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Joʹnas

,

in Dryden’s satire of Absalom and Achitophel, is meant for Sir William Jones, Attorney-General, who conducted the prosecution of the Popish Plot (June 25th, 1674); not the great Oriental scholar, who lived 1746–1794. The attorney-general was called in the satire Jonas by a palpable pun.

“Not bull-faced Jonas, who could statutes draw

To mean rebellion and make treason law.”

Dryden: Absalom and Achitophel, part i. 520, 521.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.