254 



JOHN BULL JOHNSON. 



sovereignty. Their naval force, in 1770, consisted of 

 four galleys, three galiots, four ships of sixty, and 

 two frigates of thirty-six guns, with various smaller 

 vessels. When Malta was unexpectedly attacked by 

 Bonaparte, June 8, 1798, the island capitulated with- 

 out resistance. (See Hompesch, and Malta). In 

 1800, the British reduced it by famine, and it has been, 

 ever since, in our hands. At the peace of Amiens 

 (1802), it was stipulated that the island should be re- 

 stored to the knights, under the guarantee of a neutral 

 power ; but as our government continued to entertain 

 apprehensions lest the French would retake Malta, 

 and thus destroy our superiority in the Mediter- 

 ranean, we continued in possession of it. Dec. 16, 

 1798, the order had chosen for their grand master 

 the Russian emperor, Paul I., who declared the 

 capitulation of 1798 an act of treachery, and took 

 the knights of St John under his protection. This 

 choice met with much opposition, even from the pope 

 himself. After the death of Paul I. (Feb. 9, 1805), 

 the pope appointed an Italian (Tommasi) grand 

 master, and, on his decease, the grand chapter chose 

 Caracciolo. The chief seat of the order had been, 

 hitherto, Catanea in Sicily. In 1826, the pope per- 

 mitted the chapter and the government to remove 

 their seat to Ferrara. Before the French revolution, 

 the number of knights of this order was estimated at 

 3000. For further information, see Malta. 



JOHN BULL, the sportive, collective name of 

 the English people, was first used by dean Swift. 

 Jonathan, or brother Jonathan, is applied, in the same 

 way, to the people of the United States. 'The Irish 

 Paddy (from Patrick), the Scotch Sawney (from 

 (Saunders, which comes from Alexander), are more 

 particularly applied to individuals than to the Irish 

 and Scotch people collectively. Yankee (q. v.), also, 

 signifies a si.ngle American, particularly a native of 

 the Eastern'States ; whilst Uncle Sam a colloquial 

 and rather low expression, derived from U. S. the 

 abbreviation of United States is used to denote 

 the government of the United States collectively. 

 John Bull is used by the British themselves to convey 

 the idea of an honest, blunt, but in the main good- 

 natured, character. With foreigners, it is used to 

 express the insular peculiarities and prejudices of the 

 nation, and their inability to accommodate them- 

 selves to the circumstances of foreign countries. 



JOHN DORY. See Dory. 



JOHN'S FIRE. Among the Romans, the festival 

 of Vesta was celebrated by kindling a fire, with dan- 

 cing and rejoicings. In the early periods of Chris- 

 tianity, the ancient pagan rite was perpetuated of 

 setting fire to consecrated herbs, or laying them upon 

 the coals. This ceremony was called John's fire, or 

 the herb fire. Superstitious people believed that the 

 smoke of these herbs would keep off the devil, storms, 

 and witches, or preserve from those evils the houses 

 where they were burnt, for the succeeding year. 



JOHNES, THOMAS; an English gentleman, who 

 distinguished himself by the cultivation of literature. 

 He was born in 1748, studied at Oxford, made the 

 tour of Europe, and collected a noble library, to 

 which he added a typographical establishment, 

 whence proceeded the works on which his literary 

 reputation is founded. They consist of splendid edi- 

 tions of the chronicles of Froissart and Monstrelet ; 

 Joinville's memoirs of St Louis ; the travels of Ber- 

 trandon de la Brocquiere in Palestine ; and Stephen 

 Palaye's life of Froissart ; all translated by himself 

 from the French. He died in April, 1816. 



JOHNSON, SAMOEL, a clergyman distinguished 

 for his zeal in the cause of civil liberty, was born in 

 1 649. During the time that lord Russell, with his 

 coadjutors, was promoting the bill for excluding the 

 duke of York, he published n tract entitled Julian the 



Apostate, meant as a refutation of the doctrine of 

 passive obedience by doctor Hickes. For this book 

 he was prosecuted in the court of king's bench, and 

 sentenced to fine and imprisonment. Inability to pay 

 the fine caused him to be confined in the rules of the 

 prison, where he was privately assisted by the bene- 

 factions of his political friends, and continued to dis- 

 perse several pieces against popery. In 1686, when 

 tlie army was encamped upon Hounslow Heath, he 

 wrote An humble and hearty Address to all the 

 English Protestants in the present Army. For this 

 production he was committed to close custody, tried 

 before the king's bench, and condemned to stand in 

 the pillory in three places, to pay a fine of 500 marks, 

 and to be publicly whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. 

 Before the execution of this disgraceful sentence, he 

 was deprived of his orders. He bore all these indig- 

 nities, including the whipping, which was inflicted with 

 great severity, with the firmness and alacrity of a mar- 

 tyr, which he was deridingly called ; and, happily, 

 some informality in the process of degradation pre- 

 served to him his living. W r ith unbroken spirit lie 

 continued to employ his pen in the same cause, until 

 the revolution changed his situation. He received a 

 present of ,1000, and a pension of 300 per annum, 

 for the life of himself and his son. He continued to 

 write in favour of king William with much strength 

 of reason, but with a degree of acrimony which 

 produced some personal annoyance from opposing 

 partisans, which had little effect upon a man of so 

 determined a spirit. Notwithstanding his attachment 

 to the new government, he freely censured many of its 

 acts, and even contended for annual parliaments. He 

 died in 1703. His works were published in 1710, I 

 vol., folio, and re-edited in 1713. 



JOHNSON, SAMUEL, LL. D. ; one of the most dis- 

 tinguished English writers of the eighteenth century. 

 He was born at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, in 1709, in 

 which city his father was a small bookseller. He was 

 the elder of two sons, the younger of whom died in 

 his infancy ; and he inherited from his father a robust 

 body and active mind, together with a scrofulous 

 taint, which impaired his sight and hearing, and a 

 strong disposition to morbid melancholy. He also 

 derived from the same source a marked attachment 

 to high church principles, and a decided predilection 

 for the family of Stuart. He received his early edu- 

 cation, partly at the free-school of Lichfield, and partly 

 at Stourbridge, in Worcestershire ; and, on returning 

 from_school, he remained two years at home. Having 

 acquired reputation from his exercises, particularly 

 of the poetical class, a neighbouring gentleman of 

 the name of Corbet offered to maintain him at Ox- 

 ford as companion to his son. He was accordingly 

 entered of Pembroke college in 1728, being then iu 

 his nineteenth year ; but he exhibited no marked 

 attention to his studies in the first instance, and the 

 state of indigence into which he fell by the neglect of 

 the promised assistance, on the part of the family by 

 whose advice he was sent to Oxford, produced a 

 degree of mental anxiety, which he is said to have 

 attempted to conceal by affected frolic and turbul- 

 ence. Still he acquired credit by occasional poetical 

 compositions in the Latin language ; but, after all, 

 left Oxford, after a residence of three years, without 

 taking a degree. About this time, according to his 

 own account, he received a strong religious impres- 

 sion from the perusal of Law's Serious Call to a de- 

 vout and holy Life. Soon after his return to Lich- 

 field, his father dying in very narrow circumstances, 

 he was constrained to accept the situation of usher 

 at the grammar-school of Market Bosworth. This 

 situation his impatience under the haughty treatment 

 of the principal soon induced him to quit; and he 

 passed some time as a guest with a medical school- 



