Jessica cannot be called a sketch, or, if a sketch, she is dashed off in glowing colors from the rainbow palette of a Rubens. She has a rich tint of Orientalism shed over her.—Mrs. Jameson.
Jesters. (See Fools.)
Jests (The Father of), Joseph or Joe Miller, an English comic actor, whose name has become a household word for a stale joke (1684-1738). The book of jests which goes by his name was compiled[compiled] by Mr. Mottley, the dramatist (1739). Joe Miller himself never uttered a jest in his life, and it is a lucus a non lucendo to father them on such a taciturn, commonplace dullard.
Jesus Christ and the Clay Bird. The Korân says: “O Jesus, son of Mary, remember ... when thou didst create of clay the figure of a bird ... and did breathe thereon, and it became a bird!”—Ch. v.
The allusion is to a legend that Jesus was playing with other children who amused themselves with making clay birds, but when the child Jesus breathed on the one He had made, it instantly received life and flew away.—Hone, Apocryphal New Testament (1820).
Jew (The), a comedy by R. Cumberland (1776), written to disabuse the public mind of unjust prejudices against a people who have been long “scattered and peeled.” The Jew is Sheva, who was rescued at Cadiz from an auto da fe, by Don Carlos, and from a howling London mob by the son of Don Carlos, called Charles Ratcliffe. His whole life is spent in unostentatious benevolence, but his modesty is equal to his philanthropy. He gives £10,000 as a marriage portion to Ratcliffe’s sister, who marries Frederick Bertram, and he makes Charles the heir of all his property.
Jew (The).
This is the Jew.
That Shakespeare drew
This couplet was written by Pope, and refers to the “Shylock” of Charles Macklin (1690-1797).