Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/386

 unpublished sources he failed to cover adequately the field of research.

After many years of failing health, which brought his work to an end, Jeaffreson died on 2 Feb. 1901 at his house in Maida Vale, and was buried in Paddington cemetery, Willesden Lane. He married on 2 Oct. 1860, at St. Sepulchre's Church, Holborn, Arabella Ellen, only surviving daughter of William Eccles, F.R.C.S.; she survived him with a daughter who died 28 Sept. 1909. A portrait in oils belonging to Mrs. Jeaffreson was painted after his death by Mary Hector (Mrs. Robb), youngest daughter of 'Mrs. Alexander,' the novelist [see, Suppl. II].

Jeaffreson's chief works, besides those cited, were: 1. 'The Annals of Oxford,' 1870 (a popular compilation which was severely criticised). 2. 'A Young Squire of the Seventeenth Century, from the Papers of [an ancestor] Christopher Jeaffreson of Dullingham House, Cambridgeshire,' 2 vols. 1898. 3. 'A Book of Recollections,' 2 vols. 1894.

 JEBB, RICHARD CLAVERHOUSE (1841–1905), Greek scholar, eldest of the four children of Robert Jebb, an Irish barrister, by his wife Emily Harriet, third daughter of Heneage Horsley, dean of Brechin, was born on 27 Aug. 1841 at Dundee, where his parents were visiting his maternal grandfather, the dean of Brechin; to the place of his birth he owed his second name. His father's grandfather, Richard Jebb, came from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, to settle at Drogheda in Ireland early in the eighteenth century. Richard Jebb, an Irish judge, was his grandfather; John Jebb [q. v.], bishop of Limerick, was his great-uncle.

Jebb's early life was spent in or near Dublin. In 1850 his father retired from the bar, and the family removed from Dublin to Killiney, nine miles off. After receiving early education from his father, Jebb was sent to St. Columba's College, Rathfarnham, in 1853, and two years later to Charterhouse School, still in the City of London, where he remained till 1858. When little more than seventeen he entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in October of the same year. Though few worked harder than Jebb in manhood, his undergraduate years were not devoted exclusively to study; but he had learnt much at school, and his natural gifts—his memory and mastery of language—were altogether exceptional. Without any apparent effort he gained all the highest prizes that Cambridge offered for classical learning: he was Porson scholar in 1859, Craven scholar in 1860, and senior classic and first Chancellor's medallist in 1862. In 1863 he was elected fellow of Trinity College.

For the next twelve years Jebb was a classical lecturer of his college; in 1869 he was elected public orator of the university. Jebb found time and energy for much beyond the duties of these offices. He took part in a re-organisation of classical lectures in the university on the intercollegiate plan; together with Edward Byles Cowell [q. v. Suppl. II] he founded the Cambridge Philological Society in 1868, and was the first secretary; he acted as examiner in London University in 1872; he served for some time on the staff of 'The Times' as leader-writer and reviewer. Besides all this he published four books during this period. To the series called 'Catena Classicorum' he contributed editions of Sophocles' 'Electra' (1867) and of 'Ajax' (1868). An edition of 'The Characters of Theophrastus' followed in 1870, and a collection of translations into Greek and Latin verse in 1873. The editions of Sophocles showed for the first time that schoolbooks may be works of literature; the Theophrastus was so popular that it was soon impossible to procure a copy; the 'Translations,' which included a version of Browning's 'Abt Vogler' into Pindaric metres, a brilliant tour-de-force, were pronounced by experts to be masterpieces of their kind. In 1888 he composed another Pindaric ode addressed to the University of Bologna, which was celebrating the 800th year of its existence; to this effort Tennyson referred when next year he dedicated his 'Demeter and Persephone' to Jebb:

Bear witness you, that yesterday From out the Ghost of Pindar in you Roll'd an Olympian.

In 1875 Jebb left Cambridge on being elected professor of Greek at Glasgow in succession to Edmund Law Lushington [q. v.]. He remained at Glasgow for fourteen years, admirably performing the duties of his chair. Much of the work was elementary, but his teaching was thoroughly business-like and practical: he kept his large classes in excellent order and drilled them methodically in the rudiments. To his advanced students he gave of his best. 