Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/646

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JEAFFEESON.

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was published in 1875^ and was followed by the "Dark Colleen," 1876} "Madge Dunraven/' 1878; "Two Men and a Maid," and "The Priesfs Blessing/' 1881. Miss Jay made her first appearance on the stage as the heroine of Mr. Buchanan's "Nine Days Queen," in 1881, and has since fulfilled several engagements in London and provincial theatres. She collabo- rated with her brother-in-law, Mr. Buchanan, in the dramatization of her own novel, the " Queen of Connaught," produced at the Olym- pic Theatre in 1876.

JEAFFRESON, John Cordy, is a member' of an East Anglian family, which has been seated for more than two centuries at Dulling- ham House, Cambridgeshire. He was born on Jan. 14, 1831, at Fram- lingham, Suffolk, where his father, William Jeaffreson, F.R.C.S.(known in the medical profession as the originator and first performer of the minor operation for ovarian dropsy), was an eminent sturgical operator. Having received his early education, first at the Woodbridge Grammar School, and afterwards at the Botesdale Grammar School, he studied medicine for some years, till, changing his plan of life, he matriculated at Pembroke College, Oxford, where he became a writer in magazines and newspapers, whilst still an undergraduate. Having taken his B.A. degree in 1852, he relinquished from consci- entious scruples his purpose of entering the clerical profession, and became a law student at Lin- coln's Inn, where he was called to the bar in 1859. His first novel, "Crewe Rise," was published in 1854, and has been followed by " Isabel, the Yoimg Wife and the Old Love," 1856; "Miriam Cop- ley," 1859; "OUve Blake's Good Work," 1862; "Sir Everard's Daughter," "Live It Down," 1863; "Not Dead Yet," 1864; "A Noble Woman," 1868; "A Wo- man in Spite of Herself/' 1872

" Lottie Darling," 1873 ; and "The Rapiers of Regent's Park," 1882. In connection with these works of fiction mention may be made of their author's history of the literature of prose fiction in England, entitled " Novels and Novelists from Elizabeth to Vic- toria," .1858. Mr. Jeaffreson's principal contributions to the social history of England are his three well-taiown books on the three learned professions, " A Book about Doctors," I860; "A Book about Lawyers," 1866; "A Book about the Clergy," 1870; the "Annals of Oxford," 1871, which greatly disturbed academic circles by ridi- culing the mythical exaggerations of the antiquity of the imiversity, and by insisting that the proud seat of learning had its origin in a mere guild of schoolmasters for boys; "Brides and Bridals," 1872, a history of marriage in Enghmd ; "A Book about the Table,'^ 1874, which exhibits the. origin of our chief festive usages, and shows how largely modern copkery is indebted to the culinary practice of ancient Rome ; and " A Young Squire of the Seventeenth Century," 1877, containing selections ^m the papers (a.d. 1676— a.d. 1686) of the author's ancestor, Christopher Jeaffreson, of Dullingham House, Cambridgeshire, that afford much curious information respecting Eng- lish life in the seventeenth century, the early colonization of English America, and the first settlement of our West Indian dependencies, the oldest of which (St. Kitts) was planted by Colonel John Jeaffreson and his comrade Sir Thomas War- ner in the reign of James the First. Shortly after the death of Robert Stephenson, C.E., Mr. Jeaffreson was retained by the great engineer's representatives to write the story of his life, in conjunction with Professor Pole, C.E., who contribu- ted the scientific appendix to the "Life of Robert Stephenson," 1864. A contributor in past thnes to