Chapter Jairus's Daughter to Jasper Packlemerton of J by Brewer's Readers Handbook

willing to believe, allowed himself to give credit to the tale.—Chaucer: Canterbury Tales (“The Merchant’s Tale,” 1388).

(Modernized by Ogle and Pope, 1741.)

Jaquemart, the automata of a clock, consisting of a man and woman who strike the hours on a bell. So called from Jean Jaquemart of Dijon, a clockmaker, who devised this piece of mechanism. Menage erroneously derives the word from jaccomarchiardus (“a coat of mail”), “because watchmen watched the clock of Dijon fitted with a jaquemart.”

Jaquenetta, a country wench courted by don Adriano de Armado.—Shakespeare: Love’s Labour’s Lost (1594).

Jaques, one of the lords attendant on the banished duke in the forest of Arden. A philosophic idler, cynical, sullen, contemplative, and moralizing. He could “suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs.” Jaques resents Orlando’s passion for Rosalind, and quits the duke as soon as he is restored to his dukedom.—Shakespeare: As You Like It (1598).

N.B.—Sometimes Shakespeare makes one syllable and sometimes two syllables of the word. Sir W. Scott makes one syllable of it, but Charles Lamb two. For example—

Whom humorous Jaques with envy viewed (I.syl).
   —Sir W Scott.

Where Jaques fed his solitary vein.—Lamb.

The “Jaques”of [Charles M. Young, 1777–1856] is indeed most musical, most melancholy, attuned to the very wood-walks among which he muses.—New Monthly Magazine (1822).

Jaques (I syl), the miser in a comedy by Ben Jonson, entitled The Case is Altered (1574–1637).

Jaques (I syl), servant to Sulpitia a bawd. (See Jacques.)—Fletcher: The Custom of the Country (1647).

Jarley (Mrs., a kind-hearted woman, mistress of a travelling wax-work exhibition, containing “one hundred figures the size of life;” the “only stupendous collection of real wax-work in the world;” “the delight of the nobility and gentry, the royal family, and crowned heads of Europe.” Mrs. Jarley was kind to little Nell, and employed her as a decoyduck to “Jarley’s unrivalled collection.”

If I know’d a donkey wot wouldn’t go
To see Mrs. Jarley’s wax-work show;
Do you think I’d acknowledge him? Oh no, no!
Then run to Jarley.
   —Dickens: The Old Curiosity Shop, xvii. (1840)..

Jarnac (Coup de), a cut which severs the ham-string. So called from a cut given by Jarnac to La Châteigneraie in a duel fought in the presence of Henri II., in 1547.

Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, a Chancery suit “never ending, still beginning,” which had dragged its slow length along over so many years that it had blighted the prospects and ruined the health of all persons interested in its settlement.—Dickens: Bleak House (1852).

Jarndyce (Mr.), client in the great Chancery suit of “Jarndyce v. Jarndyce,” and guardian of Esther Summerson. He concealed the tenderest heart under a flimsy churlishness of demeanour, and could never endure to be thanked for any of his numberless acts of kindness and charity. If anything went wrong with him,or if he heard of an unkind action, he would say, “I am sure the wind is in the east;” but if he heard of kindness or goodness, the wind would veer round at once, and be “due west.”—Dickens: Bleak House (1852).

Jarvie (Bailie Nicol), a magistrate at Glasgow, and kinsman of Rob Roy. He is petulant, conceited, purse- proud, without tact, and intensely prejudiced, but kind-hearted and sincere. Jarvie marries his maid.