Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/326

 the defence of the Thames. Pepys implies that he was a man of dissolute and profane life (Diary, 20 Oct. 1666), speaks of him as ‘a proud, idle fellow,’ whom he suspected of malpractices (ib. 29 Jan. 1668–9), and says that a complaint he brought against his lieutenant, Le Neve, ‘was a drunken quarrel, where one was as blameable as the other’ (ib. 23 Nov. 1666; cf. Cal. State Papers, Dom., 7 Jan. 1664–5). In 1670 Jennens commanded the Princess, in which he conducted a convoy to the Mediterranean, and on his return was imprisoned in the Marshalsea, ‘only,’ as he wrote, ‘for having his wife on board some part of the late voyage, which was no prejudice to the service’ (State Papers, Dom. Charles II, xlviii. 137–8–9. These petitions are calendared in error under 1661? Calendar 1661–2, p. 232.) The Duke of York would seem to have condoned the offence, and in 1673 Jennens commanded the Victory in the several engagements between Prince Rupert and De Ruyter. He was afterwards captain successively of the Gloucester, the French Ruby, and the Royal James guardship at Portsmouth. In July 1686 he was appointed to the Jersey, also a guardship at Portsmouth; and on 20 Feb. 1687–8 he was tried by court-martial for brawling on shore with Captain Skelton of the Constant Warwick, another guardship. They were each reprimanded and fined nine months' pay (Minutes of the Court-martial). On 5 Sept. 1688 he was, notwithstanding, appointed to the Rupert, which was still fitting out in October, but was probably one of the fleet with Lord Dartmouth in November (cf. Memoirs relating to the Lord Torrington, Camden Soc., pp. 25, 29).

When James II abdicated, Jennens went over to France, and entering the French navy, served in some capacity in it in the action off Beachy Head, 30 June 1690. Charnock says ‘he condescended to become third captain to a French admiral;’ and an intercepted letter to another traitor speaks of him as ‘one of their admirals’ (Alice Teate to her husband, Matthew Teate, 16 July, enclosed in Killigrew's letter of 18 July, in Home Office Records, Admiralty, vol. iv.) The French lists do not acknowledge him in either capacity, and it is more probable that he was serving as a volunteer and pilot on Tourville's staff. Nothing more is known of him. 

JENNER, CHARLES (1736–1774), novelist and poet, born in 1736, was the eldest son of Charles Jenner, D.D. (1707–1770), and Mary his wife, daughter of John Sawyer of Heywood, Berkshire. His father, a grandson of Sir Thomas Jenner [q. v.], baron of the exchequer, was a graduate of Brasenose College, Oxford (B.A. 1727, M.A. 1730, and B.D. and D.D. 1743), and became rector of Buckworth, Huntingdonshire, in 1740; chaplain to George II in 1746; prebendary of Lincoln in 1753; and archdeacon of Bedford in 1756, and of Huntingdon in 1757. Pecuniary embarrassments ultimately forced him to leave the country, and he died at St. Omer on 2 Feb. 1770. He published a single sermon in 1753. A portrait is in the possession of his great-grandson, Herbert Jenner-Fust, esq., LL.D., of Hill Court, Gloucestershire.

The son was educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1757 and M.A. in 1760, but afterwards migrated to Sidney Sussex College. In 1769 he was instituted to the living of Claybrook in Leicestershire, which he held with that of Craneford St. John in Northamptonshire. He suffered much through his father's imprudence in money matters, but, according to Nichols, he himself was ‘of an opposite turn.’ He died of a cold caught at Vauxhall on 11 May 1774, aged 38. A monument was erected to his memory in Claybrook Church by Lady Craven, with commemorative verses of her own. According to the historian of his parish, his character, manners, and talents were of a high order. In 1764 he married Rebecca, daughter of William Thomson, but left no issue.

His literary work possesses little originality. His first volume of poems was published in 1766, and in 1767 and 1768 he gained the Seatonian prize at Cambridge for poems on sacred subjects, the first being on ‘The Gift of Tongues,’ the second on ‘The Destruction of Nineveh.’ Another volume of poems, entitled ‘Town Eclogues,’ was published in 1772; 2nd edit. 1773. He also published separately ‘Louisa, a Tale, to which is added an Elegy to the Memory of Lord Lyttelton,’ the original manuscript of which is now in the possession of his great-nephew, the Right Rev. H. L. Jenner, formerly bishop of Dunedin. In 1770 he published anonymously his only novel, ‘The Placid Man, or Memoirs of Sir Charles Beville.’ This attained considerable success, and was republished with his name in 1773. Besides these he published in 1767 a volume of sketches and essays entitled ‘Letters from Altamont to his Friend in the Country,’ and two volumes of miscellaneous papers, entitled ‘Letters from Lothario to Penelope,’ in 1771. This last includes two dramas, ‘Lucinda,’ a dramatic entertainment, and ‘The Man of Family,’ a sentimental comedy; both also