptothek in Münich; among other
works, which have made his name famous, he executed the splendid series
of compositions that adorn the vestibule of the Berlin Museum; he
illustrated Goethe's "Faust" and his "Reinecke Fuchs" (1805-1874).
KAUNITZ, PRINCE VON, Austrian statesman, born at Vienna; under
Charles VI. and Maria Theresa distinguished as a diplomatist at the
Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, and sided with France in the Seven
Years' War; was for nearly 40 years "the shining star and guide of
Austrian politics, and greatest of diplomatists in his day, supreme Jove
in that extinct Olympus; regarded with sublime pity, not unalloyed to
contempt, all other diplomatic beings"; he shared with Colonne the
_sobriquet_ of the "European coach-driver"; he was sold body and soul to
the interests of Austria (1711-1794).
KAVANAGH, JULIA, novelist, born in Tipperary, a very dainty little
lady; wrote "Madeleine," "Woman in France," "Women of Letters," "Women of
Christianity," &c.; spent most of her life in France (1824-1877).
KAWI, the old language of Java found in old documents and
inscriptions.
KAY, SIR, a rude and boastful Knight of the Round Table,
foster-brother of King Arthur, who from his braggart ways often made
himself the butt of the whole court.
KAY, JOHN, a Scottish caricaturist, born near Dalkeith; began
business in Edinburgh first as a barber and then as a print-seller;
author of sketches of local celebrities, now collected in two volumes,
and of much interest and value as a record of the Edinburgh of his time
(1742-1826).
KAYE, SIR JOHN WILLIAM, historian of English India, an officer in
the Bengal Artillery, retired in 1841; in 1856 entered the East India
Company's service in England, and was subsequently a secretary in the
Government India Office; he wrote "History of the Sepoy War 1857-58," and
"Essays of an Optimist" (1814-1876).
KEAN, CHARLES JOHN, actor, second son of the succeeding, born in
Waterford; made his first appearance in Drury Lane in 1827, which proved
unsuccessful, but by assiduous study and his marriage with Helen Tree, a
popular actress who played along with him, he rose in the profession and
became lessee of the Princess's Theatre, London, where he distinguished
himself by his revivals of Shakespeare's plays, with auxiliary effects
due to scenery and costume; he was at his best in melodramas, such as
"Louis XI." (1811-1868).
KEAN, EDMUND, distinguished English tragedian, born in London; trod
the stage from his infancy; his first success was Shylock in the
"Merchant of Venice" in 1814, and the representation of it was followed
by equally famous representations of Richard III., Othello, and Sir Giles
Overreach; he led a very dissipated life, and under the effects of it his
constitution gave way; he broke down one evening beside his son as Iago,
as he was playing the part of Othello, was carried off the stage, and
never appeared on the boards again (1787-1833).
KEARY, ANNIE, novelist, born in Yorkshire; began as a writer of
children's books, "Castle Daly," an Irish novel, among her best; was a
woman of a sympathetic nature, and was devoted to works of benevolence
(1825-1882).
KEATS, JOHN, was the son of a livery-stable proprietor, born at
Finsbury, London; never went to a university, but was apprenticed to a
London surgeon, and subsequently practised medicine himself in London;
abandoning his profession in 1817, he devoted himself to literature, made
the acquaintance of Leigh Hunt, Hazlitt, Lamb, Wordsworth, and other
literary men; left London for Carisbrooke, moved next year to Teignmouth,
but on a visit to Scotland contracted what proved to be consumption; in
1819 he was betrothed to Miss Fanny Browne, and struggled against
ill-health and financial difficulties till his health completely gave way
in the autumn of 1820; accompanied by the artist Joseph Severn he went to
Naples and then to Rome, where, in the spring following, he died; his
works were three volumes of poetry, "Poems" 1817, "Endymion" 1818,
"Lamia, Isabella and other Poems," including "Hyperion" and "The Eve of
St. Agnes" 1820; he never reached maturity in his art, but the dignity,
tenderness, and imaginative power of his work contained the highest
promise; he was a man of noble character, sensitive, yet strong,
unselfish, and magnanimous, by some regarded as the most original of
modern poets (1795-1821).
KEBLAH, the point of the compass to which people turn their faces
when they worship, as the Mohammedans do to Mecca when they pray.
KEBLE, JOHN, English clergyman, author of the "Christian Year," born
in Fairford, Gloucestershire; studied at Oxford, and became Fellow of
Oriel College in 1811; in 1827 appeared the "Christian Year," which he
published anonymously; in 1831 was appointed professor of Poetry in
Oxford, and that same year issued an "Address to the Electors of the
United Kingdom" against the Reform Bill; he was one of four who
originated the Tractarian movement at Oxford, and was the author of
several of the "Tracts for the Times"; in 1835 he was presented to the
vicarage of Hursley, which he held till his death; he was author of "Lyra
Innocentium," and along with Newman and others of "Lyra Apostolica"; the
secession of Newman rather riveted than loosened his attachment to the
English Church (1792-1866).
KEDRON, a wady E. of Jerusalem, traversed by a brook in the rainy
season, and which runs in the direction of the Dead Sea.
KEELHAULING, a naval punishment of the 17th and 18th centuries;
consisted in dropping the victim into the sea from one yardarm, hauling
him under the keel and up to the yardarm on the other side; is now a term
for a severe rebuke.
KEELING ISLANDS. See COCOS ISLANDS.
KEEWATIN, a district in Canada under the jurisdiction of the
government of Manitoba, and N. of it; the mineral wealth is great, and
includes copper and silver.
KEHAMA, a Hindu rajah who obtains and sports with supernatural
powers, whose adventures are given in Southey's "Curse of Kehama."
KEIGHLEY (30), a Yorkshire town, on the Aire, 9 m. NW. of Bradford;
manufactures woollen and worsted fabrics and spinning-machinery.
KEIGHTLEY, THOMAS, man of letters, born in Dublin; wrote a number of
school manuals, and "Fairy Mythology" (1789-1872).
KEIM, THEODOR, a German theologian, born at Stuttgart, professor at
Zurich and afterwards at Giessen; his great work, to which others were
preliminary, was his "History of Jesu of Nazara," in which he presents
the person of Christ Himself as the one miracle in the story and that
eclipses every other in it, and makes them of no account comparatively
(1823-1878).
KEITH, JAMES, known as Marshal Keith, born near Peterhead, of an old
Scotch family, Earls Marischal of Scotland; having had to leave the
country for his share in the Jacobite rebellion, fled first to Spain and
then to Russia, doing military service in both, but quitted both in 1747
for service in Prussia under Frederick the Great, who soon recognised the
worth of him, and under whom he rose to be field-marshal; he
distinguished himself in successive engagements, and fell shot through
the heart, when in the charge of the right wing at Hochkirch; as he
opened his way by his bayonet the enemy gathered round him after being
twice repulsed (1696-1758).
KEITH, LORD, English admiral, born near Stirling; served in various
parts of the world, and distinguished himself in the American and French
wars.
KELAT (14), capital of Beluchistan, in a lofty region 140 m. S. of
Kandahar; is the residence of a British agent since 1877, and was annexed
as a British possession in 1888. It is a military stronghold, and of
great importance in a military point of view.
KELLER, FERDINAND, Swiss archæologist; his reputation rests on his
investigations of lake-dwellings in Switzerland in 1853-54 (1800-1881).
KELLER, GOTTFRIED, distinguished poet and novelist, born in Zurich;
his greatest remance, and the one by which he is best known, is "Der
Grüne Heinrich"; wrote also a collection of excellent tales entitled,
"Die Leute von Seldwyla" (1819-1890).
KELLERMANN, FRANÇOIS CHRISTOPHE, Duke of Valmy, French general born
in Alsace, son of a peasant; entered the army at 17; served in the Seven
Years' War; embraced the Revolution; defeated the Duke of Brunswick at
Valmy in 1792; served under Napoleon as commander of the reserves on the
Rhine, but supported the Bourbons at the Restoration (1735-1820).
KELLS (2), an ancient town in co. Meath, with many antiquities;
gives its name to the "Book of Kells," a beautiful 9th-century Keltic
illuminated manuscript of the Gospels, now in the library of Trinity
College, Dublin.
KELP, an alkaline substance derived from the ashes of certain
sea-weeds, yielding iodine, soda, potass, and certain oils; kelp-burning
was formerly a valuable industry in Orkney and the Hebrides.
KELPIE, an imaginary water-spirit which, it is said, appears
generally in the form of a horse.
KELSO, a market-town in Roxburghshire, beautifully situated on the
Tweed, where the Teviot joins it, with the ruins of an abbey of the 12th
or the early 13th century.
KELVIN, LORD. See THOMSON, WILLIAM.
KEMBLE, a family of three sons and one daughter, children of Roger
Kemble, a provincial theatrical manager, all actors, of whom the greatest
was the eldest, Sarah, MRS. SIDDONS (q. v.).
KEMBLE, ADELAIDE, daughter of Charles, was noted as an operatic
singer, but retired from the stage on her marriage 1842 (1814-1879).
KEMBLE, CHARLES, son of Roger, born at Brecon; appeared first at
Sheffield as Orlando, in 1792, and two years later came to London, where
he continued playing till 1840, when he was appointed Examiner of Plays
(1775-1854). Two daughters of Charles also won fame on the stage.
KEMBLE, FRANCES ANNE, daughter of Charles, born in London; made her
_début_ in 1829, and proved a queen of tragedy; in 1832 went to America,
where, in 1834, she married a planter, from whom she was divorced in
1848; resuming her maiden name, Fanny Kemble, she gave Shakespearian
readings for 20 years (1809-1893).
KEMBLE, JOHN MITCHELL, Anglo-Saxon scholar, born in London, son of
Charles Kemble; edited writings belonging to the Anglo-Saxon period; his
chief work "The Saxons in England" (1807-1857).
KEMBLE, JOHN PHILIP, eldest son of Roger, born at Prescot,
Lancashire; began to study for the Roman Catholic priesthood, but adopted
the stage, and appeared first at Wolverhampton in 1776; after touring in
Yorkshire and Ireland he came to London in 1783, playing Hamlet at Drury
Lane; became manager of that theatre in 1788; in 1802 transferred himself
to Covent Garden, where, on the opening of the new house in 1809, the
"Old Price" riots brought him ill-will; he retired in 1817, and lived at
Lausanne till his death (1757-1823).
KEMBLE, STEPHEN, son of Roger, was from 1792 till 1800 manager of
Edinburgh Theatre (1758-1822).
KEMP, GEORGE MEIKLE, architect, born in Moorfoot, Peeblesshire; bred
a millwright, became a draughtsman, studied Gothic architecture, and
designed the Scott Monument in Edinburgh; was drowned one evening in the
Union Canal before the work was finished (1796-1844).
KEMPEN, a Prussian town, 27 m. NW. of Düsseldorf; manufactures
textile fabrics in silk, cotton, linen, &c.; was the birthplace of Thomas
à Kempis.
KEMPENFELT, RICHARD, British admiral, born at Westminster;
distinguished himself in several actions, was on board of the _Royal
George_ as his flagship when she went down at Spithead, carrying him
along with her and over a thousand others also on board at the time; he
was a brave and skilful officer, and his death was a great loss to the
service (1718-1782).
KEMPIS, THOMAS À, born at Kempen, near Düsseldorf, son of a poor but
honest and industrious craftsman named Hämerkin; joined, while yet a
youth, the "Brotherhood of Common Life" at Deventer, in Holland, and at
20 entered the monastery of St. Agnes, near Zwolle, in Oberyssel, where
he chiefly resided for 70 long years, and of which he became sub-prior,
where he spent his time in acts of devotion and copying MSS., that of the
Bible, among others, in the Vulgate version of it, as well as in the
production of works of his own, and in chief the "Imitation of Christ," a
work that in the regard of many ranks second to the Bible, and is thought
likely to survive in the literature of the world as long as the Bible
itself; it has been translated into all languages within, as well as
others outside, the pale of Christendom, and as many as six thousand
editions, it is reckoned, have issued from the press; it is five
centuries and a half since it was first given to the world, and it has
ever since continued to be a light in it to thousands in the way of a
holy and divine life; it draws its inspiration direct from the
fountain-head of Holy Scripture, and is breathing full of the same spirit
that inspires the sacred book (1380-1471).
KEN, THOMAS, English prelate, born at Little Berkhampstead; is
famous as the author of hymns, especially the morning one, "Awake, my
Soul," and the evening one, "Glory to Thee, my God"; was committed to the
Tower for refusing to read James II.'s "Declaration of Indulgence," and
deprived of his bishopric, that of Bath and Wells, for refusing to take
the oath of allegiance to William III. (1637-1711).
KENDAL (14), a Westmorland market-town on the Kent, 38 m. S. of
Carlisle; manufactures heavy woollen goods, paper, and snuff; it owes the
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