Joe, “the fat boy,” page in the family of Mr. Wardle. He has an unlimited capacity for eating and sleeping.—C. Dickens, The Pickwick Papers (1836).
Joe Gargery, a smith. He was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and with eyes of “such very undecided blue, that they seemed to have got mixed with their own whites. He was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow. A Herculês in strength, and in weakness also.” He lived in terror of his wife, but loved Pip, whom he brought up. His great word was “meantersay.” Thus: “What I meantersay, if you come a-badgering me, come out. Which I meantersay as sech, if you’re a man, come on. Which I meantersay that what I say I meantersay and stand to it” (ch. xviii.). His first wife was a shrew; but soon after her death he married Biddy, a young woman wholly suited to him.
Mrs. Joe Gargery, the smith’s first wife; a “rampageous woman,” always “on the ram-page.” By no means good-looking was Mrs. Joe, with her black hair and fierce eyes, and prevailing redness of skin, looking as if “she scrubbed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap and flannel.” She “was tall and bony, and wore a coarse apron fastened over her figure behind with two loops, and having a square bib in front, stuck full of needles and pins.” She brought up Pip, but made his home as wretched as she could, always keeping a rod called “Tickler” ready for immediate use. Mrs. Joe was a very clean woman, and cleanliness is next to godliness; but Mrs. Joe had the art of making her cleanliness as disagreeable to every one as many people do their godliness. She died after a long illness.—C. Dickens, Great Expectations (1860).
John, a proverbially unhappy name for royalty.—See Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 461.
We shall see, however, that this poor king [Robert II.] remained as unfortunate as if his name had still been John [He changed it from John to Robert].—Sir W. Scott, Tales of a Grandfather, i. 17.
John, a Franciscan friar.—Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1598).
John, the bastard brother of Don Pedro.—Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing (1600).
John, the driver of the Queen’s Ferry diligence.—Sir W. Scott, The Antiquary (time, George III.).
John Andruss. Clever fellow, but weak in principles, who becomes once and again a tool in the hands of designing men and silly women, rallying after each fall, to attempt a better life. Drowned at last in rescuing a fellow-bather from the surf[surf], the bather being the “Anna” of his early idolatry, now the fat, ruddy wife of another man.—Rebecca Harding Davis, John Andruss.
John (Don), brother of Leonato, governor of Messina, whom he hates. In order to torment the governor, Don John tries to mar the happiness of his daughter Hero, who is about to be married to Lord Claudio. Don John tells Claudio that his fiancée has promised him a rendezvous by moonlight, and if Claudio will hide in the garden, he may witness it. The villain had bribed the waiting-woman of Hero to dress up in her mistress’s clothes and to give him this interview. Claudio believes the woman to be Hero, and when the bride appears at the altar next morning, he rejects her with scorn. The truth, however, comes to light; Don John takes himself to flight; and Hero is married to Lord Claudio, the man of her choice.—Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing (1600).