JAMES I., KING of SCOTLAND (1394-1437).—­Poet, the third s. of Robert III., was b. at Dunfermline.  In 1406 he was sent for safety and education to France, but on the voyage was taken prisoner by an English ship, and conveyed to England, where until 1824 he remained confined in various places, but chiefly in the Tower of London.  He was then ransomed and, after his marriage to Lady Jane or Joan Beaufort, dau. of the Duke of Somerset, and the heroine of The King’s Quhair (or Book), crowned at Scone.  While in England he had been carefully ed., and on his return to his native country endeavoured to reduce its turbulent nobility to due subjection, and to introduce various reforms.  His efforts, however, which do not appear to have been always marked by prudence, ended disastrously in his assassination in the monastery of the Black Friars, Perth, in February, 1437.  J. was a man of great natural capacity both intellectual and practical—­an ardent student and a poet of no mean order.  In addition to The King’s Quhair, one of the finest love poems in existence, and A Ballad of Good Counsel, which are very generally attributed to him, he has been more doubtfully credited with Peeblis to the Play and Christis Kirke on the Greene.

JAMES, GEORGE PAYNE RAINSFORD (1801-1860).—­Novelist and historical writer, s. of a physician in London, was for many years British Consul at various places in the United States and on the Continent.  At an early age he began to write romances, and continued his production with such industry that his works reach to 100 vols.  This excessive rapidity was fatal to his permanent reputation; but his books had considerable immediate popularity.  Among them are Richelieu (1829), Philip Augustus (1831), The Man at Arms (1840), The Huguenot (1838), The Robber, Henry of Guise (1839), Agincourt (1844), The King’s Highway (1840).  In addition to his novels he wrote Memoirs of Great Commanders, a Life of the Black Prince, and other historical and biographical works.  He held the honorary office of Historiographer Royal.

JAMESON, MRS. ANNA BROWNELL (MURPHY) (1794-1860).—­Writer on art, dau. of Denis B.M., a distinguished miniature painter, m. Robert Jameson, a barrister (afterwards Attorney-General of Ontario).  The union, however, did not turn out happily:  a separation took place, and Mrs. J. turned her attention to literature, and specially to subjects connected with art.  Among many other works she produced Loves of the Poets (1829), Celebrated Female Sovereigns (1831), Beauties of the Court of Charles II. (1833), Rubens (translated from the German), Hand Book to the Galleries of Art, Early Italian Painters, Sacred and Legendary Art (1848), etc.  Her works show knowledge and discrimination and, though now in many respects superseded, still retain interest and value.