between the two women for a quarter of a century. In 1854 Miss Jewsbury removed from Manchester to London to be near her friend. To her Carlyle turned for sympathy when his wife died; and at his request she wrote down some “biographical anecdotes” of Mrs Carlyle’s childhood and early married life. Carlyle’s comment was that “few or none of these narratives are correct in details, but there is a certain mythical truth in all or most of them;” and he added, “the Geraldine accounts of her (Mrs Carlyle’s) childhood are substantially correct.” He accepted them as the groundwork for his own essay on “Jane Welsh Carlyle,” with which they were therefore incorporated by Froude when editing Carlyle’s Reminiscences. Miss Jewsbury was consulted by Froude when he was preparing Carlyle’s biography, and her recollection of her friend’s confidences confirmed the suspicion that Carlyle had on one occasion used physical violence towards his wife. Miss Jewsbury further informed Froude that the secret of the domestic troubles of the Carlyles lay in the fact that Carlyle had been “one of those persons who ought never to have married,” and that Mrs Carlyle had at one time contemplated having her marriage legally annulled (see My Relations with Carlyle, by James Anthony Froude, 1903). The endeavour has been made to discredit Miss Jewsbury in relation to this matter, but there seems to be no sufficient ground for doubting that she accurately repeated what she had learnt from Mrs Carlyle’s own lips. Miss Jewsbury died in London on the 23rd of September 1880.
JEW’S EARS, the popular name of a fungus, known botanically
as Hirneola auricula-judae, so called from its shape, which
somewhat resembles a human ear. It is very thin, flexible,
flesh-coloured to dark brown, and one to three inches broad. It is
common on branches of elder, which it often kills, and is also
found on elm, willow, oak and other trees. It was formerly
prescribed as a remedy for dropsy.
JEW’S HARP, or Jew’s Trump (Fr. guimbarde, O. Fr. trompe,
gronde; Ger. Mundharmonica, Maultrommel, Brummeisen; Ital.
scaccia-pensieri or spassa-pensiero), a small musical instrument
of percussion, known for centuries all over Europe. “Jew’s
trump” is the older name, and “trump” is still used in parts
of Great Britain. Attempts have been made to derive “Jew’s”
from “jaws” or Fr. jeu, but, though there is no apparent reason
for associating the instrument with the Jews, it is certain that
“Jew’s” is the original form (see the New English Dictionary and
C. B. Mount in Notes and Queries (Oct. 23, 1897, p. 322).
The instrument consists of a slender tongue of steel riveted at
one end to the base of a pear-shaped steel loop; the other end of
the tongue, left free and passing out between the two branches
of the frame, terminates in a sharp bend at right angles, to enable
the player to depress it by an elastic blow and thus set it vibrating
while firmly pressing the branches of the frame against his teeth.
The vibrations of the steel tongue produce a compound sound
composed of a fundamental and its harmonics. By using the
cavity of the mouth as a resonator, each harmonic in succession
can be isolated and reinforced, giving the instrument the
compass shown.
The lower harmonics of the series cannot be obtained, owing to the limited capacity of the resonating cavity. The black notes on the stave show the scale which may be produced by using two harps, one tuned a fourth above the other. The player on the Jew’s harp, in order to isolate the harmonics, frames his mouth as though intending to pronounce the various vowels. At the beginning of the 19th century, when much energy and ingenuity were being expended in all countries upon the invention of new musical instruments, the Maultrommel, re-christened Mundharmonica (the most rational of all its names), attracted attention in Germany. Heinrich Scheibler devised an ingenious holder with a handle, to contain five Jew’s harps, all tuned to different notes; by holding one in each hand, a large compass, with duplicate notes, became available; he called this complex Jew’s harp Aura[1] and with it played themes with variations, marches, Scotch reels, &c. Other virtuosi, such as Eulenstein, a native of Würtemberg, achieved the same result by placing the variously tuned Jew’s harps upon the table in front of him, taking them up and setting them down as required. Eulenstein created a sensation in London in 1827 by playing on no fewer than sixteen Jew’s harps. In 1828 Sir Charles Wheatstone published an essay on the technique of the instrument in the Quarterly Journal of Science. (K. S.)
JEZEBEL (Heb. ī-zebel, perhaps an artificial form to suggest
“un-exalted,” a divine name or its equivalent would naturally
be expected instead of the first syllable), wife of Ahab, king of
Israel (1 Kings xvi. 31), and mother of Athaliah, in the Bible.
Her father Eth-baal (Ithobal, Jos., contra Ap. i. 18) was king of
Tyre and priest of the goddess Astarte. He had usurped the
throne and was the first important Phoenician king after Hiram
(see Phoenicia). Jezebel, a true daughter of a priest of Astarte,
showed herself hostile to the worship of Yahweh, and to his
prophets, whom she relentlessly pursued (1 Kings xviii. 4–13; see
Elijah). She is represented as a woman of virile character, and
became notorious for the part she took in the matter of Naboth’s
vineyard. When the Jezreelite[2] sheikh refused to sell the
family inheritance to the king, Jezebel treacherously caused him
to be arrested on a charge of treason, and with the help of false
witnesses he was found guilty and condemned to death. For
this the prophet Elijah pronounced a solemn curse upon Ahab
and Jezebel, which was fulfilled when Jehu, who was anointed
king at Elisha’s instigation, killed the son Jehoram, massacred
all the family, and had Jezebel destroyed (1 Kings xxi.; 2 Kings
ix. 11–28). What is told of her comes from sources written
under the influence of strong religious bias; among the exaggerations
must be reckoned 1 Kings xviii. 13, which is inconsistent
with xix. 18 and xxii. 6. A literal interpretation of the reference
to Jezebel’s idolatry (2 Kings ix. 22) has made her name a byword
for a false prophetess in Rev. ii. 20. Her name is often
used in modern English as a synonym for an abandoned woman
or one who paints her face. (S. A. C.)
JEZREEL (Heb. “God sows”), the capital of the Israelite
monarchy under Ahab, and the scene of stirring Biblical events
(1 Sam. xxix. 1; 1 Kings xxi.; 2 Kings ix. 21–37). The name was
also applied to the great plain (Esdraelon) dominated by the
city (“valley of Jezreel,” Josh. xvii. 16, &c.). The site has
never been lost, and the present village Zercīn retains the name
radically unchanged. In Greek (e.g. Judith) the name appears
under the form Ἐσδραηλά; it is Stradela in the Bordeaux Pilgrim,
and to the Crusaders the place was known as Parvum Gerinum.
The modern stone village stands on a bare rocky knoll, 500 ft.
above the broad northern valley, at the north extremity of a
long ledge, terminating in steep cliffs, forming part of the chain
of Mt Gilboa. The buildings are modern, but some scanty
remains of rock-hewn wine presses and a few scattered sarcophagi
mark the antiquity of the site. The view over the plains is fine
and extensive. It is vain now to look for Ahab’s palace or
Naboth’s vineyard. The fountain mentioned in 1 Sam. xxix. 1
is perhaps the fine spring ʽAin el Meiyyita, north of the village,
a shallow pool of good water full of small fish, rising between
black basalt boulders: or more probably the copious ʽAin Jalūd.
A second city named Jezreel lay in the hill country of Judah, somewhere near Hebron (Josh. xv. 56). This was the native place of David’s wife Abinoam (1 Sam. xxv. 43).
See, for an excellent description of the scenery and history of the Israelite Jezreel, G. A. Smith, Hist. Geog. xix.
JHABUA, a native state of Central India, in the Bhopawar
agency. Area, with the dependency of Rutanmal, 1336 sq. m.
- ↑ See Allg. musik. Ztg. (Leipzig, 1816), p. 506, and Beilage 5, where the construction of the instruments is described and illustrated and the system of notation shown in various pieces of music.
- ↑ According to another tradition Naboth lived at Samaria (xxi. 1 [LXX.], 18 seq.; cf. xxii. 38). A similar confusion regarding the king’s home appears in 2 Kings x. 11 compared with vv. 1, 17.
