JOHN OF SALISBURY

JOHN OF SALISBURY, a learned English ecclesiastic, and the biographer of the two archbishops of Canterbury, Anselm and Thomas à Becket. Comparatively little is known of his personal history. He was born about the beginning of the twelfth century, and seems at an early

age to have passed over to France, where Abelard, though nearing the close of his public career, was still teaching with as splendid success as in the prime of manhood. "I drank in with incredible avidity," wrote his young English admirer, "every word that fell from his lips, but he soon to my infinite regret, retired." John then turned to other studies, and lost himself for two years in the subtleties of the scholastic logic. Grammar and rhetoric next engaged his thoughts for three years; and at the end of that period he began a seven years' course of the classics, mathematics, and theology. After a flying visit to England, John returned to France, whence he directed his steps southwards to Italy. At Rome he was kindly received by the Pope Eugene III., and afterwards by his successor Adrian IV. With the latter of these pontiffs he was an especial favourite. "Though Adrian had a mother and a brother," he wrote in his Metalogicus, "I fear not to say that he preferred me to them. He declared in public and in private that I was of all men he whom he loved most tenderly. His exalted position did not prevent him from admitting me to his table. He insisted that we should drink out of the same glass, and eat off the same plate." In the intervals of teaching and travelling, John had written his Metalogicus, an attack on the absurdity and danger of wasting so much time as it was the fashion of that age to do, in the sheerest quibbles of the wrangling art. With unsparing ridicule and invective he laughs the scholastic doctors to scorn for gravely debating such questions as "How many angels can dance at a time on the point of a needle?" or, "Whether, when a hog is carried to market by a man with a rope tied round its neck, the hog is really carried to market by the man or the rope?" So keen, indeed, is he in his onslaught on scholastic philosophy as fatal to the grace and refinement of poetry and polite literature in general, that he shuts his eyes against its real merits and uses, and sees only the ridiculous extravagances of its fanatical devotees. This work was dedicated to Thomas à Becket, then engaged with Henry II. at the siege of Toulouse; and so pleased was he with the compliment that when he was promoted to the see of Canterbury, he made its author his secretary. In this capacity, John became, as is recorded by a contemporary, the eye and hand of the bishop. In his disgrace he accompanied him to France, and, after an exile of seven years, returned with him to England, and was with him at the moment when he was put to death. He remained attached to the cathedral of Canterbury till 1176, when he was elected Bishop of Chartres. He spent the rest of his life in his diocese, and died October 25, in 1182. His greatest work was Polygraphicus, sive de nugis Curialium et Vestigiis Philosophorum libri octo, characterized by Warton as "an extremely pleasant miscellany, replete with erudition and a judgment of men and things, which properly belongs to a more sensible and reflecting period." The work is intended to expose the frivolities of the great, and of such as spend their lives at courts; and is marked by a vein of caustic satire, sometimes verging on the extreme limits of good taste. But the general accomplishments and literary faculty displayed in it are such as one looks for in vain in almost any other book of that period. Its author's character had always stood high as a refined scholar, an elegant Latin poet, and an impressive orator. The researches of modern scholars have merely gone to confirm the idea that John was the most learned and accomplished man of his age. (Leland; Craik's Hist. Eng. Lit.; Biog. Univ.; Hist. Lit. de la France, &c., &c.)

JOHN or JAN, St., one of the Virgin Islands in the West Indies, belonging to Denmark, and lying 4 miles E. off St Thomas, in N. Lat. 18. 18., W. Long. 64. 49. It is about 9 miles long and 4 in breadth, rising to a considerable height in the centre, and having generally a very uneven surface. Exports trifling. Pop. (1850) 2228.