1C 



norms, i uutx 



JKKKMIAH. 



My fortune, with what flows in from my profcasion, U amply sufficient 

 to gratify my wishes." Till the hurt day of hi* life, which terminated 

 suddenly in 1823. be wu occupied in the most anxious labour* to 

 diffus* the advantage* of hi* discovery both at homo and abroad ; 

 and be had th aatisfaction of knowing that vaccination had even then 

 abed it* blessing* over every civilised nation of the world, prolonging 

 life, and preventing the ravage* of the most terrible scourge to which 

 the human raoe was subject. 



Jcnner's other works all evince the same patient and philosophical 

 spirit which led him to his great discovery. The chief of them was 

 a paper ' On the Natural History of tho Cuckoo,' in which lie first 

 described that bird's habit of laying ite eggs singly in the nests of 

 smaller species, to whom it leaves the office of incubation and of 

 rearing the young one, which, when a few days old, acquires the sole 

 pooeiuon of the nest by the expulsion of its rightful occupants. 

 Indeed ho gained so much credit by this piper, that ho was recom- 

 mended not to send his account of vaccination to the same society, 

 lest it should injure the scientific reputation which he had already 

 obtained. 



The life of Jenner has been written by his friend Dr. Baron of 

 Gloucester, in 2 vols. Svo. Fire medals have been struck in his 

 honour, of which three were produced in Germany, and a statue is 

 erected to him in his native county. But it is remarkable that the 

 only public testimonials awarded by his country to the man whose 

 unaided intellect and industry have added more years to the lives of 

 men than the united labours of any century, were grants of 10,0002. 

 and 20,0001., which were voted to him by the House of Commons in 

 1802 and 1807. 



JENYNS, SOAME, born 1704, died 1787, enjoyed a considerable 

 reputation in his lifetime from the happy accident of uniting good 

 birth and fortune with a creditable share of literary accomplishment 

 and success. His family property was at Bottisham, near Cambridge ; 

 he was educated at St. John's College ; elected member of parliament 

 for the couaty in 1741 ; for the borough of Dunwich in 1754 ; for the 

 town of Cambridge in 1761, which lost he represented until his with- 

 drawal from public life. In 1755 he was made a lord of trade, and he 

 held that office in spite of political changes until its abolition in 1780, 

 being a steady supporter of all existing administrations. As a versifier 

 he is elegant and sprightly ; sometimes rather free. His poems, which 

 consist of '_The Art of Dancing,' 1728, and ' Miscellanies,' 1770, have 

 found admission into the second and third editions of Johnson's Ports. 

 HU prose works ore 1. 'A free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin 

 of Evil,' 1756. This unsatisfactory attempt to solve one of the most 

 difficult of moral problems was very ably and severely criticised by 

 Dr. Johnson in the ' Literary Mngazine,' and this rebuke Jenyns seems 

 never to have forgiven. (See Boswell's ' Life,' under tho above year.) 

 2. ' View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion,' 1776, for 

 the divine origin of which he argues from its utter variance with the 

 principles of human reason. This was a curious ground for a friend 

 to take ; and though the book obtained much praise, there were many 

 also who regarded it as the work of a disguised enemy. This does 

 not seem to have been the case ; Jenyns, though once a sceptic, was in 

 the latter part of his life a professed, and, as Boswell, who was no 

 friend to him, believed, a sincere Christian. 3. Dissertations on various 

 subjects, 1782. These are political and religious. His prose writings 

 have obtained praise for elegance of style, art, shrewdness of remark, 

 and aptness of illustration ; but his talent was better suited for the 

 lighter and more showy parts of literature than for metaphysics and 

 controversial theology. He published some pieces not here mentioned. 

 His works are collected in four vols. Svo, 1790-93, with a Life by 

 Mr. Cole. 



JKKDAN, WILLIAM, was born at Kelso, in Roxburghshire, on 

 April 16, 1782, a younger son of a small proprietor, who died in 1796. 

 He was educated in one of the Scottish parochial schools, where ho 

 acquired some classical and mathematical knowledge, afterwards im- 

 proved under the care of Dr. Rutherford, the author of the ' View of 

 Ancient llitory.' It had been the wish of hi* family that he should 

 Study law at Edinburgh, but he desired to eeek his fortune in London, 

 and was therefore, in 1801, placed in the counting-house of a West 

 India merchant, at a salary of 50*. a year. He proved an indifferent 

 clerk, and in 1802 was removed to Edinburgh to study law. To law 

 he appears to have paid as little attmtion as to commerce, and his 

 time was passed in a sort of idle, though not discreditable, dissipation. 

 He was fond of society, sought it, and was welcomed in it. It was 

 found that the law would not answer, so he returned to London, with 

 sleutler funds and no settled purpose ; got into debt ; was released by 

 an uncle, a naval officer, who took him on board his ship at Portsmouth, 

 whtre he was entered as surgeon's clerk. While here one of his effu- 

 sions in ver*e was ius.rt.-d in a Portsmouth paper; and this so elated 

 him. that be borrowed money to repair again to London, to soek employ- 

 ment on a newspaper. Thi. was in 1 805, and he succeeded in getting 

 an engagement on a newspaper newly started, called the 'Aurora;' 

 and in a few years changed to the Pilot,' the ' Post,' the ' Press,' and 

 the ' Sun,' of which last he was editor for many years ; and he also 

 wrote for several country newspaper*, so that his time was fully 

 occupied, while his employment procured him many new and influen- 

 tial acquaintances, both literary and political. Mr. Jerdan'i best title 

 to celebrity however, is the establishment of the ' Literary Gazette,' 



the first successful attempt t j popularise literature by means of well- 

 considered criticism, and to impart intelligence of a superior descrip- 

 tion on the fine art* and science, issued at short intervals, and v 

 any mixture of politicn or polemics. It was commenced in January 

 1817 ; and that it utill subsists is a proof tuat it was well adapted to 

 the wants and taste* of the time, and that it was not inefficiently con- 

 ducted. Mr. Jerdan had commenced in the ' Sun ' the giving of literary 

 reviews, as distinguished from short notices, and this probably gave the 

 notion of the ' Literary Gazette ' to Mr. Colburu, by whom it was com- 

 menced and published weekly, price ono (billing. Mr. Jordan began 

 to contribute to it iu the fifth number; and in July 1817 became its 

 editor. In its early career many able contributors were secured, much 

 interesting information disseminated, and the undertaking gradually 

 prospered, and soon became a valuable property. Mr. Jerdan shortly 

 after obtained a share, and ultimately became the solo proprietor. 

 It is not necessary to trace its progress, nor to enumerate the misfor- 

 tunes by which Mr. Jordan lost considerable sums, and by which, in 

 1850, his connection with the ' Literary Gazette' was terminated. 

 His services to literature were however recognised under the adminis- 

 tration of the Earl of Aberdeen, when a pension of 100 guineas a year 

 was granted to him from the pension-fund ; and in 1851 a subscription 

 of nearly 7002. was raised for him. 



In his ' Autobiography,' published in 1S52-53, Mr. Jerdan has many 

 lamentations on his ill reward for all his literary labours. In early life 

 he had been the associate of the Pollocks, Wilde, and others, who rose 

 to great eminence iu their respective pursuits ; and, as he thinks hii 

 talents were then at least equal to theirs, he wonders that he has not 

 been equally successful, and advises no one to depend upon literature as 

 a means of support But he forgets that the men whose example he 

 quotes did not overlook nor thun the necessary preliminary labour. 

 Could any other profession have been adopted with success upon so 

 slender a foundation as that upon which he ventured to London in 

 1805? The ' Autobiography,' from the number of eminent characters 

 with whom its author came into contact, contains many iutei 

 particulars, but displays very little of artistic arrangement, und much 

 of questionable taste. 



JEHKMIAH, one of the prophets of Judah, the writer of thfl 

 greater part of the book in the Hebrew canon which bears his name, 

 and of the wholu of the book, succeeding it in that Canon, called 

 ' The Lamentations.' 



He was of the sacerdotal family, being the son of Hilkiah, a 

 priest, whose residence was at Auatlioth in the hind of Benjamin, 

 about three miles north from Jerusalem. This we learn from the 

 general title to his book of Prophecies (chap, i., ver. 1), and that title 

 sets distinctly before us the period through which he nourished. 

 He was called to the prophetic office, being then iu his youth, in tho 

 thirteenth year of King Josiah, which, according to the received 

 chronology, was 629 years before the Christian era commences. He 

 continued in the prophetic office till the eleventh year of Kin 

 Zedekiah, that is, till B.O. 588. Nearly all the prophecies collected in 

 this book were delivered by him iu those reigns, and iu the inter- 

 mediate reigna of Juhoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Jehoiachin, the unhappy 

 family of Josiah. He consequently witnessed the death of Josiah, 

 who was slain in battle by the king of Egypt, tho deposition of 

 Jehoahaz, and the two great invasions of the kingdom of Judah by 

 Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who in the first carried away 

 Jehoiachin and many of the people captive, and iu the second carried 

 away still more, with Zedekiah the king, whose eyes he caused to ba 

 put out when he had slain his sons and many of his nobles in his 

 presence. Then it was that ensued the burning of the king's palac.; 

 and of the temple which had been erected by Solomon, and of the 

 whole city of Jerusalem, in that fatal fifth month and seventh day of 

 the mouth which was long remembered in the calendar of Jewish 

 calamities. 



These things saw Jeremiah ; and iu the midst of all this scene of 

 misery his voice was often raised, as one of the prophets of Jehovah, 

 to deplore the calamities which fell upon his country, or with tho 

 voice of warning to call his countrymen to depart from the offences 

 which had provoked those sufferings, and to turn themselves to God, 

 both in outward observances and in inward purity and conformity of 

 heart. 



His contemporaries in the prophetic office were in tho earlier 

 periods Zephauiah and Habakkuk, and in the latter his era approaches 

 near to that of Ezekiel nud Daniel. 



The book entitled his ' Prophecies ' is a collection of such prophecies 

 or exhortations as he delivered at various times, mingled with relations 

 of historical events. The la&t chapter, the fifty-second, is wholly 

 historical, and is supposed to have been written by some other person, 

 not improbably Ezra, and to be intended as a kind of introduction to 

 the book of Lamentations which follows it. But the most remarkable 

 circumstance relating to the composition of the book is this, that the 

 various prophecies are put together without any regard to the order 

 of time in which they were delivered. At the beginning indeed we 

 have the account of his call to the prophetic office, but as we proceed 

 we soon find that we have prophecies delivered in the reign of 

 Jehoiakim following others which were delivered many years after in 

 the reign of Zedekiah. 



However, this does not lead to any serious inconvenience or ooca- 



