Chapters of Genesis,’ &c., 1819, 8vo (under the pseudonym of Essenus). 10. ‘A Series of … Facts, demonstrating the Truth of the Christian Religion,’ &c., 1820, 8vo. 11. ‘A Greek and English Lexicon,’ &c., 1823, 8vo. 12. ‘A Reply to … “A New Trial of the Witnesses,” &c., and … “Not Paul but Jesus,”’ &c., 1824, 8vo (under the pseudonym of Ben David). 13. ‘An Answer to a Pseudocriticism’ of No. 10, 1824, 8vo. 14. ‘The Principles of Lexicography,’ &c., 1824, 8vo. 15. ‘Three Letters, in which is demonstrated the Genuineness of … 1 John v. 7,’ &c., 1825, 8vo (under the pseudonym of Ben David). 16. ‘The Tyro's Greek and English Lexicon,’ &c.; 2nd edit. 1825, 8vo. 17. ‘An Exposure of the Hamiltonian System of Teaching,’ &c., 1826, 8vo. 18. ‘An Explanation of the Greek Article,’ &c., 1827, 12mo (against Middleton). Posthumous was: 19. ‘The Book of the Prophet Isaiah translated,’ &c., 1830, 12mo. He edited an edition of Entick's Latin Dictionary, 1824, 16mo, and contributed largely to periodicals, especially the ‘Monthly Repository.’ If Thomas Rees is right in saying that No. 1 above was his first publication, ‘The Reason of Man,’ &c., Canterbury, 1793, 8vo, 2 parts (against Paine), is by another John Jones.
[Biog. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816, p. 182; Monthly Repository, 1827, pp. 293 sq. (notice by T. R., i.e. Thomas Rees); Murch's Hist. Presb. and Gen. Bapt. Churches in West of England, 1835, p. 505; John Walker's Essays and Correspondence, 1846, ii. 596 sq.; Miall's Congregationalism in Yorkshire, 1868, p. 266; Rees's Hist. Prot. Nonconf. in Wales, 1883, p. 496; Jeremy's Presbyterian Fund, 1885, pp. 71, 194 sq.; Northgate End Chapel Magazine, March 1886, p. 47; information from the Rev. F. E. Millson, Halifax.]
JONES, JOHN (fl. 1827), verse-writer, was born in 1774 at Clearwell in the Forest of Dean, where his father was gardener in the service of Charles Wyndham (who assumed the name of Elwin), and his mother kept a small shop in the village. After receiving only so much education as enabled him to read and write, he became an errand-boy, and afterwards, at the age of seventeen, a domestic servant at Bath. He employed his leisure in self-cultivation, read poetry, and began writing verses. In January 1804 he entered the service of W. S. Bruere of Kirkby Hall, near Catterick, Yorkshire, and in the summer of 1827 sent a few specimens of his verse to Southey, who was then at Harrogate. The result was the publication, in 1831, of ‘Attempts in Verse by John Jones, an old Servant; with some account of the Writer written by himself, and an Introductory Essay on the Lives and Works of our uneducated Poets by Robert Southey,’ London, 8vo. Jones's verses also form the appendix to Southey's ‘Lives of Uneducated Poets,’ London, 1836, 12mo. Although Southey saw in the verses abundant proof of talent, his opinion of them was not high. Jones's volume was reviewed in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ and is credited there with ‘the stamp of mediocrity.’
[Sketch of his own Life by Jones in the Attempts in Verse; Edinb. Rev. liv. 69–84; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.]
JONES, JOHN (1772–1837), Welsh historian, was born 17 Aug. 1772, at Derwydd, in the parish of Llandybie, in Carmarthenshire. After obtaining a scanty classical education, he was employed as a schoolmaster near London, and while thus engaged at Wimbledon is said to have had Sir Robert Peel among his pupils. Subsequently he pursued his studies on the continent, and obtained, among other distinctions, the degree of LL.D. at the university of Jena. On his return to England he studied law, and on being called to the bar went the Oxford and South Wales circuits, but obtained little or no practice. He died in straitened circumstances at St. James's Street, Islington, 28 Sept. 1837.
Jones was a good Greek scholar, and was deeply read in the manuscript records of this and other countries, but his strong prejudices often perverted his judgment as an historian, and the influence exerted on him by German rationalism prevented him in his ‘History of Wales’ from understanding the religious revival in Wales in the eighteenth century. He published the following: 1. ‘A Translation from the Danish of Dr. Bugge's Travels in the French Republic,’ London, 1801, 8vo. 2. ‘De Libellis Famosis; or the Law of Libel,’ 1812, 8vo. 3. ‘Y Cyfammod Newydd, yn cynwys cyfieithiad cyffredinol y pedair Efengyl, gwedi ei ddiwygiaid yn ol y Groeg,’ 1812, 12mo, an original translation by Jones of the four gospels, sometimes erroneously attributed to the Rev. John Jones (1766?–1827) [q. v.] 4. ‘History of Wales,’ with a portrait of the author, London, 1824, 8vo. Of this a revised copy was found among his papers after his death. He also left in manuscript a work entitled ‘The Worthies of Wales, or Memoirs of Eminent Ancient Britons and Welshmen, from Cassivelaunus to the present time’ (see Preface to the History of Wales). A letter by him on Madog [q. v.], the alleged Welsh discoverer of America, appeared in the ‘Monthly Magazine’ for 1819.
