Chapter Jack-a-Dandy to Jacobins of J by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Jacksonian Professor The professor of natural and experimental philosophy in the University of Cambridge. This professorship was founded in 1783 by the Rev. Richard Jackson.

Jacob the Scourge of Grammar Giles Jacob, master of Romsey, in Hampshire, brought up for an attorney. A poetaster in the time of Pope. (See Dunciad, iii.)

Jacob's Ladder A ladder seen by the patriarch Jacob in a vision. It was set on the earth, and reached to heaven, and angels seemed to be ascending and descending on it (Gen. xxviii. 12). Jacob is, on this account, a cant name for a ladder. There is a pretty blue flower so called.

Jacob's Staff An instrument for taking heights and distances.

"Reach then a soaring quill, that I may write
As with a Jacob's staff to take her height."
Cleveland: The Hecatomb to his Mistress.

   The Apostle James is usually represented with a staff.

"As he had travelled many a summer's day
Through boiling sands of Arabie and Ynd;
And in his hand a Jacob's staff to stay
His weary limbs upon."
Spenser: Faërie Queene, book i. can to vi. 32-35.

Jacob's Stone The stone inclosed in the coronation chair of Great Britain, brought from Scone by Edward I., and said to be the stone on which the patriarch Jacob laid his head when he dreamt about the ladder referred to above.
   This stone was originally used in Ireland as a coronation stone. It was called "Innisfail," or Stone of Destiny. (See Coronation Chair.)

Jacobins The Dominicans were so called in France from the "Rue St. Jacques," Paris, where they first established themselves in 1219.
   Jacobins. A political club, originally called the Club Breton, formed at Versailles in 1789. On their removal to Paris, they met in the hall of an ex-convent of Jacobins (see above), in the Rue St. Honoré