JONES, EBENEZER (1820-1860). —Poet, wrote a good deal of poetry of very unequal merit, but at his best shows a true poetic vein. He was befriended by Browning and Rossetti. His chief work was Studies of Sensation and Event (1843). His most widely appreciated poems were "To the Snow," "To Death," and "When the World is Burning." He made an unhappy marriage, which ended in a separation.
JONES, ERNEST CHARLES (1819-1869). —Poet, novelist, and Chartist, s. of Major J., equerry to the Duke of Cumberland, afterwards King of Hanover, was b. at Berlin. He adopted the views of the Chartists in an extreme form, and was imprisoned for two years for seditious speeches, and on his release conducted a Chartist newspaper. Afterwards, when the agitation had died down, he returned to his practice as a barrister, which he had deserted, and also wrote largely. He produced a number of novels, including The Maid of Warsaw, Woman's Wrongs, and The Painter of Florence, also some poems, The Battle Day (1855), The Revolt of Hindostan (1857), and Corayda (1859). Some of his lyrics, such as The Song of the Poor, The Song of the Day Labourers, and The Factory Slave, were well known.
JONES, SIR WILLIAM (1746-1794). —Orientalist and jurist, was b. in London, and ed. at Harrow and Oxf. He lost his f., an eminent mathematician, at 3 years of age. He early showed extraordinary aptitude for acquiring languages, specially those of the East, and learned 28. Devoting himself to the study of law he became one of the most profound jurists of his time. He was appointed one of the Judges in the Supreme Court of Bengal, knighted in 1783, and started for India, whence he never returned. While there, in addition to his judicial duties, he pursued his studies in Oriental languages, from which he made various translations. Among his original works are The Enchanted Fruit, and A Treatise on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India. He founded the Bengal Asiatic Society. He left various works unfinished which, with his other writings, were coll. and ed. by Lord Teignmouth. He d. universally beloved and honoured at the early age of 48. His chief legal work was The Institutes of Hindu Law or the Ordinances of Manu.
JONSON, BEN or BENJAMIN (1573-1637). —Poet and dramatist, was probably b. in Westminster. His f., who d. before Ben was four, seems to have come from Carlisle, and the family to have originally belonged to Annandale. He was sent to Westminster School, for which he seems to have been indebted to the kindness of [W. Camden] (q.v.), who was one of the masters. His mother, meanwhile, had m. a bricklayer, and he was for a time put to that trade, but disliking it, he ran away and joined the army, fighting against the Spaniards in the Low Countries. Returning to England about 1592 he took to the stage, both as an actor and as a playwright. In the former capacity he was unsuccessful. In 1598, having killed a fellow-actor in a duel, he was tried for murder, but escaped by benefit of clergy. About the same time he joined the Roman Catholic Church, in which he remained for 12 years. It was in 1598 also that his first successful play, Every Man in his Humour, was produced, with Shakespeare as one of the players. Every Man out of his Humour (1599), Cynthia's Revels (1600), and The Poetaster (1601), satirising the citizens, the courtiers, and the poets respectively, followed. The last called forth several replies, the most notable of which was the Satiromastix (Whip for the Satirist) of [Dekker] (q.v.), a severe, though not altogether unfriendly, retort, which J. took in good part, announcing his intention of leaving off satire and trying tragedy. His first work in this kind was Sejanus (1603), which was not very favourably received. It was followed by Eastward Ho, in which he collaborated with Marston and Chapman. Certain reflections on Scotland gave offence to James I., and the authors were imprisoned, but soon released. From the beginning of the new reign J. devoted himself largely to the writing of Court masques, in which he excelled all his contemporaries, and about the same time entered upon the production of the three great plays in which his full strength is shown. The first of these, Volpone, or the Fox, appeared in 1605; Epicæne, or the Silent Woman in 1609, and The Alchemist in 1610. His second and last tragedy, Catiline, was produced in 1611. Two years later he was in France as companion to the son of Sir W. Raleigh, and on his return he held up hypocritical Puritanism to scorn in Bartholomew Fair, which was followed in 1616 by a comedy, The Devil is an Ass. In the same year he coll. his writings—plays, poems, and epigrams—in a folio entitled his Works. In 1618 he journeyed on foot to Scotland, where he was received with much honour, and paid his famous visit to [Drummond] (q.v.) at Hawthornden. His last successful play, The Staple of Newes, was produced in 1625, and in the same year he had his first stroke of palsy, from which he never entirely recovered. His next play, The New Inn, was driven from the stage, for which in its rapid degeneracy he had become too learned and too moral. A quarrel with Inigo Jones, the architect, who furnished the machinery for the Court masques, lost him Court favour, and he was obliged, with failing powers, to turn again to the stage, for which his last plays, The Magnetic Lady and The Tale of a Tub, were written in 1632 and 1633. Town and Court favour, however, turned again, and he received a pension of £100; that of the best poets and lovers of literature he had always kept. The older poets were his friends, the younger were proud to call themselves, and be called by him, his sons. In 1637, after some years of gradually failing health, he d., and was buried in Westminster Abbey. An admirer caused a mason to cut on the slab over his grave the well-known inscription, "O Rare Ben Jonson." He left a fragment, The Sad Shepherd. His works include a number of epigrams and translations, collections of poems (Underwoods and The Forest); in prose a book of short essays and notes on various subjects, Discoveries.
J. was the founder of a new style of English comedy, original, powerful, and interesting, but lacking in spontaneity and nature. His characters tend to become mere impersonations of some one quality or "humour," as he called it. Thus he is the herald, though a magnificent one, of decadence. He painted in general with a powerful, but heavy hand; in his masques, however, he often shows a singular gracefulness, especially in the lyrics which he introduces. His character, as given by Drummond, is not a particularly attractive one, "a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others, given rather to lose a friend than a jest, jealous of every word and action of those about him, especially after drink ... a dissembler of ill parts which reign in him, a bragger of some good that he wanteth ... passionately kind and angry ... oppressed with fantasy which hath ever mastered his reason." There must, however, have been far other qualities in a man who could command, as J. undoubtedly did, the goodwill and admiration of so many of the finest minds of his time. In person he was tall, swarthy, marked with small-pox, and in later years burly.
SUMMARY.—B. 1573, ed. Westminster School, serves in Low Countries, returns to England 1592, and takes to stage, kills actor in brawl 1598, a Romanist c. 1598-c. 1610, Every Man in his Humour 1598, Every Man out of his Humour 1599, and other plays till 1633, coll. works pub. 1616, visits Drummond 1618, loses and recovers Court favour, d. 1637.
Among the ed. of J.'s works may be mentioned those of Gifford (9 vols., 1816), re-issued (1875), selected plays Mermaid Series (3 vols., 1893-5), Morley (1884), and Symonds (1886). Lives and studies by Symonds (English Worthies), and Swinburne (1890).