J o s 



!-avmg aL-endcd the throne, read the hook of the Mofaic 

 law, and then entered into a folemn covenant to obferve the 

 ilatutes and ordinances which it enjoined. To this covenant 

 the whole adembly teftiiied their confent. The ark was re- 

 •ftored to its proper place ; the temple was purified ; idola- 

 trous utenfils were removed ; and thofe appropriate to the 

 worlhip of God fubftituted in their room. After thefe pre- 

 parations, the piifTover was obferved with lingular zeal and 

 magnificence. This took place in the eighteenth year of 

 Jofiah's reign. But in purfuing his laudable plans of re- 

 formation, he was rofifted by the inveterate habits of the 

 Ifraehtes, fo that his zealous and perfevering efforts were in- 

 effeflual. Their degeneracy was fo invincible, that the 

 Almighty fovereign was provoked to inflift upon them th.ofe 

 calamities which were denounced by the prophet Zephaniah. 

 In the thirty-fecond year of .Toliah's reign, Pharaoh Necho, 

 king of Egypt, advanced with his army againll Carchemifh, 

 a city lituated on the river Euphrates ; and he was oppofed 

 by the ki?.g of Judah ; fo that a bloody battle enlued at 

 Migiddo, in which Jofiah received a mortal wound, which 

 terminated in his death, after he had been conveyed to Je- 

 rufalem, in the thirty. ninth year of his reign, B.C. 609. 

 His death was greatly lamented hy all his fiibjefts ; and an 

 elegy was written on the occafion by the prophet Jeremiah, 

 which is not now extant. 2 Kings, xxii. xxiii. 2 Chron. 

 xxxiv. XXXV. 



JOSIDA, in Geography, a town of Japan, in the ifland 

 of Niphon ; 16 miles E. of Seoda. 



JOSLOWITZ, a town of Moravia, in the circle of 

 Znaym ; 8 miles S.E. of Znaym. 



JOSNIOW, a town of Poland, in Podolia; 48 mUes 

 N.N.W. of Kaminiec. 



JOSQUIN DEs Pre/, or, as he is called in Latin, Jof- 

 ■qu'wiis, or Jodocus Prataiju, and in Italian Giofqmno del Prato, 

 in Biography, a Netherlander, tlie difciple of Okenheim, and 

 maellro di cappellato Louis XIL king of France, was the 

 greateft mufician of his time ; and, in many particulars, 

 of any time, fince the invention of counterpoint. 



His compofitions for the church, though long laid afide, 

 and become obfolete by the gradual changes in notation, con- 

 tinue ftiU to merit the attention of the curious. Indeed the 

 laws and difhculties of canon, fugue, augmentation, dimi- 

 nution, reverfion, and almoft every other fpecies of learned 

 contrivance allowable in ecclefiaftical compofitions for voices, 

 ■were never fo well obferved, or happily vanqui{hed, as by 

 Jofquin ; who may jullly be called the father of modern 

 harmony, and the inventor of almoft every ingenious con- 

 texture of its conllituent parts, near a hundred years before 

 the time of Paledrina, Orlando di LaiTo, Tallis, or Bird, the 

 great mufical luminaries of the fixteenth century, whofe 

 names and works are itill held in the highell reverence, by all 

 Jrue judges and lovers of what appears to us the true and 

 genuine ttyle of choral compofitions. 



This ingenious, learned, and voluminous compofer, is enu- 

 jueratcd, by Lewis Guiceiardini, among Flemilh mnfielans. 

 However, the condaut addition of Pratenfis, or Del Prato, 

 to his name, feems rather to make him a native of Prato, in 

 Tufcany ; and the frequent mention that is made of him by 

 Italian writer.^, implies at leaft, if he was not a native of 

 Italy, that he had lived there, and that his works were very 

 famiUar to them ; for not only by the name of Jofquino, 

 Jodoco del Prato, is he often mentioned by Franchinus, and 

 all the mufical writers of Italy in the next age, as a mod 

 excellent cumpofer, but by inifcellaneous writers, who only 

 fpeak of mufic incidentally. As a proof of this, we need 

 give no better authority than the following paffage in Caftig- 

 lione's admirable «' Cortegiano/' 



J o s 



This author, fpeaking of the operations of prejudice in 

 favour of great names, tells us of the eagernefs anil deliglit 

 with which a polite company of his acquair.tance had read a 

 copy of verfes, fuppofing them to have been written by San- 

 nazaro, who afterwards, when it was cerl;ii;i that they were 

 not of his compofition, thought them execrable. " So like- 

 wife,'' fays one of the interlocutors, "a motet fung before the 

 duchefs of Urbino was unnoticed, till it was known to be 

 the produftion of Jofquin.'' 



Franchinus, enumerating the great muficians of his time, 

 fppcifies Tinftor, Gulielmrs, Guarncrius, Ji fquin de Pret, 

 Gafpar, Agricola, Loyfet, Obrecht, Brumel, Ifaac, and 

 calls them moji ddighiful compofcrs. 



The fame author, in another work, lets us know that he 

 had been perfonaily acquainted with Jofquin : for, fpeaking 

 of fome inaccuracies in the fefquialterate proportion, he fays : 

 " Di quedi inconvenienti ne advertite gia molti anni paiTati 

 Jufquin Defpriet et Gafpar digniflimi Compofitori." This 

 was printed in I JoS, fo that " many years ago," mud throw' 

 thefe conipofers far back into the fifteenth century ; and, he 

 adds, '' though they acquiefced in my opinions, yet, having 

 been corrupted by Img hah'it, they were unable to adopt 

 them.'' 



Zarlino, who likewife fpeaks of him among the prattcipe- 

 rili, gives another inftance of predileftion in favour of Jofquin 

 at Rome, " which," fays he, " was at the expcnce of my 

 friend, the admirable Adrian Willaerl, who has often himfelf 

 confirmed the faft ." The motet " verbum bonum et fuave," 

 for fix voices, having been long performed in the pontifical 

 chapel at Rome, on the feilival of our Lady, as the pro- 

 duftion of Jofquin, was thought to be one of the fined com- 

 pofitions of the time ; but WiUaert, having quitted Flan- 

 ders, in order to vilit Rome, in the time of Leo X. and 

 finding that this motet was fung as the coftipofition of Jof- 

 quin, whofe name was affixed to it in the chapel books, ven- 

 tured to declare it to be his own work, and not that of the 

 famous Jofquin : but fo great was the ignorance, envy, and 

 prejudice of the fingers, that, after this declaration, the 

 motet was never again performed in the pontifical chapel. 



Adami, in his hidorical lid of the fingers in the pope's 

 chapel, mentions Jofquin next to Guido, as one of the great 

 cultivators and fupporters of church mufic ; he cpUs him 

 " Uomo infigne per I'inventione," and fays that lie was a 

 finger in the pontifical chapel during the time of Sixtus IV. 



After quitting Italy, he was appointed maedro di cappclla 

 to Lewis XII. of France, who reigned from 1498 to 

 I J 15, and it is hardly probable that fuch an honour fiiould 

 have been conferred upon him till he had arrived at great emi, 

 nence in his profelTion ; he mud either have acquired the 

 public favour by his works or performance, before he could 

 be noticed by a fovereign ; indeed the impediments to their 

 approximation mud have been reciprocal, and it has been well 

 obferved, that it is as difficult for a prince to get at a man of 

 merit, as it is for a man of merit to approach a prince. 



It is related, that when Jofquin was fird admitted into the 

 fervicc of I^ewis, he had been promifed a benefice by his ma- 

 jedy ; but this prince, contrary to his ufual cudom, for he 

 was in general both jud and liberal, forgot the promife he 

 had made to his maedro di cappella ; when Jofquin, after fuf- 

 fering great inconvenience from the fhortnefs of his majedy's 

 memory, ventured, by a finvular expedient, to remind him 

 publicly of his promife, without giving offence ; for being 

 commanded to compofe a motet for the chapel royal, he 

 chofe part of the 1 19th Pfalm : " Memor edo verbi tui 

 fervotuo ;'' " Oh think of thy fervant, as concerning thy 

 word ;■' which he fet in fo fupplicating and exquifite a man- 

 nerj that it wa» univerfally adnaired, particularly by the 



king, 



