JONES, PAUL, a naval adventurer, whose real name was John Paul, born in Kirkcudbright, Scotland, son of a gardener; took to the sea, engaged in the slave-trade, settled in Virginia, threw in his lot with the colonists and against the mother-country, and offered his services as a sea-captain in the war with a ship of 18 guns; he in 1778 infested the British coast, and made a descent on the shores of his native county; his sympathies were with the French in their struggles for liberty, and he fought in their service as well, making the “proud Forth quake at his bellying sails,” and capturing two British war-vessels off Flamborough Head; he died in Paris, where he languished in poverty, but the National Assembly granted him a “ceremonial funeral,” attended by a deputation; “as good,” reflects Carlyle in his apostrophe to him—­“as good had been the natural Presbyterian kirk-bell, and six feet of Scottish earth, among the dust of thy loved ones” (1747-1792).

JONES, SIR WILLIAM, English Orientalist, born in London; passed through Oxford to the English bar in 1774, and was made a judge in Bengal in 1783; early devoted to Eastern languages and literature, he published numerous translations and other works, concluding with “Sakuntala” and “The Laws of Manu”; he founded the Asiatic Society at Calcutta, where he died (1746-1794).

JONGLEURS, were mediaeval minstrels of Provence and Northern France, who sang and often composed songs and tales, but whose jesting and buffoonery distinguished them from the knightly troubadours and trouveres.

JONSON, BEN, dramatist, born at Westminster, posthumous son of a clergyman of Scottish descent; was in his youth first a bricklayer, afterwards a soldier in the Netherlands, whence he returned about 1592; married a shrew, and became connected with the stage; he was one of the most learned men of his age, and for forty years the foremost, except Shakespeare, in the dramatic and literary world; killing his challenger in a duel nearly cost him his life in 1598; he was branded on the left thumb, imprisoned, and his goods confiscated; in prison he turned Catholic, but twelve years later reverted to Protestantism; the opening of the century brought an unpleasant difference with Dekker and Marston, and saw the famous Mermaid Club at its zenith; for nine years after Shakespeare’s death he produced no dramas; in 1619 he received a degree, M.A., from Oxford, the laureateship, and a small pension from the king; now a widower, he founded with Herrick, Suckling, Carew, and others the Apollo Club at the Devil Tavern; in the new reign he turned again to dramatic work with sadly diminished power; he died in poverty, but was buried in Westminster Abbey, his tombstone bearing the words “O rare Ben Jonson”; he wrote at least sixteen plays, among them “Every Man is his Humour” (1598), in which Shakespeare acted, “The Poetaster” (1601), which vexed Dekker, the tragedy of “Sejanus” (1603), “The Silent Woman” (1609), a farcical comedy, Dryden’s favourite play, and his most elaborate and masterly work, “The Alchemist” (1610); he wrote also thirty-five masques of singular richness and grace, in the production of which Inigo Jones provided the mechanism; but his best work was his lyrics, first of which stands “Drink to me only with thine eyes,” whose exquisite delicacy and beauty everybody knows (1573-1637).