Jasper (Sir), father of Charlotte. He wants her to marry a Mr. Dapper; but she loves Leander, and, to avoid a marriage she dislikes, pretends to be dumb. A mock doctor is called in who discovers the facts of the case, and employs Leander as his apothecary. Leander soon cures the lady with “pills matrimoniac.” In Molière’s Le Médecin Malgré Lui (from which this play is taken) Sir Jasper is called “Géronte” (2 syl.).—H. Fielding, The Mock Doctor.
Jasper Packlemerton, of atrocious memory, one of the chief figures in Mrs. Jarley’s wax work exhibition.
“Jasper courted and married fourteen wives, and destroyed them all by tickling the soles of their feet when they were asleep. On being brought to the scaffold and asked if he was sorry for what he had done, he replied he was only sorry for having let them off so easy. Let this,” said Mrs. Jarley, “be a warning to all young ladies to be particular in the character of the gentleman of their choice. Observe his fingers are curled as if in the act of tickling, and there is a wink in his eyes.”—C. Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, xxviii. (1840).
Jasper Western, otherwise Eau Douce. Gallant young captain of a small schooner cruising among the Thousand Islands, the fast friend of Pathfinder, and unwittingly his rival for the hand of Mabel Dunham, who becomes Mrs. Western.—James Fennimore Cooper, The Pathfinder (1840).
Jaup (Alison), an old woman at Middlemas village[village].—Sir W. Scott, The Surgeons’ Daughter (time, George II.).
Jaup (Saunders), a farmer at Old St. Ronan’s.—Sir. W. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well (time, George III.).
Javan lost his father on the day of his birth, and was brought up in the “patriarch’s glen” by his mother, till she also died. He then sojourned for ten years with the race of Cain, and became the disciple of Jubal, the great musician. He then returned to the glen and fell in love with Zillah; but the glen being invaded by giants, Zillah and Javan, with many others, were taken captives. Enoch reproved the giants; and, as he ascended up to heaven, his mantle fell on Javan, who released the captives, and conducted them back to the glen. The giants were panic-struck by a tempest, and their king was killed by some unknown hand.—James Montgomery, The World Before the Flood (1812).
Javan’s Issue, the Ionians and Greeks generally (Gen. x. 2). Milton uses the expression in Paradise Lost, i. 508.
⁂ In Isaiah lxvi. 19, and in Ezek. xxvii. 13, the word is used for Greeks collectively.
Javert, an officer of police, the impersonation of inexorable law.—Victor Hugo, Les Miserables.