JONATHAN JONES. 



259 



out of the city, and God made a gourd grow up over 

 him, which was a siiade to him. He then sent a 

 worm, which smote the gourd so that it died in one 

 night. Jonah was angry at this also ; but God 

 showed him the foolishness of being angry at the 

 destruction of a gourd, and yet demanding the de- 

 struction of a city in which were 120,000 innocent 

 children. Jonah's grave is shown at Mosul, the 

 ancient Nineveh, and also at Gath. Some critics 

 maintain that the book was not written by Jonah him- 

 self, but is a collection of traditions, made after the 

 destruction of Nineveh. Some writers consider it 

 merely as an allegorical poem. The story of Jonah 

 is also known to the Mohammedans, according to 

 whom, he embarked after his prophecy at Nineveh, 

 and remained forty days in the belly of the fish. The 

 prayer of the prophet in this situation, is considered 

 one of the most efficacious in the Koran. 



JONATHAN, or BROTHER JONATHAN ; the 

 nickname given to the Americans of the United 

 States collectively, by the British, probably on ac- 

 count of the frequency of this name among the early 

 Americans. See John Bull and Yankee. 



JONES, INIGO ; the reviver of classical architec- 

 ture in England, in the beginning of the seventeenth 

 century. He was a native of London, where his 

 father was a cloth-worker, and was born about 1572. 

 Destined for a mechanical employment, his talents 

 attracted the notice of the earl of Arundel, and of 

 William, earl of Pembroke, the latter of whom sup- 

 plied him with the means of visiting Italy, for the 

 purpose of studying landscape painting. He went 

 to Venice, where the works of Palladio inspired him 

 with a taste for the art of architecture, in which he 

 rose to great eminence. His reputation procured him 

 the post of first architect to Christiern IV., king of 

 Denmark, who, visiting his brother-in-law, James I., 

 in 1606, brought Jones with him to England. He 

 was induced to remain, and was appointed architect 

 to the queen, and subsequently to Henry, prince of 

 Wales. After the death of the prince, he again 

 visited Italy, and remained there some years. Dur- 

 ing this interval, he extended his knowledge, and 

 improved his taste, from the examination of the 

 models of ancient and modern art. The banqueting 

 house at Whitehall (intended as an adjunct to a mag- 

 nificent palace) is a monument of his skill and science. 

 At Winchester cathedral, a Gothic building, he 

 erected a screen in the style of classic antiquity. 

 Like his successor, Wren, he seems not to have duly 

 appreciated the peculiar character and distinctive 

 beauties of the pointed style of building, of which so 

 many fine specimens remain in the ecclesiastical 

 structures of the middle ages, in Britain, France, and 

 Germany. He built the front of Wilton-house, in 

 Wiltshire, for Philip, earl of Pembroke, and was much 

 employed by the court and by many of the nobility 

 and gentry, so that he realized a handsome fortune. 

 His talents were often put in requisition for the pur- 

 pose of designing the scenery and decorations for 

 masques a species of dramatic entertainment, fash- 

 ionable in the early part of the seventeenth century. 

 In these pieces, the dialogues and songs were com- 

 posed by Ben Jonson, who quarrelled with Jones, 

 and abused him in epigrams and satires. The enmity 

 of the poet was not the only misfortune to which the 

 architect was exposed. Being a Roman Catholic, 

 and a partisan of royalty, he suffered in the civil war, 

 and, in 1646, was forced to pay a fine of .545, as a 

 malignant or cavalier. The ruin of the royal cause, 

 and the death of the king, distressed him greatly ; 

 and, at length, worn down by sorrow and suffering, 

 he died, July 21, 1652. As an author, he is known 

 by a work relative to that curious monument ol 

 former ages, Stonehenge, on Salisbury plain, pub- 



ished after his death, by his son-in-law, Mr Webb. 

 The object of this treatise, composed by the command 

 of king James I. is to prove that Stonehenge was 

 erected by the Romans, and was a hypsethral temple, 

 dedicated to the god Coelus. A collection of the archi- 

 ;ectural designs of Inigo Jones was published by 

 Kent, in 1727 and 1744, and others more recently, by 

 Ware and by Leoni. 



JONES, SIR WILLIAM, an eminent lawyer and ac. 

 complished scholar, was born in London, September 

 20, 1746. He lost his father when only three years 

 of age, and the care of his education fell on his 

 mother, a lady of uncommon endowments. At the 

 lose of his seventh year, he was placed at Harrow, 

 and, in 1764, he entered University college, Oxford. 

 Here his desire to acquire the Oriental languages in 

 duced him to support, at his own expense, a native 

 of Aleppo, to instruct him in the pronunciation of the 

 Arabic language ; and as it was soon perceived that 

 he would not misspend his time, the college tutors 

 allowed him to follow his own plans unmolested. 

 His great object was to attain a fellowship, to spare 

 his mother the expense of his education ; but, not 

 succeeding in his wish, he accepted, in 1765, the 

 office of tutor to lord Althorp, afterwards earl Spen- 

 cer ; and, some time after, he obtained a fellowship 

 also. He availed himself of a residence at the Ger- 

 man Spa, with his pupil, in 1767, to acquire the Ger- 

 man language, and, on his return, translated into 

 French a Persian life of Nadir Shah, brought over in 

 MS. by the king of Denmark, at the request of the 

 under secretary of the duke of Grafton. Another 

 tour to the continent, with his pupil and family, fol- 

 lowed, which occupied his time until 1770, when, his 

 tutorship ceasing, he catered himself as a law student 

 in the Temple. He did not, however, wholly sacri- 

 fice literature to his professional pursuits ; but, on the 

 appearance of the life and works of Zoroaster, by 

 Anquetil du Perron, he vindicated the university of 

 Oxford, which had been attacked by that writer, in 

 an able pamphlet in the French language, which he 

 wrote with great elegance. He also published, in 

 1772, a small collection of poems, chiefly from the 

 poets of Asia, and was the same year elected a fellow 

 of the royal society. In 1774 appeared his work De 

 Poesi Asiatica, containing commentaries on Asiatic 

 poetry in general, with metrical specimens in Latin 

 and English. He was soon after called to the bar, 

 and, in 1776, made a commissioner of bankrupts. 

 About this time, his correspondence with his pupil 

 evinced the manly spirit of constitutional freedom by 

 which he was actuated ; and to his feelings on the 

 American contest he gave vent in a spirited Latin 

 ode to liberty. In 1778 appeared his translation of 

 the Orations of Isaeus, with a prefatory discourse, 

 notes, and commentary, which, for elegance of style, 

 and profound critical and historical research, excited 

 much admiration. In the mean time, he rapidly 

 advanced in professional reputation, although his 

 opinion of the American contest stood in the way of his 

 progress to legal honours. The tumults of 1780 in- 

 duced him to write a pamphlet on the Legal Mode 

 of suppressing Riots ; and, in the following winter, 

 he completed a translation from the Arabic of seven 

 poems, of the highest repute. He also wrote the 

 much admired ode, commencing " What constitutes a 

 state?" These pursuits did not prevent a professional 

 Essay on the Law of Bailments. He distinguished 

 himself, in 1782, among the friends to a reform in 

 parliament, and also became a member of the Society 

 for Constitutional Information. The same year, he 

 drew up a Dialogue between a Farmer and a Country 

 Gentleman, on the Principles of Government ; for the 

 publication of which, the dean of St Asaph, after- 

 wards his brother-in law, had a bill of indictment 



R2 





