Jenyns, enterprize. Rarely does the world give both wealth and honours to the philanthropist. Jenner was as successful as any man in this respect. Honours and fame he had, such as never fell before to the lot of a physician.

Jenner was a devoted smoker of tobacco, and it was probably a community of taste in this respect which led the Duke of Sussex to present him with a beautiful hookah.

Jenner's manners and personal appearance were not striking at first sight; further observation showed, however, that he was a remarkable man. He was simple and unrestrained, but at the same time dignified. He was rather below the middle size, had a pleasant cheerful expression, full lips, well-formed nose. None of his direct descendants survive to inherit his name.

(J. L.)

JENYNS, Soame, author of the Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Sin, was born at London in 1704. He was born of a good family, and enjoyed all the advantages in the way of education that ample means and high social standing could give. In 1722 he was entered of St John's College, Cambridge, where in due course he took the ordinary degrees. In 1742 he was chosen M.P. for the county of Cambridge, in which his property lay. In 1754 he sat for the borough of Dunwich; and seven years later he was returned for the town of Cambridge, which he continued to represent till his retirement from public life. In 1755 he was made one of the commissioners of the board of trade, and retained that office, amid all the changes of administration, till it was abolished in 1780. Jenyns was twice married, but left no issue by either of his wives. He died after a short illness December 18, 1787.

For the measure of literary repute which he enjoyed during his life Jenyns was indebted as much to his wealth and social standing as to his accomplishments or talents, though both were considerable. He made his debut in literature as a poet; and his Art of Dancing, 1727, and Miscellanies, 1770, contain many passages graceful and lively, but occasionally verging towards license. The success of these efforts gained for his prose works a more indulgent reception than was warranted by their intrinsic merits. The first of these was his Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil, 1756. This essay was severely criticised in many of the reviews of the day, and in none more severely than in the Literary Magazine. Dr Johnson, the author of the critique, condemned the book strongly as a slight and shallow attempt to solve one of the most difficult of moral problems; and though Jenyns put forth a second edition, with a vindication prefixed, the strong points of the critic's argument remained as strong as before. Johnson's critique, indeed, is the very best paper of that kind that he ever wrote—a masterpiece both of reasoning and of satirical pleasantry. Jenyns, a gentle and amiable man in the main, was extremely irritated by his failure, and tried to take vengeance on Johnson after his death by a sarcastic epitaph. In this he overshot his mark; an anonymous friend of the doctor retaliated by one still more cutting, and Jenyns was silenced. In 1776 Jenyns published his View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion.

In early life he had been noted as orthodox, even to bigotry; and though at a later period he had sported a kind of deistic scepticism, yet before this book appeared, he had returned to the creed of his youth, and was held even by his enemies to be a sincere and pious Christian. Yet he was accused by many of cherishing a secret enmity to the faith he professed, for defending it on the ground of its total variance with the principles of human reason. The charge would probably be fair enough against any one who should now venture to set up such a defence; but Jenyns seems to have regarded himself as having really done service to the Christian faith. The essay in question was very highly praised in its day for its literary merits. Like his other prose works, it is pure and graceful in style, and contains many acute remarks and happy illustrations. It is so plainly Jeremiah the work of a dilettante in theology that as a scientific treatise it is valueless. The writing dazzles and pleases the reader far more than the thought impresses or satisfies him.