the whole singular transaction by establishing a provisional protectorate under "We, Jorgen Jorgenson," until a regular constitution should be framed! So easily and speedily was this unexampled revolution effected. At the head of a military force of eight men, Jorgenson at once assumed and exercised undisputed dominion over an island numbering upwards of fifty thousand inhabitants. The secret of his success is to be found in the fact, that the commercial restrictions of the Danish government had grievously oppressed the people, and they therefore at first welcomed anything in the shape of change. The new protector's financial measures, however, and especially his confiscation of Danish property, soon irritated the islanders; and, taking advantage of the arrival of an English war-sloop, they applied to its captain for relief. He made inquiry into the circumstances, restored on the 22nd August the government to the Danish authorities, and despatched Jorgenson forthwith to England. So ended this unprecedented passage in Icelandic history. Subsequently to his return to this country, he travelled on the continent, an account of which tour he published in 1817; but shortly afterwards he plunged into a course of dissipation which terminated in his total ruin. Descending at last to mere vulgar crime, the ci-devant dictator of Iceland was tried for theft at the Old Bailey, and ultimately sentenced to transportation for life. In October, 1825, he was sent to New South Wales, where, as is generally supposed, he died shortly after his arrival.—J. J.
JORNANDES or JORDANES, a Gothic historian of the sixth century. His grandfather had been secretary to Candax, king of the Alani, and he himself filled a similar post. It is also known that he became a christian and a bishop in Italy, some say of Ravenna. Jornandes is known by two works—"De Getarum, sive Gothorum origine et rebus gestis," and "De regnorum ac temporum successione." Both these are in Latin. They have no literary value, but they are of great importance in the study of Gothic history.—B. H. C.
JORTIN, John, D.D., the son of René Jortin, a French refugee, was born in London, October 23, 1698. In 1715 he entered Jesus' college, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow in 1721, and in 1722 M.A., about which time he published a few Latin poems entitled "Lusus Poetici," which were well received. He had previously been employed, on Dr. Thirlby's recommendation, in translating for Pope some of Eustathius' notes on Homer. Jortin says—"I was in some hopes in those days, for I was young, that Mr. Pope would make inquiry about his coadjutor, and take some civil notice of him. But he did not; and I had no notion of obtruding myself upon him. I never saw his face." Yet Pope had published nearly all the notes of Jortin. In 1723 he was ordained a deacon by Bishop Kennett, and in 1724 a priest by the bishop of Ely; in 1727 his college presented him to the living of Swavesey, near Cambridge, and in 1728 he married. Three years later he came to London; soon after which he published his "Four Sermons on the Truth of the Christian Religion," the substance of which he afterwards incorporated with his "Remarks on Ecclesiastical History," &c. In 1731 and 1732 he took part in issuing "Miscellaneous observations upon authors, ancient and modern," which was translated into Latin, and continued in Holland by Burman and others. In 1734 he published "Remarks on Spenser's Poems, on Milton, and on Seneca," which were afterwards reprinted in his "Tracts, philological, critical, and miscellaneous." In 1737 he was appointed vicar of Eastwell in Kent, but soon after resigned, and returned to the metropolis, where he was already popular as a preacher. In 1746 he brought out "Discourses concerning the truth of the Christian religion," in which he made much use of the sermons on the same subject. In 1749 he was appointed to preach the Boyle lecture; but instead of publishing his discourses, he determined to make them the basis of a dissertation, of which the first volume appeared in 1751 under the title of "Remarks on Ecclesiastical History;" the second volume came out in 1752, the third in 1754, and two additional volumes in 1773, after the author's decease. In 1751 he was made rector of St. Dunstan's-in-the-East, which rather facilitated his learned labours, as he found his clerical duties a profitable diversion from study. In 1755 he was made D.D. by Archbishop Herring, his patron; and the same year he published "Six Dissertations upon Different Subjects." His "Life of Erasmus" appeared in 1758 and 1760, with a supplement of "Remarks upon the Works of Erasmus." He published no other new work, although he contributed some remarks upon the life of Pole, by Phillips, which were published by Neue in 1766. Dr. Jortin died, September 5, 1770, and his son Roger collected and edited his sermons and tracts. He was well read, was honest and frank in his criticisms, but disposed to be satirical and eccentric in his expressions.—B. H. C.
JOSEPH I., Emperor of Germany, son of Leopold I., was born at Vienna, 26th July, 1678; died 17th April, 1711. On the 19th December, 1687, he was crowned hereditary prince of Hungary, and on the 6th January, 1690, king of the Romans. The whole of his reign was occupied by the war of the Spanish succession. Against Bavaria he continued the hostilities commenced by his father on account of the French tendencies of the elector. He besieged Munich and laid waste the environs, and, 11th May, 1706, placed the elector under the ban of the empire. He was more hostile to France than even his father; but after the battle of Turin, 7th September, 1706, the war in Italy between the two powers ceased by treaty of 13th March, 1707. The city of Milan Joseph gave to his brother, the Archduke Charles, and took possession of Sicily when the English laid hold of Sardinia. The battles of Oudenarde and Malplaquet, with the victorious career of Marlborough, would probably have deferred the peace of which Europe, and perhaps especially France, stood so much in need; but the death of Joseph left his brother Charles the last male representative of the house of Hapsburg, and Charles, instead of seeking the throne of Spain, was called to wield the sceptre of the empire. Joseph obtained the appellation of "victorious," which meant that he was on the winning side of the European alliances. He had, however, the tact to avoid a conflict with Charles XII. while his troops were required elsewhere. He reformed the penal laws, and re-established the chamber of justice.—P. E. D.
JOSEPH II., Emperor of Germany, eldest son of Francis I. and Maria Theresa, was born at Vienna, 13th March, 1741, and died 20th February, 1790. In addition to his name Joseph, he was baptized Benedict-John-Augustus-Anthony-Michael-Adam. Maria Theresa held him in her arms when she appealed to the estates at Presburg to protect her hereditary rights. In testimony of gratitude to the Hungarians, she gave Joseph a Hungarian tutor—Count Bathiany—had him instructed in the language, and clothed in the garb of Hungary. His religious instruction, however, was committed to the care of the jesuits. He excelled in athletic exercises, and was endowed with a love for music that lasted during life. In youth he was anxious to take part in the military operations of the army, but the empress would not permit the indulgence. On the 6th October, 1760, at the age of nineteen, he espoused the Princess Isabella, daughter of Duke Philip of Parma, and on the 27th May, 1764, he was elected at Frankfort king of the Romans. The early death of Isabella left him at liberty to seek a new bride, and he married Maria Josephine, daughter of the Emperor Charles VII.—a union that produced a considerable amount of discord. By the death of his father in 1765, he was associated with his mother in the government, rather than admitted to full power. So long as she lived Maria Theresa was determined to govern, and until her death Joseph was obliged to content himself with the military department, and such internal affairs as the empress was pleased to permit. He was a useful subject of his own empire—alleviated distress, made efforts to obviate famine, introduced conscription into the hereditary estates of the crown, participated in procuring the abolition of torture, and was far from being opposed to the suppression of the jesuits. He travelled much—visited Italy and France under the name of Count Falkenstein, and passed Ferney without seeing Voltaire, being restrained, it is said, by the positive injunctions of the empress, who fancied that Joseph had already imbibed quite a sufficient number of the modern ideas then in vogue. The death of the empress in 1780 left him master of the empire, and he became ambitious to extend his dominions. His schemes were large enough, but Frederick of Prussia and the interests of France were more than sufficient to render them inoperative. His proposal to create a kingdom of Burgundy, and to absorb the Netherlands into the empire, could not be accomplished. He did better than conquer territory, he introduced reforms at home—insufficient, as the condition of Austria has always testified, but still reforms at the time. He went far to abolish the worst parts of the feudal system, converted servitudes into fixed money payments, put down local jurisdictions, and equalized the law. By an edict of censorship, 1781, he established freedom
