before the ecclesiastical authorities. He was accused of spreading Wycliffe’s doctrines, and his general conduct at Oxford, Paris, Cologne, Prague and Ofen was censured. Jerome vowed that he would not leave Vienna till he had cleared himself from the accusation of heresy. Shortly afterwards he secretly left Vienna, declaring that this promise had been forced on him. He went first to Vöttau in Moravia, and then to Prague. In 1412 the representatives of Pope Gregory XII. publicly offered indulgences for sale at Prague, wishing to raise money for the pope’s campaign against King Ladislaus of Naples, an adherent of the antipope of Avignon. Contrary to the wishes of the archbishop of Prague a meeting of the members of the university took place, at which both Hus and Jerome spoke strongly against the sale of indulgences. The fiery eloquence of Jerome, which is noted by all contemporary writers, obtained for him greater success even than that of Hus, particularly among the younger students, who conducted him in triumph to his dwelling-place. Shortly afterwards Jerome proceeded to Poland—it is said on the invitation of King Wladislaus. His courtly manners and his eloquence here also caused him to become very popular, but he again met with strong opposition from the Roman Church. While travelling with the grand-duke Lithold of Lithuania Jerome took part in the religious services of the Greek Orthodox Church.
During his stay in northern Europe Jerome received the news that Hus had been summoned to appear before the council of Constance. He wrote to his friend advising him to do so and adding that he would also proceed there to afford him assistance. Contrary to the advice of Hus he arrived at Constance on the 4th of April 1415. Advised to fly immediately to Bohemia, he succeeded in reaching Hirschau, only 25 m. from the Bohemian frontier. He was here arrested and brought back in chains to Constance, where he was examined by judges appointed by the council. His courage failed him in prison and, to regain his freedom, he renounced the doctrines of Wycliffe and Hus. He declared that Hus had been justly executed and stated in a letter addressed on the 12th of August 1415 to Lacek, lord of Kravář—the only literary document of Jerome that has been preserved—that “the dead man (Hus) had written many false and harmful things.” Full confidence was not placed in Jerome’s recantation. He claimed to be heard at a general meeting of the council, and this was granted to him. He now again maintained all the theories which he had formerly advocated, and, after a trial that lasted only one day, he was condemned to be burnt as a heretic. The sentence was immediately carried out on the 30th of May 1416, and he met his death with fortitude. As Poggio Bracciolini writes, “none of the Stoics with so constant and brave a soul endured death, which he (Jerome) seemed rather to long for.” The eloquence of the Italian humanist has bestowed a not entirely merited aureole on the memory of Jerome of Prague.
See all works dealing with Hus; and indeed all histories of Bohemia contain detailed accounts of the career of Jerome. The Lives of John Wicliffe, Lord Cobham, John Huss, Jerome of Prague and Žižka by William Gilpin (London, 1765) still has a certain value. (L.)
JERROLD, DOUGLAS WILLIAM (1803–1857), English
dramatist and man of letters, was born in London on the 3rd
of January 1803. His father, Samuel Jerrold, actor, was at that
time lessee of the little theatre of Wilsby near Cranbrook in Kent,
but in 1807 he removed to Sheerness. There, among the bluejackets
who swarmed in the port during the war with France,
Douglas grew into boyhood. He occasionally took a child’s
part on the stage, but his father’s profession had little attraction
for the boy. In December 1813 he joined the guardship
“Namur,” where he had Jane Austen’s brother as captain, and he
served as a midshipman until the peace of 1815. He saw nothing
of the war save a number of wounded soldiers from Waterloo;
but till his dying day there lingered traces of his early passion for
the sea. The peace of 1815 ruined Samuel Jerrold; there was
no more prize money. On the 1st of January 1816 he removed
with his family to London, where the ex-midshipman began the
world again as a printer’s apprentice, and in 1819 became a compositor
in the printing-office of the Sunday Monitor. Several
short papers and copies of verses by him had already appeared
in the sixpenny magazines, and one evening he dropped into the
editor’s box a criticism of the opera Der Freischütz. Next
morning he received his own copy to set up, together with a
flattering note from the editor, requesting further contributions
from the anonymous author. Thenceforward Jerrold was engaged
in journalism. In 1821 a comedy that he had composed
in his fifteenth year was brought out at Sadler’s Wells theatre,
under the title More Frightened than Hurt. Other pieces
followed, and in 1825 he was engaged for a few pounds weekly
to produce dramas and farces to the order of Davidge of the
Coburg theatre. In the autumn of 1824 the “little Shakespeare
in a camlet cloak,” as he was called, married Mary Swann;
and, while he was engaged with the drama at night, he was
steadily pushing his way as a journalist. For a short while he
was part proprietor of a small Sunday newspaper. In 1829,
through a quarrel with the exacting Davidge, Jerrold left the
Coburg; and his three-act melodrama, Black-eyed Susan; or, All
in the Downs, was brought out by R. W. Elliston at the Surrey
theatre. The success of the piece was enormous. With its
free gallant sea-flavour, it took the town by storm, and “all
London went over the water to see it.” Elliston made a fortune
by the piece; T. P. Cooke, who played William, made his reputation;
Jerrold received about £60 and was engaged as dramatic
author at five pounds a week. But his fame as a dramatist
was achieved. In 1830 it was proposed that he should adapt
something from the French for Drury Lane. “No,” was his
reply, “I shall come into this theatre as an original dramatist
or not at all.” The Bride of Ludgate (December 8, 1831)
was the first of a number of his plays produced at Drury Lane.
The other patent houses threw their doors open to him also (the
Adelphi had already done so); and in 1836 Jerrold became co-manager
of the Strand theatre with W. J. Hammond, his brother-in-law.
The venture was not successful, and the partnership
was dissolved. While it lasted Jerrold wrote his only tragedy,
The Painter of Ghent, and himself appeared in the title-rôle, without
any very marked success. He continued to write sparkling
comedies till 1854, the date of his last piece, The Heart of Gold.
Meanwhile he had won his way to the pages of numerous periodicals—before 1830 of the second-rate magazines only, but after that to those of more importance. He was a contributor to the Monthly Magazine, Blackwood’s, the New Monthly, and the Athenaeum. To Punch, the publication which of all others is associated with his name, he contributed from its second number in 1841 till within a few days of his death. He founded and edited for some time, though with indifferent success, the Illuminated Magazine, Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine, and Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper ; and under his editorship Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper rose from almost nonentity to a circulation of 182,000. The history of his later years is little more than a catalogue of his literary productions, interrupted now and again by brief visits to the Continent or to the country. Douglas Jerrold died at his house, Kilburn Priory, in London, on the 8th of June 1857.
Jerrold’s figure was small and spare, and in later years bowed almost to deformity. His features were strongly marked and expressive from the thin humorous lips to the keen blue eyes gleaming from beneath the shaggy eyebrows. He was brisk and active, with the careless bluffness of a sailor. Open and sincere, he concealed neither his anger nor his pleasure; to his simple frankness all polite duplicity was distasteful. The cynical side of his nature he kept for his writings; in private life his hand was always open. In politics Jerrold was a Liberal, and he gave eager sympathy to Kossuth, Mazzini and Louis Blanc. In social politics especially he took an eager part; he never tired of declaiming against the horrors of war, the luxury of bishops, and the iniquity of capital punishment.
Douglas Jerrold is now perhaps better known from his reputation as a brilliant wit in conversation than from his writings. As a dramatist he was very popular, though his plays have not kept the stage. He dealt with rather humbler forms of social life than had commonly been represented on the boards. He was one of the first and certainly one of the most successful of those
