editions, was translated into most of the languages of Europe, and long enjoyed a high reputation as an authority on a very important point of international law. It was written when England and France were at war, and when the Dutch had made use of their carrying trade to supply the enemy with naval and military stores, and to convey to the ports of France the produce of her West India islands. The British government decided on repressing this practice by authorizing the seizure of Dutch vessels so employed, and the merchants of Holland protested. Mr. Jenkinson's was an elaborate and argumentative vindication of the course pursued by the British government. The "Treatise on the coins of the realm" arose out of the appointment, in 1798, of a committee of the privy council to inquire into the state of the coinage. Of this committee Lord Liverpool was a member. The draft report which he had prepared seems not to have been laid before the king, and was published on his own authority. It contains in comparatively brief compass a very large quantity of information respecting the history of the British coinage, its state at the close of last century, and the true theory and practice of a metallic currency. Mr. Macculloch says of it—"The present mint regulations, which work well, have been adopted in exact conformity with the suggestions offered by Lord Liverpool in his treatise."—F. E.
JENKINSON, Robert Bankes, second earl of Liverpool, for fifteen years prime minister of Great Britain, was the son of the first earl, and born on the 7th of June, 1770. After spending three years at the Charter-house, and laying the foundation of a good knowledge of the classics, he proceeded to Christ church, Oxford, where he and Canning became intimate friends. His attention was early directed by his father to the study of politics. He visited France at the commencement of the Revolution, saw the Bastile taken, corresponded from Paris with Pitt, and on his return was elected member for Rye under the avowed patronage of the ministry. His maiden speech, delivered in 1792, displayed some knowledge or study of the Eastern question; and although Lord Brougham describes his oratory as heavy and commonplace, replying soon afterwards in the absence of Pitt to Fox, he was warmly complimented by Burke. His political sentiments might have had something to do with this, for he was always a steady advocate of the war with France, and an opponent of anything like "innovation," whether it assumed the shape of parliamentary reform, or even of the abolition of the slave trade. In 1793 he was appointed a commissioner of the India board; and in 1796, on the elevation of his father to the earldom of Liverpool, Mr. Jenkinson became Lord Hawkesbury. On Pitt's resignation in 1801 he became foreign secretary, and in that capacity negotiated the preliminaries of the peace of Amiens. In the brief interval which elapsed between the peace of Amiens and the renewal of hostilities with France, it devolved on Lord Hawkesbury to conduct the correspondence with the French government on the attacks made upon Napoleon in the journals published in England, and his anti-Gallican sentiments led him to assert with spirit the freedom of the British press. With the resumption of hostilities Lord Hawkesbury was summoned to the upper house, where the ministry required to be strengthened. On the reaccession of Pitt to the premiership. Lord Hawkesbury became home secretary. On the death of Mr. Pitt the premiership was offered to and declined by him; and on the formation of the Portland ministry, after the fall of that of "all the talents," he resumed the seals of the home office. When the duke of Portland died, again the premiership was offered him, and again declined by him. He was secretary of state for war in Mr. Perceval's administration, his voice ever raised against peace with France, whatever might happen. At last, after the assassination of Mr. Perceval and when every other ministerial combination had been tried in vain, he consented to become premier; and although he resigned pro forma on the death of George III., remained premier for fifteen years. After the commencement of the new reign, Lord Liverpool (he succeeded to the earldom on the death of his father in 1808) began to develop liberal ideas of commercial policy. So late as 1825 he opposed with all his old fervour the catholic claims. But it appears that a year or two later he had seen that they must be conceded, and contemplated resignation in order to promote that concession. He had even been heard to talk of the possible extinction of slavery, and had announced a measure relaxing the stringency of the corn law, when his long tenure of office came to an end. On Saturday the 17th of February, 1827, Lord Liverpool had breakfasted as usual, and received his letters brought by the morning post. A little afterwards his servant entered the room and found the premier stretched on the floor, motionless and speechless. His mind as well as his body was irretrievably gone; and after lingering for months in a state of hopeless imbecility, he died on the 4th December, 1827. His long occupancy of the premiership has been ascribed to his very deficiency in some of those qualities which are supposed to be necessary in a successful premier. He was not an able or eloquent man; but for that very reason he was not envied by those who served under him. He had the art, moreover, of choosing able men, of conciliating them when chosen, and under his mild supremacy politicians of opposite views were content to live on decent terms with each other. He was laborious and honest, if dull, and a keen sense of responsibility was one of his characteristics. Miss Martineau records that he never opened his letters without a tremor, being sure that something was going wrong somewhere. Canning and Huskisson gave his administration a certain lustre, and whatever unpopularity it acquired was debited to his subordinates, not to so harmless a personage as the premier himself.—F. E.
JENKS, Benjamin, was born in Shropshire in 1646. About 1668 he was appointed rector of Harley and Kenley, where he continued till his death in 1724. There is a monument to his memory in the church at Harley; but of his life very little is known. He owes his reputation entirely to two works which are even now somewhat popular, "Prayers and Offices of Devotion," first published in 1697; and "Meditations on Various Important Subjects."—B. H. C.
JENNENS, Charles, a vain eccentric gentleman, native of Gopsal in Leicestershire, was the compiler of the words for Handel's Messiah and some other oratorios. He was descended from an opulent Birmingham manufacturer, a nonjuror distinguished for his generosity. Charles outdid his ancestor in his disregard for money, of which he was so lavish in maintaining the pomp of his household that he obtained the sobriquet of "Solyman the magnificent." Unfortunately for his peace of mind, he resolved to publish a new edition of Shakspeare, and began with King Lear in an octavo volume. Having in the preface charged all preceding editors with negligence and untrustworthiness, his own edition was very severely handled by the critics. Suspecting Johnson and Stevens to be his assailants, he had a pamphlet written against them, and watched the newspapers carefully for a month to ascertain if they survived the blow. In 1772 he published Hamlet, and Othello and Macbeth in the following year. He was engaged on his edition of Julius Cæsar, when he died at Gopsal on November 20, 1773. The errors of his life are said to have arisen from indulgence in the company of his inferiors, from whom he obtained what he most valued—flattery.—(Biogr. Dram. ii., 397.)—R. H.
JENNER, Edward, the discoverer of vaccination, was born at Berkeley in Gloucestershire, on the 17th of May, 1749. He was the third son of the Rev. Stephen Jenner, vicar of Berkeley. His mother was the daughter of the Rev. Henry Head, at one time vicar of Berkeley and prebend of Bristol. He lost his father at an early age, but the loss was in some measure supplied by his eldest brother, the Rev. Stephen Jenner, who brought him up with almost paternal care. At eight years of age Jenner was sent to school at Wotton-under-Edge, under the Rev. Mr. Clissold. He was afterwards placed at Cirencester, under the tuition of the Rev. Dr. Washbourne. There he received a respectable classical education, and contracted some friendships which lasted throughout life; amongst others, he became intimate with Caleb Hillier Parry, afterwards the celebrated physician of Bath. Even at school he manifested a natural bent for the study of natural history, and commenced the cultivation of those powers of observation, by the employment of which in after life the universal benefit of vaccination was secured for mankind. It is said that before he was nine years of age he had made a collection of the nests of the dormouse, and that at Cirencester he employed his play-hours in searching for fossils which abound in the oolitic formation in that neighbourhood. On leaving school he became the pupil of Mr. Ludlow, an eminent surgeon at Sodbury, near Bristol. His apprenticeship having terminated, he proceeded to London, where he prosecuted his professional studies under the immediate superintendence of John Hunter, in whose family he resided for two years. There can be no doubt
