Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/588

568 JARVIS JASMIN ed his parish, and went to Europe. Returning to the United States in 1835, he was for two years the professor of oriental literature in Washington (now Trinity) college, Hartford, and in 1837 became rector of Christ's church, Middletown. In 1838 he was appointed hy the general convention historiographer of the church. He published a "Discourse on the Religion of the Indian Tribes of North Ameri- ca" (8vo, New York, 1820); "Chronological Introduction to the History of the Church" (New York and London, 1844); "Reply to Dr. Milner's End of Controversy" (12mo, New York, 1847); and "The Church of the Redeemed, or the History of the Mediatorial Kingdom" (vol. i., Boston, 1850). JARVIS, Edward, an American physician and statistician, born in Concord, Mass., Jan. 9, 1803. He graduated at Harvard college in 1826, and received the degree of M. D. there in 1830. After practising his profession in sev- eral places, he settled in 1843 in Dorchester, Mass., where he now resides. He has obtained distinction by his knowledge and treatment of insanity, but is most widely known for his ac- quaintance with the statistics of human life. Since 1843 he has published a large amount of valuable matter relating to population, vitality, health, longevity, insanity, education, employ- ments, &c., mostly in the form of addresses, reports, memorials, and articles in periodicals, which if collected would make several octa- vo volumes. His principal publications are : "Memorial of the Statistical Convention in respect to the Errors of the Sixth Census" (1846); two reports on the "Sanitary Survey of the State of Massachusetts" (1848-'9) ; "The Production of Vital Force" (1849); " Report of the Legislative Committee on New Hospitals " (1855) ; " Report on the In- sane and Idiots " (1856) ; " Report of the Com- mittee on the Memorial of the Sanitary Asso- ciation" (1861); "Report of the "Worcester Hospital" (1862-'3); "Report to the United States on the Mortality of the Eighth Census " (1865) ; " Physiology and the Laws of Health " (1 vol. 12mo, 1865); "Increase of Human Life" (1869); two reports for the United States board of education on the " Relation of Education to Mental Disease " (1872), and the " Relation of Common Education to Common Labor" (1873); "Provision for the Insane" (1872); "Infant Mortality," and two articles in the report of the Massachusetts state board of health (1873) ; and " Political Economy of Health " (1874). JASHER, Book of (Heb. Sepher JiayasTiar), a work cited in Joshua x. 13 and 2 Sam. i. 18, but no longer extant. Its contents are known to us only by two short extracts, both in poetic form. The quotation in Josh. x. 13 is a poetic apos- trophe to the sun and moon, bidding them stand still in the heavens till the discomfiture of the enemy should be complete. In 2 Sam. i. 19-27 is another quotation, the beautiful elegy of David on Saul and his son. The 18th verse should be rendered, " also he bade them teach the children of Judah The Bow" (the elegy so named, in allusion to "the bow of Jonathan" in v. 22, a tender reminiscence of the poet's friend) ; " behold it is written in the book of Jasher." Hence it is very naturally conjectured by Gesenius that it was an anthol- ogy of ancient songs written in praise of just men (so esteemed for their patriotic zeal and devotion), and called "Book of the Just." Bishop Lowth had before inferred, from the poetical character of the citations, that it was a collection of national songs. This being all that is known of it, the field is open for the wildest conjectures and the most absurd legends and forgeries ; and the following specimens will show that it has not been neglected. Theodo- ret supposed the whole book of Joshua to be an extract from Jasher ; Jerome that it was identi- cal with the book of Genesis, an opinion also ex- pressed, among others, in the Talmud ; others, that it included the whole Pentateuch, that it was a treatise on archery, and that it contain- ed a series of biographies of just men, yashar meaning just. Dr. Donaldson sees in a portion of the Old Testament narratives a careless elab- oration of materials taken from the dismem- bered book of Jasher, which he attempts to re- store to their original order. (See Donaldson, Jaskar, Fragmenta Archetypa Carminum He- braicorum in Masorethico Veteris Testamenti Textu passim Tessellata (London, 1854; revised and enlarged, 1860). A treatise on Jewish laws written by Rabbi Jacob Tarn in the 13th century, and printed at Cracow in 1586, bears the title of "Book of Jasher." With this was afterward confounded a later treatise on ethics under the same title, of which there are several editions. Another mediaeval work in Hebrew bears the same title, and purports to have been discov- ered at the destruction of Jerusalem in posses- sion of a concealed old man, brought thence to Spain, and preserved at Seville. It was first printed at Naples, afterward at Venice (1625), at Cracow (1628), and at Prague (1668). It con- tains the histories of the Pentateuch, Joshua, and Judges, intermixed with many legendary statements, taken from the Talmud, Midrash, Josipon, and other sources. A German trans- lation, with additions, was published at Frank- fort in 1674; and an English translation, un- der the direction of Mordecai M. Noah, at New York in 1840. In 1751 Jacob Hive, a Bristol type founder, published a forgery entitled " The Book of Jasher, with Testimonies and Notes Explanatory of the Text ; to which is prefixed Various Readings ; translated into English by Alcuin of Britain, who went a pilgrimage into the Holy Land." This clumsy fraud was re- vived at Bristol, 1827, and at London, 1833, edited by 0. R. Bond. An article on "The Book of Jasher " is among the " Literary Re- mains of the late Emanuel Dentsch" (New York, 1874). JAS3IIX, Jacques, a French Provencal poet, often called the barber poet and the last of the