Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/133

  work of his, described by Munk as an extraordinary and perfectly unintelligible book, containing 371 octavo pages of small print, is entitled ‘The Mysteries of Opium Reveal'd’ (London, 1700, 8vo), of which there was a reissue dated 1701. A religious work in Welsh, called ‘Holl dd'ledswydd Cristion … a gyfieithiwyd gan Rees Lewys’ (Shrewsbury, 1714, 8vo), is said to be a translation by Rees Lewis, a schoolmaster at Llanwonno, Glamorganshire, of a work by Jones probably unpublished. Previous to 1676 Jones had invented an ingenious clock, which is described in detail by Robert Plot in ‘Natural History of Oxfordshire’ (p. 230). It ‘moved by the air equally expressed out of bellows of a cylindrical form falling into folds in its descent, much after the manner of paper lanterns.’

 JONES, JOHN (1693–1752), editor of Horace, son of William Jones, an apothecary, was born in the Old Jewry, London, on 31 Aug. 1693. He entered Merchant Taylors' School on 12 Sept. 1703, was elected to a scholarship at St. John's College, Oxford, in 1712, and graduated B.A. in 1716, and B.C.L. on 9 April 1720. He became head-master of Oundle school in Northamptonshire in 1718. Dr. Edmund Gibson, bishop of London, is said to have been ‘continually teazed for preferment by his kinsman Jones,’ whom he collated in 1743 to the rectory of Uppingham in Rutland. Jones held the benefice until his death, and was buried at Uppingham on 20 July 1752. An anonymous letter written by Jones, and putting some ‘shrewd questions’ to Dr. Richard Newton, the author of ‘Pluralities Indefensible,’ is published in the third edition of that work, London, 1745, 8vo. Jones also edited the works of Horace, London, 1736, 4to. The edition, a few copies of which were printed on large paper, contains Latin notes and various readings, and is dedicated to the Duke of Rutland.

 JONES, JOHN (1700–1770), controversialist, was born, in all probability at Carmarthen, in 1700, and was admitted to Worcester College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1721. For a time he acted as chaplain of that society. From college he went to the curacy of King's Walden in Hertfordshire. In 1726 or thereabouts he became curate at Abbot's Ripton, Huntingdonshire, devoting his leisure to compiling for the London booksellers.

About 1741 he removed to the ‘poor and troublesome vicarage’ of Alconbury, near Huntingdon. There he ‘laboured both publicly and privately to preserve his parishioners steady to their protestant principles in the time of the rebellion (1745),’ but his difficulty in collecting the small tithes led him to relinquish the vicarage in 1750. In the same year he obtained the rectory of Bolnhurst in Bedfordshire, but complained that the locality did not suit his health, and ‘at Michaelmas 1757’ he accepted the curacy of Welwyn in Hertfordshire from Edward Young [q. v.], author of the ‘Night Thoughts.’ He remained at Welwyn until 1765, when Young died, and he acted as one of his executors, receiving a legacy of 200l. In the following year he wrote: ‘I am now (in the sixty-sixth year of my age, and after all my honest and best labours) unprovided of a proper retreat to go to.’ As a result of appeals to friends for assistance, Jones was in April 1767 inducted into the vicarage of Shephall or Sheephall, Hertfordshire, where he continued until his death on 8 Aug. 1770. He was unmarried. Jones is described as a plain, honest, well-read divine, of simple and retired manners. Nichols says of him that he was ‘diligent in his clerical functions and indefatigable in his studies, but not without affecting a mysterious secrecy even in trifles, and excessively cautious of giving offence to the higher powers.’

In 1749 Jones published anonymously ‘Free and Candid Disquisitions relating to the Church of England, and the means of advancing Religion therein.’ The book was a collection of short passages selected from the writings of eminent Anglican divines, all advocating the necessity or expediency of a trenchant revision of the liturgy, and suggesting amendments and alterations. A warm controversy ensued, but from an excess of timidity Jones preserved his anonymity (cf. his letters to Dr. Birch in Sloane MSS. Brit. Mus. 4049, 4311). It was long believed that the ‘Free and Candid Disquisitions’ was the composition of Archdeacon Blackburne, who was a friend of Jones, and had perused the greater part of the work in manuscript; Blackburne wrote a pamphlet in its defence. In 1750 Jones published ‘An Appeal to Common Reason and Candour, in behalf of a Review submitted to the Serious Consideration of all Unprejudiced Members of the Church of England.’ Shortly before leaving Welwyn Jones published ‘Catholic Faith and Practice: being Considerations of Present Use