Chapter Jellyby to Jeremy Diddler of J by Brewer's Readers Handbook

For our own part, we must admit that we have never been able to treat with due gravity any allusion to the learned speculations of Manetho, Berosius, or San. choniathon, from their indissoluble connection in our mind with the finished cosmogony of Jenkinson.—Encyclopadia Britannica (article, “Romance”).

Jennie, housekeeper to the old laird of Dumbiedikes.—Sir W. Scott: Heart of Midlothian (time, George II.).

Jenny [Diver]. Captain Macheath says, “What, my pretty Jenny! as prim and demure as ever? There’s not a prude, though ever so high bred, hath a more sanctified look, with a more mischievous heart.” She pretends to love Macheath, but craftily secures one of his pistols, that his other “pals” may the more easily betray him into the hands of the constables (act ii. sc. 1).—Gay: The Beggar’s Opera (1727).

Jenny l’Ouvrière, the type of a hard-working Parisian needlewoman. She is contented with a few windowflowers which she terms “her garden,” a caged bird which she calls “her songster;” and when she gives the fragments of her food to some one poorer than herself, she calls it “her delight.”

Entendez-vous un oiseau familier?
C’est le chanteur de Jenny l’Ouvrièrc,
Au cœur content, content de peu
Elle pourrait être riche, et préfère,
Ce qui vient de Dieu.
   —Emile Barateau (1847).

Jephthah’s Daughter. When Jephthah went forth against the Ammonites, he vowed that if he returned victorious he would sacrifice, as a burnt offering, whatever first met him on his entrance into his native city. He gained a splendid victory, and at the news thereof his only daughter came forth dancing to give him welcome. The miserable father rent his clothes in agony, but the noble-spirited maiden would not hear of his violating the vow. She demanded a short respite, to bewail upon the mountains her blighted hope of becoming a mother, and then submitted to her fate.—Judg. xi.

An almost identical tale is told of Idomeneus king of Crete. On his return from the Trojan war, he made a vow in a tempest that, if he escaped, he would offer to Neptune the first living creature that presented itself to his eye on the Cretan shore. His own son was there to welcome him home, and Idomeneus offered him up a sacrifice to the sea-god, according to his vow. Fénelon has introduced this legend in his Télémaque, v.

Agamemnon vowed to Diana, if he might be blessed with a child, that he wou ld sacrifice to her the dearest of all his possessions. Iphigenia, his infant daughter, was, of course, his “dearest possession;” but he refused to sacrifice her, and thus incurred the wrath of the goddess, which resulted in the detention of the Trojan fleet at Aulis, Iphigenia being offered in sacrifice, the offended deity was satisfied, and interposed at the critical moment, by carrying the princess to Tauris and substituting a stag in her stead.

The latter part of this talc cannot fail to call to mind the offering of Abraham. As he was about to take the life of Isaac, Jehovah interposed, and a ram was substituted for the human victim.—Gen. xxii.

[Be] not bent as Jephthah once,
Blindly to execute a rash resolve;
Whom better it had suited to exclaim,
“I have done ill!” than to redeem his pledge
By doing worse. Not unlike to him
In folly that great leader of the Greeks—
Whence, on the altar Iphigenia mourned
Her virgin beauty.
   —Dante: Paradise, v. (1311).

Iphigenia, in Greek, Ifigeneia, is accented incorrectly in this translation by Cary.

Jephthah’s daughter has often been dramatized. Thus we have in English Jephthah his Daughter, by Plessie Morney; Jephthah (1546), by Christopherson; Jephthah, by Buchanan (1554); and Jephthah (an opera, 1752), by Handel.

Percy, in his Reliques (bk. ii. 3), has inserted a ballad called Jephthah, Judge of Israel, which Hamlet quotes (act ii. sc. 2)—

Hamlet: O Jeptha, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!