[Johnson, Andrew], American President, born at Raleigh, N. Carolina; was entirely self-educated, and became a tailor; settling in Tennessee he entered the State legislature in 1839; he sat in Congress from 1843 till 1853; was for four years Governor of Tennessee, and sat in the Senate from 1857 to 1863; though in favour of slavery, he discountenanced secession and supported Lincoln, whom he succeeded as President in 1865, and whose policy he continued; but he lost the confidence of Congress, which indeed he treated somewhat cavalierly; his removal of Secretary Stanton led to his impeachment for violation of the Tenure of Office Act; he was tried before the Senate, but acquitted, and completed his term (1808-1875).
[Johnson, Samuel], the great English lexicographer, born in Lichfield, the son of a bookseller; received his early education in his native town and completed it at Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1728; in 1736 he married a widow named Porter, who brought him £800; started a boarding-school, which did not prosper, and in the end of a year he removed to London along with David Garrick, who had been a pupil under him; here he became connected with Cave, a printer, the proprietor of the Gentleman's Magazine, with whom he had previously corresponded, and contributed to the pages of the magazine, earning thereby a meagre livelihood, eking out his means by reporting Parliamentary debates in terms which expressed the drift of them, but in his own pompous language; in 1740 he published a poem entitled the "Vanity of Human Wishes," and about the same time commenced his world-famous Dictionary, which was Published in 1755, "a great, solid, square-built edifice, finished, symmetrically complete, the best of all dictionaries"; during the progress of the Dictionary Johnson edited the Rambler, writing most of the contents himself, carrying it on for two years; in 1758 he started the Idler; in 1762 the king granted him a pension of £300, and by this he was raised above the straitened circumstances which till then had all along weighed upon him, and able to live in comparative affluence for the last 22 years of his life; five years after he instituted the Literary Club, which consisted of the most celebrated men of the time, his biographer, Boswell, having by this time been introduced to him, as subsequently the family of Mr. Thrale; in 1770 he began his "Lives of the English Poets," and in 1773 he made a tour in the Highlands along with Boswell, of which journey he shortly afterwards published an account; Johnson's writings are now dead, as are many of his opinions, but the story of his life as written by [Boswell] (q. v.) will last as long as men revere those qualities of mind and heart that distinguish the English race, of which he is the typical representative (1709-1783).
[Johnston, Alexander Keith], cartographer, born at Kirkhill, Midlothian; was an engraver by trade, and devoted himself with singular success to the preparation of atlases; the "National Atlas" was published in 1843, and the "Royal Atlas of Geography" (1861) was the finest till then produced; he also executed atlases physical, geological, and astronomical, and constructed the first physical globe; honours were showered upon him by home and foreign geographical societies; he died at Ben Rhydding (1804-1871).
[Johnston, James Finlay Weir], agricultural chemist, born at Paisley, educated at Glasgow; acquired a fortune by his marriage in 1830, and devoted himself to studying chemistry; after some years in Sweden he was chosen lecturer in Durham University, but he resided in Edinburgh, and wrote his "Catechism of Agricultural Chemistry," since translated into most European languages, and his "Chemistry of Common Life"; he died at Durham (1796-1855).
[Johnstone] (10), a Renfrewshire manufacturing town, on the Black Cart, 3½ m. W. of Paisley; has flax, cotton, paper, and iron industries.
[Johnstown] (22), a city of Pennsylvania, engaged in iron and steel manufactures; was overwhelmed by the bursting of a reservoir, May 31, 1889.
[Johore] (200), a Mohammedan State in the S. of the Malayan Peninsula, 15 m. N. of Singapore; half the population are Chinese; exports gambier, pepper, and coffee.
[Joinville, Jean, Sire de], French chronicler, seneschal of Champagne, born in Châlons-sur-Marne; author of the "Vie de St. Louis"; followed Louis IX. in the crusade of 1248, but refused to join in that of 1270; he lived through six reigns, and his biography of his sovereign is one of the most remarkable books of the Middle Ages; his "Vie de St. Louis" deals chiefly with the Crusade, and is, says Prof. Saintsbury, "one of the most circumstantial records we have of mediæval life and thought"; it is gossipy, and abounds in digressions (1224-1319).
[Jokai Maurice] or Moritz, Hungarian novelist and voluminous author, born at Komorn; published his first novel, "Working Days," in 1845; in 1848 took a prominent part in the Hungarian struggle, but afterwards devoted himself to literature; wrote over 300 books, novels, romances, dramas, essays, and poems, and edited several newspapers; his work resuscitated Hungarian literature; was in his old age an able debater in the House of Representatives; b. 1825.
[Jonah], a Hebrew prophet, who, born in Gathhepher, belonged to the northern kingdom of Israel; prophesied in the reign of Jeroboam II., and whose special mission it was, at the bidding of the Lord, to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh; his book, which records his mission and the story of it, written apparently, as by God's dealings with the Ninevites he had himself been, to admonish the Jews that the heathen nations whom they regarded as God's enemies were as much the objects of His mercy as themselves.