Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/774

 J N J O N of the French capital. In the same year appeared his grammar of the Persian language (9th ed., with corrections and additions by Samuel Lee, D.D., Lond., 1828), which is still considered one of the best text-books on the subject. In 1772 Jones published a small volume of poems, chiefly translations from Asiatic languages, together with two elegant essays on the poetry of Eastern nations and on the arts commonly called imitative. His next publication, which appeared in 1774, was a treatise entitled Poeseos Asiaticse, commentariorum libri sex, the chief aim of which was to familiarize the European mind with the genius of Oriental poetry. Being now admitted to the bar, Jones determined to give up all his energies to his legal studies, and renounced polite literature for some years. Setting to work with the same eagerness which he displayed in the pursuit of all other kinds of knowledge, he made it his endeavour; not merely to master the technicalities of law, but to devote himself to it as a branch of philosophy. Having within two years acquired a considerable legal reputation, he was in 1776 appointed commissioner of bankrupts. In 1780 he was induced by his friends to come forward as a candidate for the representation of the university of Oxford in parlia ment, but he withdrew from the contest before the day of election, as he found he had no chance of success, owing to the liberal principles he held, especially on the questions of the American war and of the slave trade. In the winter of 1780-81 he found leisure to complete his translation of the seven ancient Arabic poems called MoallaTcdt, Besides writing an Essay on the Law of Bail ments, Jones translated in 1781 the speeches of ISOBUS on the right of inheritance, and an Arabian poem on the Mahometan law of succession to the property of intestates, as bearing on his legal studies. The hopes which he had for some time entertained of obtaining a seat on the judicial bench in Bengal, were at last gratified on the accession to power of the Shelburne administration, by which he was in 1783 appointed a judge of the supreme court of judicature at Fort William, at the same time receiving the honour of knighthood. Shortly after his arrival in Calcutta he founded, in January 1784, the Asiatic Society, of which he remained president till his death. Convinced as he was of the great importance of consulting the Hindu legal authorities in the original, he lost no time in commencing the study of Sanskrit. Having in a few years made himself complete master of the language, he undertook, in 1788, the task of compiling a digest of Hindu and Mahometan law, the completion of which he did not live to see ; the work was finished, however, by Colebrooke, who edited it at Calcutta in 1800 under the title of Digest of Hindu Laws. In 1789 Sir William Jones published the first volume of Asiatic Researches and his translation of /Sakuntald, the most famous play of Kalidasa, the greatest Indian dramatist. He also translated the well-known collection of fables entitled the Ilitopadept, the GUagovinda, an erotic poem by Jayadeva, and considerable portions of the Veda, besides editing the text of the Ritusamhara, a short but celebrated poem by Kalidasa. His last work, which appeared in 1794, was the translation of the Institutes of Manu, a compilation of laws and ordinances, dating from the 5th century B.C. Sir William s unremitting literary labours, together with the conscientious performance of his heavy judicial work, could not fail to tell on his health after a ten years residence in the climate of Bengal ; and he was about to return to England when a sudden attack of inflammation of the liver carried him off in the forty-eighth year of his age (April 27, 1794). The amount of labour of various kinds which Sir William Jones compressed into the space of a comparatively short life seems almost incredible. In addition to numerous other acquirements, he knew thirteen languages well, and had an elementary acquaintance with twenty-eight others. His capacity for assimilating and reproducing knowledge of every sort was almost unparalleled. But Ins works, though they display a vast amount of learning, do not bear the stamp of genius. He shows no originality either in discovering new truths or in placing old truths in a new light. Had he concentrated Iris powers, his extraordinary industry might have secured him great ness in some one branch of knowledge ; but their diffusion over too great a surface contributed greatly to that weakness which is so manifest both -in his style and in his critical faculty. His chief claim to the remembrance of posterity will rest on the fact that by founding the Asiatic Society he rendered the language and litera ture of the ancient Hindus accessible to European scholars, and thus became the indirect cause of the splendid achievements in the field of Sanskrit and comparative philology which the present century has witnessed. Sir William Jones s complete works were edited in 1799 (C vols. 4to), and reprinted in 1807 (13 vols. 8vo). Lord Teignmontli published memoirs of liis life, writings, and correspondence in 1807 (new ed. 1835, 2 vols. Svo); and an autobio graphy, published by his son, was printed in 1846. (A. A. M.) JONES, WILLIAM (1726-1800), a divine of the Church of England, and one of the principal followers of John Hutchinson, was born at Lowick, Northamptonshire, July 30, 1726. By his father s side he was descended from an old Welsh family, and one of his progenitors was Colonel Jones, brother-in-law of Cromwell. He was educated at Charterhouse school, from which he received an exhibition to University College, Oxford. There a kindred taste for music, as well as a similarity in regard to other points of character, led to his close intimacy with George Home, afterwards bishop of Norwich, who, chiefly through his arguments, was induced to embrace Hutchinsonian doc trines. After obtaining his bachelor s degree in 1749, Jones was curate successively at Finedon and Waddenhoe in Northamptonshire. In 1764 he was presented to the vicarage of Bethersden in Kent, and shortly afterwards to the rectory of Pluckley in the same county, where he took up his residence. In 1776 he removed to Nayland, Suffolk, of which he obtained the perpetual curacy, and, although in 1798 he became rector of Hollingbourn, Kent, he con tinued to reside at Nayland till his death, 6th January 1800. In 1756 Jones published his tractate On the Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity, a statement of the doctrine from the Hutchinsonian point of view, with a succinct and able summary of Scriptural proofs. This was followed in 1762 by an Essay on the First Prin ciples of Natural Philosophy, in which he maintained the theories of Hutchinson in opposition to those of Sir Isaac Newton, and in 1781 he gave a more extended exposition of his opinions in Physio logical Disquisitions. Among his other works arc Lectures on the Figurative Language of the Holy Scripture, 1786; The Scholar Armed, 1792; and a life of Bishop Home, prefixed to Home s collected Works, 1795. Jones was also the originator of the British Critic, the first number of which appeared in May 1793. His col lected works, with a life by W. Steevens, appeared in 1801, in 12 vols., and his theological and miscellaneous works with life were reprinted in 1810. Since that tinje various editions of his works have appeared, as well as some volumes of his sermons. A life of Jones, forming part 5 of the Biography of English Divines, was published in 1849. JONKOPING, a town of Sweden, at the head of the Ian of the same name, in 57 48 N. lat., about 170 miles south-west of Stockholm, and 80 east of Gothenburg. It occupies a beautiful but somewhat unhealthy position in a valley between the southern end of Lake Wetter and two smaller lakes known as the Rocksjo and the Munksjo ; the very names, indeed, of two parts of the town, the Tyska Mad and the Svenska Mad, refer to the time when the site was a marsh and the buildings had to be erected on piles. The church of St Christina, dating from 1649-1673, the supreme court (built as a private enterprise in 1665), the town-house (rebuilt after the conflagration of 1691), the buildings of the provincial administration, the artillery barracks, a theatre, and the high school are the more note worthy edifices. Jonkoping is well known as the seat of a great safety-match factory, which produced in 1860