JERROLD, DOUGLAS. 



JESUS CHRIST. 



622 



impressions which an intelligent child thus receives will understand 

 the influence of this experience upon the pursuits of the man. But the 

 boy was surrounded by grand and most attractive realities : the docks 

 and the arsenal of Sheerness ships coming home to refit after tedious 

 cruises sailors who could talk of the Nile and Trafalgar. The lad, 

 delicate, sensitive, was smitten with a passion for the life at sea; 

 and, his wishes prevailing, a midshipman's appointment was obtained 

 for him from Captain Austen, brother of Miss Austen, the novelist. 

 At the end of the war he quitted the service, and another calling had 

 to be chosen. He was apprenticed to a printer in London. The 

 labours of a printer's apprentice are not ordinarily favourable to 

 intellectual development ; the duties of a compositor ara so purely 

 mechanical, and yet demand such a constant attention, that the 

 subject-matter of his employ can rarely engage his thoughts. It was 

 not in the printing-office that the mind of Douglas Jerrold was 

 formed, although the aspirations of the boy might have thought that 

 there was the home of literature. He became his own instructor 

 after the hours of labour. He made himself master of several lan- 

 guages. His " one book " was Shakspere. He cultivated the habit of 

 expressing his thoughts in writing ; and gradually the literary ambition 

 was directed into a practicable road. He was working as a compositor 

 on a newspaper, when he thought he could write something as good as 

 the criticism which there appeared. He dropped into the editor's 

 letter-box an essay on the opera of ' Der Frieschiitz," which perform- 

 ance he had witnessed with wonder and delight. His own copy, an 

 anonymous contribution, was handed over to him to put in type. An 

 earnest editorial "notice," soliciting other contributions from our 

 "correspondent," &c., was the welcome of the young writer, whose 

 vocation was now determined. His first dramatic production, ' Black- 

 eyed Susan' the most popular drama of modern times, or of any 

 time was written before Mr. Jerrold had attained his twenty-first 

 year. It was produced at the Surrey Theatre, with a success which 

 Elliston, the manager, very unequally shared with the struggling 

 author. It deferred the ruin of Drury Lane Theatre for a season. 

 The original ' William ' boasted, a year or two ago, that he had 

 appeared in the part seven hundred times. ' The Rent Day' followed 

 this first triumph. Jerrold was now the most popular dramatist of 

 the period ; and he has continued to write for the stage till within the 

 laet few years. Equally a master of wit and of pathos, all his plays 

 have a decided originality; they are thoroughly English. His serious 

 dramas are built upon English home affections. The joys and griefs 

 of his scenes are not the tawdry sentimentalities and extravagant 

 passions of adaptations from the French gaudy exotics, which flower 

 for a little while under artificial cultivation, and then are thrown away 

 as worthless weeds. Jerrold's comedies are also as thoroughly 

 Kn.'lish in their characterisation and their language: they have the 

 true ring of the old national currency of wit and humour and keen 

 satire; but they require excellent acton and intelligent audiences, 

 and, according to some authorities, these requisites for a high drama 

 are passing away. In our day the gratification of the eye, in prefer- 

 ence to every other faculty, has degraded Shakspere, even, from a poet 

 to a showman ; and this false taste naturally extends to other walks, 

 to make exaggeration the great requisite of the dramatic artist. 

 Mr. Jerrold's most successful plays, in addition to those we have 

 mentioned, are ' Nell Gwynne,' ' The Prisoner of War,' and ' The 

 Houtekeeper;' and amongst his comedies we may especially mention 

 ' Time works Wonders,' and ' The Bubbles of the Day.' Of the latter 

 there has been recently published a German translation, executed 

 with remarkable spirit and fidelity. 



A portion of Mr. Jerrold's dramatic works, with the more important 

 of his stories and miscellaneous writings, have been collectively pub- 

 lished in eight volumes. Here we find the 'Men of Character," origi- 

 nally published in ' Blackwood's Magazine ;' ' Clovernook,' which 

 appeared in ' The Illuminated Magazine ; ' 'St. Giles and St. James,' 

 written for ' Jerrold's Shilling Magazine;' 'The Story of a Feather,' 

 and ' The Caudle Lectures,' which gave such an impulse to the popu- 

 larity of ' Punch.' For this famous journal he has regularly written 

 from the second number. In this constant round for thirty years of 

 a very peculiar form of literary labour, where the strongest effects are 

 produced by epigrammatic terseness, we trace a life of unremitting 

 industry, combined with very rare natural gifts improved by diligent 

 cultivation. The flippant satirist and we have many such amongst 

 the young race of periodical writers who pours out hia invectives 

 without impartial observation or accurate knowledge, belongs only to 

 the passing hour. Jerrold's satire has always a foundation of truth and 

 earnest purpose, and therefore it live.?. In his most ephemeral 

 writings we may trace that wide acquaintance with the best literature 

 which is somewhat too much despised by those who believe that a 

 brilliant writer, to use a familiar phrase, can make everything out oi 

 hia own head. For three or four years Mr. Jerrold has been the editor 

 of ' Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper ' a journal of so enormous a circu 

 lation that it conduct involves a tremendous moral responsibility 

 Whatever objection there may be to the strongly expressed opinions 

 the invective, or the sarcasm of this paper under its present manage 

 ment, it has never aimed at popularity by false and dangerou; 

 doctrines up'ou the great principles of society and government. Its 

 present success, compared with its previous position, is one of the 

 many proof* that the largest Dumber of readers are not to be pro 



>itiated by what has been falsely considered as essential to popularity 

 to write down to an imaginary low intellectual standard. 

 JERVAS, CHARLES, the portrait painter, was born in Ireland 

 about 1675 ; the exact date is not known. He studied a year with 

 ineller in London, copied the cartoons of Riffaelle at Hampton Court, 

 'n small, and studied also in Paris and at Rome. He returned to 

 London about 1708, where, through the intimate friendship of Pope, 

 and a fortune of 20,0001. which he acquired with his wife, a widow, he 

 was enabled to overcome all the usual difficulties attendant upon a 

 professional life in its up-hill career. His sole ability as a painter 

 seems to have been his power of copying : some of his copies after 



rlo Maratte are, according to Walpole a very unsafe authority 

 lowever equal to the originals. He appears to have been inordinately 

 conceited, due no doubt in a great measure to the silly flattery of his 

 friend and pupil Pope, in his ' Epistle to Jervas.' There are several 

 anecdotes related of his vanity : on one occasion, when he had finished 

 a copy after Titian, he said, looking with the utmost satisfaction from 

 one to the other, " Poor little Tit, how he would stare." Jervas died 

 November 2, 1739. 



JERVIS, JOHN, Earl of St. Vincent, and Admiral of the Fleet, 

 was born at Meaford in Staffordshire, January 9, 1734, o.s. ; entered 

 the navy at ten years old ; was posted into the Gosport, 40 guns, in 

 1760; and appointed to the Foudroyant, 80, in 1774. In this ship, 

 which was distinguished for her discipline and effective state, he fought 

 in Keppel's action in 1778; captured the Pe'gase, French 74, in 1782, 

 for which he received the order of the Bath ; and in October of the 

 same year sailed with Lord Howe to the relief of Gibraltar. He was 

 promoted to the rank of rear-admiral, September 24, 1787 ; and sat in 

 parliament for various boroughs from 1782 until the breaking out of 

 the French Revolutionary war, when he sailed in command of a 

 squadron to reduce the West India Islands, and captured Martinique, 

 Guadaloupe, and St. Lucia. At the end of 1794 sickness drove him 

 home. He was promotad to be Admiral of the Blue, June 1, 1795, 

 and in the autumn took command of the Mediterranean fleet, with 

 which he performed the great exploit of his life, by intercepting and 

 defeating the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, on February 14, 1797. 

 The disproportion of force was greater, it is said, than any modern 

 officer had ventured to seek an encounter with, the Spaniards having 

 nearly double our number of ships, and more than double the number 

 of guns and weight of metal. However Jervis, repeating Rodney's 

 method of breaking the line, gained a complete victory, and captured 

 four sail of the line. In this celebrated engagement the services of 

 Nelson were pre-eminent. The actual loss sustained by the enemy 

 was of less importance than the lustre cast on the British arms by a 

 victory achieved against such odds. Thanks, couched in the most 

 flattering terms, were voted by both houses of parliament ; and Sir 

 J. Jervis was raised to the peerage by the title of Earl of St. Vincent 

 and Baron Jervis of Meaford, and received a pension of 30001. Shortly 

 after, his presence of mind and moral courage were severely tried by 

 the breaking out of a branch of the Channel mutiny in his fleet ; which 

 however was speedily suppressed by his judicious and decisive severity. 

 Havinif suffered for some time from ill health, he returned home 

 in 1799 ; but in April 1800 took command for a short time of the 

 Channel fleet, on the resignation of Lord Bridport. He was made 

 first Lord of the Admiralty in February 1801, on the formation of the 

 Addingtou ministry ; and having through life had a sincere dislike of 

 peculation and jobbing, at once set vigorously to cut down extravagant 

 expenditure anil to reform abuses. This of course made him very 

 unpopular; and he was accused of rashness, and of crippling the 

 resources of the country by a false economy. Charges of this sort 

 were then sure to be made against those who exerted themselves to 

 reform old and lucrative abuses. Mr. Pitt partook of the dissatisfac- 

 tion, and at hU return to office, in May 1804, placed Viscount Melville 

 at the head of the Admiralty. Earl St. Vincent again took command 

 of the Channel fleet in 1806, in Fox's administration, but held it ouly 

 for a year. His last appearance in parliament appears to. have bean in 

 1810, in the debate upon the king's speech, when he spoke strongly iu 

 censure of the conduct of the war by ministers. He was appointed 

 Admiral of the Fleet on the day of George IV.'s coronation, July 19, 

 1821, and died .March 15, 1823, in the ninetieth year of his age. Having 

 no children, the earldom became extinct : but the title of Viscount, by 

 special grant, descended to his nephew Mr. Ricketts. A public monu- 

 ment was erected in honour of him in St. Paul's cathedral. 



Earl St. Vincent's professional characteristics were courage, coolness, 

 and decision, amounting almost to sternness of character: these, 

 united with great skill and indefatigable activity, rendered him an 

 admirable officer. He was very independent; and the disposal of hia 

 patronage, in which he paid great and unusual consideration to the 

 claims of deserving officers, did him honour. 



JESUS CHRIST. 



[The following sketch of the events of the Life of our Saviour, as 

 derived from the New Testament, avoids all reference to matters of 

 controversy, either as to facts or opinions. The plainest narrative in 

 a work like this best expresses the reverence with which we approach 

 the subject.] 



Jesus Christ was born at Bethlehem, a city of Judtea, in the days 

 of King Herod. The first chapter of St. Matthew contains tue 



