JENNY JEREMIAH. 



225 



The practice of vaccine inoculation was adopted in 

 the army and navy, and honours and rewards were 

 conferred on the author of the discovery, The 

 diploma constituting him doctor of medicine, was 

 presented to Jenner as a tribute to his talents, by the 

 university of Oxford. He was chosen a fellow of the 

 Royal Society, and of other learned associations ; and 

 a parliamentary grant was made to him of the sum of 

 .20,000. The extension of the benefits of vaccination 

 to foreign countries, spread the fame of the discoverer, 

 who received several congratulatory addresses from 

 continental potentates. He died suddenly, in conse- 

 quence of apoplexy, January 26, 1823, and was 

 interred in the parish church of Berkeley. Doctor 

 Jenner was the author of an Inquiry into the Causes 

 and Effects of the Cow-pox, (1798, 4to); and Farther 

 Observations on the Variolae Vaccines, or Cow-pox, 

 besides various letters and papers on the same sub- 

 ject, published in periodical works. See Vaccination. 



JENNY, COTTON. See Spinning. 



JENYNS, SOAME, a witty and elegant writer, was 

 the only son of Sir Roger Jenyns, knight. He was 

 born in London, in 1704, and received a domestic 

 education until the age of seventeen, when he was 

 entered a fellow commoner of St John's college, 

 Cambridge. He. remained three years at the univer- 

 sity, and then married early a lady with a large for- 

 tune, to whom his father was guardian ; but the 

 marriage proved unhappy, and, in consequence of an 

 elopement, a separation took place. In his youth, 

 Mr Jenyns, with a small and delicate person, sus- 

 tained the character of a beau, and his first perfor- 

 mance was a poem on the Art of Dancing, published 

 in 1728. In 1741, he was left, by the death of his 

 father, master of a large fortune, on which lie entered 

 into public life as representative of the county of 

 Cambridge. He began his career by supporting Sir 

 Robert Walpole, and ever after remained a faithful 

 adherent to the minister for the time being. In 1757, 

 he published his Free Inquiry into the Nature and 

 Origin of Evil, the fundamental principle of which is, 

 that the production of good without evil is impossible; 

 that evils spring from necessity, and could not be 

 done away without the sacrifice of some superior 

 good, or the admission of greater disorder. In re- 

 spect to moral evil, his theory is, that it is permitted, 

 in order to provide objects for the just infliction of 

 physical evils. In 1776, appeared his View of the 

 Internal Evidences of the Christian Religion. The 

 foundation of his reasoning is, that the Christian 

 religion is a system of ethics so superior to, and un- 

 like any thing which had previously entered into the 

 mind of man, that it must necessarily be divine. In 

 1782, appeared his Disquisitions on Various Subjects 

 (8vo.), which are marked with his usual characteris- 

 tics of sprightly wit and shrewd observation, but are 

 vague - and declamatory. He died in 1787. His 

 works have been collected into four volumes (12mo), 

 with a life prefixed by C. N. Cole. 



JEPHTH A H ; a natural son of Gilead, who, being 

 driven from home by his brothers, lived in the land 

 of Tob, but, when the Ammonites waged war against 

 Israel, was sent for to defend his countrymen. Jeph- 

 thah tried conciliatory measures, but being unsuccess- 

 ful in this, he put himself at the head of the Israelites, 

 flnd defeated the enemy. Having rashly made a vow 

 that, if he was victorious, he would sacrifice to God, 

 as a burnt-offering, whatever should first come to 

 meet him from his house, he was met, on his return, 

 by his daughter, his only child, whom he sacrificed, 

 in consequence, to the Lord. (Judges, xi. 29, 40.) 

 The mode in which the sacrifice was performed, has 

 given rise to much controversy, some authors main- 

 taining that Jephthah put her to death near the altar; 

 others that he devoted her to perpetual virginity in 



the temple ; other*, and most commentators, think 

 that he actually sacrificed her as a burnt-offering, 

 and, though Moses prohibits, explicitly, such a sacri- 

 fice, that it may have been permitted in the wild and 

 barbarous times of Jephthah. Jephthah ruled six 

 years as a judge and general. (Judges xi. and xii.) 



JERBOA (dipus, Gmel.) These singular little 

 animals are found in many parts of the old continent, 

 but seldom in great plenty. The most common 

 species is the D. sagitta. It is of a pale yellowish 

 fawn-colour on the upper parts, and white beneath ; 

 the length of the body is about eight inches, and of 

 the tail ten. The jerboas inhabit dry, hard, and 

 clayey ground, in which they make their burrows. 

 These are of considerable length, and run oblique 

 and winding ; at about half a yard below the surface 

 of the ground, they terminate in large excavations or 

 nests ; they are usually provided with but one. open- 

 ing, though the animals are provident enough to 

 make another passage, to within a short distance 

 from the surface, through which they rapidly pene- 

 trate in case of necessity. It is almost impossible to 

 kill them, except by coniing on them unawares. 

 The Arabs, however, take them nlive, by stopping 

 up all the outlets of the different galleries belonging 

 to the colony, with the exception of one, through 

 which they force them out. They keep within their 

 holes during the day, sleeping rolled up, with their 

 head between their thighs. At sunset they come 

 out, and remain abroad till morning. They go on 

 their hind legs only, the fore legs being very short ; 

 their motion is, nevertheless, very rapid, being effected 

 by leaps of six or seven feet, which they repeat so 

 swiftly, that it is nearly impossible to overtake them. 

 They do not proceed in a straight line, but spring 

 first to one side, and then to the other. In leaping, 

 they carry their tails stretched out, whilst, in stand- 

 ing or walking, they carry them in the form of an S, 

 the lower curve touching the ground. In their wild 

 state, these animals are very fond of bulbous roots; 

 but, when confined, they will feed on raw meat. 

 They are tamed without much difficulty, but they 

 require to be kept warm. The jerboa is supposed 

 to be the cony of the Bible. It was forbidden food 

 to the Israelites ; it is, however, eaten by the Arabs. 



JEREMIAH, the second of the great prophets of 

 the Old Testament, of a noble Jewish family of the 

 priestly order, flourished during the darkest period of 

 the kingdom of Judah, under the last four kings, till 

 the Babylonish captivity, and exercised the prophe- 

 tic office for forty years, with unwearied patience and 

 fidelity. But in vain did he exhaust admonitions, 

 entreaties, and warnings to move the people to a 

 sense of piety and resignation ; he was rewarded by 

 abuse, imprisonment, and menaces of death. After 

 the destruction of Jerusalem, when all the people 

 were carried into captivity, he was honoured by 

 Nebuchadnezzar as the noblest of his nation, and per- 

 mitted to choose his own place of residence. The 

 old prophet staid by the ruins of the holy city, and 

 continued to direct the remaining Jews by his coun- 

 sels till their flight into Egypt, where he died at ai 

 advanced age. He began, under the reign of Jehoia- 

 kim, to dictate his instructions and prophecies to his 

 amanuensis Baruch. They evince the most ardent 

 patriotism and unshaken trust in the. God of his 

 fathers, but, at the same time, shew how much the 

 spirit of the prophet was crushed by his own misfor- 

 tunes and the disasters of his country. It is only in 

 his predictions against foreign states, that his expres- 

 sion rises to some degree of strength, but elsewhere 

 his tone is as mild as his character, and mournful as 

 the times in which he lived. He clearly foresaw the 

 downfall of Judah, and lamented it on the ruins of 

 Jerusalem. His Lamentations, the fruit of this grief 



