Chapter V: Part 5

The extant dramatic works of Ben Jonson fall into three or, if his fragmentary pastoral drama be considered to stand by itself, into four distinct divisions. The tragedies are only two in number--_Sejanus his Fall and Catiline his Conspiracy_.[3] Of these the earlier, as is worth noting, was produced at Shakespeare's theatre, in all probability before the first of Shakespeare's Roman dramas, and still contains a considerable admixture of rhyme in the dialogue. Though perhaps less carefully elaborated in diction than its successor, _Sejanus_ is at least equally impressive as a highly wrought dramatic treatment of a complex historic theme. The character of Tiberius adds an element of curious psychological interest on which speculation has never quite exhausted itself and which, in Jonson's day at least, was wanting to the figures of _Catiline_ and his associates. But in both plays the action is powerfully conducted, and the care bestowed by the dramatist upon the great variety of characters introduced cannot, as in some of his comedies, be said to distract the interest of the reader. Both these tragedies are noble works, though the relative popularity of the subject (for conspiracies are in the long run more interesting than camarillas) has perhaps secured the preference to Catiline. Yet this play and its predecessor were alike too manifestly intended by their author to court the goodwill of what he calls the "extraordinary" reader. It is difficult to imagine that (with the aid of judicious shortenings) either could altogether miss its effect on the stage; but, while Shakespeare causes us to forget, Jonson seems to wish us to remember, his authorities. The half is often greater than the whole; and Jonson, like all dramatists and, it might be added, all novelists in similar cases, has had to pay the penalty incurred by too obvious a desire to underline the learning of the author.

Perversity--or would-be originality--alone could declare Jonson's tragedy preferable to his comedy. Even if the revolution which he created in the comic branch of the drama had been mistaken in its principles or unsatisfactory in its results, it would be clear that the strength of his dramatic genius lay in the power of depicting a great variety of characters, and that in comedy alone he succeeded in finding a wide field for the exercise of this power. There may have been no very original or very profound discovery in the idea which he illustrated in _Every Man in his Humour_, and, as it were, technically elaborated in _Every Man out of his Humour_--that in many men one quality is observable which so possesses them as to draw the whole of their individualities one way, and that this phenomenon "may be truly said to be a humour." The idea of the master quality or tendency was, as has been well observed, a very considerable one for dramatist or novelist. Nor did Jonson (happily) attempt to work out this idea with any excessive scientific consistency as a comic dramatist. But, by refusing to apply the term "humour" (q.v.) to a mere peculiarity or affectation of manners, and restricting its use to actual or implied differences or distinctions of character, he broadened the whole basis of English comedy after his fashion, as Molière at a later date, keeping in closer touch with the common experience of human life, with a lighter hand broadened the basis of French and of modern Western comedy at large. It does not of course follow that Jonson's disciples, the Bromes and the Cartwrights, always adequately reproduced the master's conception of "humorous" comedy. Jonson's wide and various reading helped him to diversify the application of his theory, while perhaps at times it led him into too remote illustrations of it. Still, Captain Bobadil and Captain Tucca, Macilente and Fungoso, Volpone and Mosca, and a goodly number of other characters impress themselves permanently upon the memory of those whose attention they have as a matter of course commanded. It is a very futile criticism to condemn Jonson's characters as a mere series of types of general ideas; on the other hand, it is a very sound criticism to object, with Barry Cornwall, to the "multitude of characters who throw no light upon the story, and lend no interest to it, occupying space that had better have been bestowed upon the principal agents of the plot."

In the construction of plots, as in most other respects, Jonson's at once conscientious and vigorous mind led him in the direction of originality; he depended to a far less degree than the greater part of his contemporaries (Shakespeare with the rest) upon borrowed plots. But either his inventive character was occasionally at fault in this respect, or his devotion to his characters often diverted his attention from a brisk conduct of his plot. Barry Cornwall has directed attention to the essential likeness in the plot of two of Jonson's best comedies, _Volpone_ and _The Alchemist_; and another critic, W. Bodham Donne, has dwelt on the difficulty which, in _The Poetaster_ and elsewhere, Ben Jonson seems to experience in sustaining the promise of his actions. _The Poetaster_ is, however, a play _sui generis_, in which the real business can hardly be said to begin till the last act.

Dryden, when criticizing Ben Jonson's comedies, thought fit, while allowing the old master humour and incontestable "pleasantness," to deny him wit and those ornaments thereof which Quintilian reckons up under the terms _urbana_, _salsa_, _faceta_ and so forth. Such wit as Dryden has in view is the mere outward fashion or style of the day, the euphuism or "sheerwit" or _chic_ which is the creed of Fastidious Brisks and of their astute purveyors at any given moment. In this Ben Jonson was no doubt defective; but it would be an error to suppose him, as a comic dramatist, to have maintained towards the world around him the attitude of a philosopher, careless of mere transient externalisms. It is said that the scene of his _Every Man in his Humour_ was originally laid near Florence; and his _Volpone_, which is perhaps the darkest social picture ever drawn by him, plays at Venice. Neither locality was ill-chosen, but the real atmosphere of his comedies is that of the native surroundings amidst which they were produced; and Ben Jonson's times live for us in his men and women, his country gulls and town gulls, his alchemists and exorcists, his "skeldring" captains and whining Puritans, and the whole ragamuffin rout of his _Bartholomew Fair_, the comedy _par excellence_ of Elizabethan low life. After he had described the pastimes, fashionable and unfashionable, of his age, its feeble superstitions and its flaunting naughtinesses, its vapouring affectations and its lying effronteries, with an odour as of "divine tabacco" pervading the whole, little might seem to be left to describe for his "sons" and successors. Enough, however, remained; only that his followers speedily again threw manners and "humours" into an undistinguishable medley.

The gift which both in his art and in his life Jonson lacked was that of exercising the influence or creating the effects which he wished to exercise or create without the appearance of consciousness. Concealment never crept over his efforts, and he scorned insinuation. Instead of this, influenced no doubt by the example of the free relations between author and public permitted by Attic comedy, he resorted again and again, from _Every Man out of his Humour_ to _The Magnetic Lady_, to inductions and commentatory intermezzos and appendices, which, though occasionally effective by the excellence of their execution, are to be regretted as introducing into his dramas an exotic and often vexatious element. A man of letters to the very core, he never quite understood that there is and ought to be a wide difference of methods between the world of letters and the world of the theatre.

The richness and versatility of Jonson's genius will never be fully appreciated by those who fail to acquaint themselves with what is preserved to us of his "masques" and cognate entertainments. He was conscious enough of his success in this direction--"next himself," he said, "only Fletcher and Chapman could write a masque." He introduced, or at least established, the ingenious innovation of the anti-masque, which Schlegel has described, as a species of "parody added by the poet to his device, and usually prefixed to the serious entry," and which accordingly supplies a grotesque antidote to the often extravagantly imaginative main conception. Jonson's learning, creative power and humorous ingenuity--combined, it should not be forgotten, with a genuine lyrical gift--all found abundant opportunities for displaying themselves in these productions. Though a growth of foreign origin, the masque was by him thoroughly domesticated in the high places of English literature. He lived long enough to see the species produce its poetic masterpiece in Comus.

_The Sad Shepherd_, of which Jonson left behind him three acts and a prologue, is distinguished among English pastoral dramas by its freshness of tone; it breathes something of the spirit of the greenwood, and is not unnatural even in its supernatural element. While this piece, with its charming love-scenes between Robin Hood and Maid Marion, remains a fragment, another pastoral by Jonson, the _May Lord_ (which F. G. Fleay and J. A. Symonds sought to identify with _The Sad Shepherd_; see, however, W. W. Greg in introduction to the Louvain reprint), has been lost, and a third, of which Loch Lomond was intended to be the scene, probably remained unwritten.

Though Ben Jonson never altogether recognized the truth of the maxim that the dramatic art has properly speaking no didactic purpose, his long and laborious life was not wasted upon a barren endeavour. In tragedy he added two works of uncommon merit to our dramatic literature. In comedy his aim was higher, his effort more sustained, and his success more solid than were those of any of his fellows. In the subsidiary and hybrid species of the masque, he helped to open a new and attractive though undoubtedly devious path in the field of dramatic literature. His intellectual endowments surpassed those of most of the great English dramatists in richness and breadth; and in energy of application he probably left them all behind. Inferior to more than one of his fellow-dramatists in the power of imaginative sympathy, he was first among the Elizabethans in the power of observation; and there is point in Barrett Wendell's paradox, that as a dramatist he was not really a poet but a painter. Yet it is less by these gifts, or even by his unexcelled capacity for hard work, than by the true ring of manliness that he will always remain distinguished among his peers.

Jonson was buried on the north side of the nave in Westminster Abbey, and the inscription, "O Rare Ben Jonson," was cut in the slab over his grave. In the beginning of the 18th century a portrait bust was put up to his memory in the Poets' Corner by Harley, earl of Oxford. Of Honthorst's portrait of Jonson at Knole Park there is a copy in the National Portrait Gallery; another was engraved by W. Marshall for the 1640 edition of his Poems.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The date of the first folio volume of Jonson's _Works_
(of which title his novel but characteristic use in applying it to
plays was at the time much ridiculed) has already been mentioned as
1616; the second, professedly published in 1640, is described by
Gifford as "a wretched continuation of the first, printed from MSS.
surreptitiously obtained during his life, or ignorantly hurried
through the press after his death, and bearing a variety of dates from
1631 to 1641 inclusive." The works were reprinted in a single folio
volume in 1692, in which _The New Inn_ and _The Case is Altered_ were
included for the first time, and again in 6 vols. 8vo in 1715. Peter
Whalley's edition in 7 vols., with a life, appeared in 1756, but was
superseded in 1816 by William Gifford's, in 9 vols. (of which the
first includes a biographical memoir, and the famous essay on the
"Proofs of Ben Jonson's Malignity, from the Commentators on
Shakespeare"). A new edition of Gifford's was published in 9 vols. in
1875 by Colonel F. Cunningham, as well as a cheap reprint in 3 vols.
in 1870. Both contain the _Conversations_ with Drummond, which were
first printed in full by David Laing in the _Shakespeare Society's
Publications_ (1842) and the _Jonsonus Virbius_, a collection
(unparalleled in number and variety of authors) of poetical tributes,
published about six months after Jonson's death by his friends and
admirers. There is also a single-volume edition, with a very readable
memoir, by Barry Cornwall (1838). An edition of Ben Jonson's works
from the original texts was recently undertaken by C. H. Herford and
Percy Simpson. A selection from his plays, edited for the "Mermaid"
series in 1893-1895 by B. Nicholson, with an introduction by C. H.
Herford, was reissued in 1904. W. W. Bang in his _Materialien zur
Kunde des alten englischen Dramas_ has reprinted from the folio of
1616 those of Ben Jonson's plays which are contained in it (Louvain,
1905-1906). _Every Man in his Humour_ and _Every Man out of his
Humour_ have been edited for the same series (16 and 17, 1905 and
1907) by W. W. Bang and W. W. Greg. _Every Man in his Humour_ has also
been edited, with a brief biographical as well as special
introduction, to which the present sketch owes some details, by H. B.
Wheatley (1877). Some valuable editions of plays by Ben Jonson have
been recently published by American scholars in the _Yale Studies in
English_, edited by A. S. Cook--_The Poetaster_, ed. H. S. Mallory
(1905); _The Alchemist_, ed. C. M. Hathaway (1903); _The Devil is an
Ass_, ed. W. S. Johnson (1905); _The Staple of News_, ed. De Winter
(1905); _The New Inn_, ed. by G. Bremner (1908); _The Sad Shepherd_
(with Waldron's continuation) has been edited by W. W. Greg for Bang's
_Materialien zur Kunde des alten englischen Dramas_ (Louvain, 1905).

The criticisms of Ben Jonson are too numerous for cataloguing here;
among those by eminent Englishmen should be specially mentioned John
Dryden's, particularly those in his _Essay on Dramatic Poësy_
(1667-1668; revised 1684), and in the preface to _An Evening's Love,
or the Mock Astrologer_ (1668), and A. C. Swinburne's _Study of Ben
Jonson_ (1889), in which, however, the significance of the
_Discoveries_ is misapprehended. See also F. G. Fleay, _Biographical
Chronicle of the English Drama_ (1891), i. 311-387, ii. 1-18; C. H.
Herford, "Ben Jonson" (art. in _Dict. Nat. Biog._, vol. xxx., 1802);
A. W. Ward, _History of English Dramatic Literature_, 2nd ed. (1899),
ii. 296-407; and for a list of early impressions, W. W. Greg, _List of
English Plays written before 1643 and printed before 1700_
(Bibliographical Society, 1900), pp. 55-58 and supplement 11-15. An
important French work on Ben Jonson, both biographical and critical,
and containing, besides many translations of scenes and passages, some
valuable appendices, to more than one of which reference has been made
above, is Maurice Castelain's _Ben Jonson, l'homme et l'oeuvre_
(1907). Among treatises or essays on particular aspects of his
literary work may be mentioned Emil Koeppel's _Quellenstudien zu den
Dramen Ben Jonson's_, &c. (1895); the same writer's "Ben Jonson's
Wirkung auf zeitgenössische Dramatiker," &c., in _Anglicistische
Forschungen_, 20 (1906); F. E. Schelling's _Ben Jonson and the
Classical School_ (1898); and as to his masques, A. Soergel, _Die
englischen Maskenspiele_ (1882) and J. Schmidt, "Über Ben Jonson's
Maskenspiele," in Herrig's _Archiv_, &c., xxvii. 51-91. See also H.
Reinsch, "Ben Jonson's Poetik und seine Beziehungen zu Horaz," in
_Münchener Beiträge_, 16 (1899). (A. W. W.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] His Christian name of Benjamin was usually abbreviated by himself
and his contemporaries; and thus, in accordance with his famous
epitaph, it will always continue to be abbreviated.

[2] With Inigo Jones, however, in quarrelling with whom, as Howell
reminds Jonson, the poet was virtually quarrelling with his bread and
butter, he seems to have found it impossible to live permanently at
peace; his satirical _Expostulation_ against the architect was
published as late as 1635. Chapman's satire against his old
associate, perhaps due to this quarrel, was left unfinished and
unpublished.

[3] Of _The Fall of Mortimer_ Jonson left only a few lines behind
him; but, as he also left the argument of the play, factious
ingenuity contrived to furbish up the relic into a libel against
Queen Caroline and Sir Robert Walpole in 1731, and to revive the
contrivance by way of an insult to the princess dowager of Wales and
Lord Bute in 1762.

JOPLIN, a city of Jasper county, Missouri, U.S.A., on Joplin creek, about 140 m. S. of Kansas City. Pop. (1890), 9943; (1900), 26,023, of whom 893 were foreign-born and 773 were negroes; (1910 census) 32,073. It is served by the Missouri Pacific, the St Louis & San Francisco, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, and the Kansas City Southern railways, and by interurban electric lines. The city has a fine court-house, a United States government building, a Carnegie library and a large auditorium. Joplin is the trade centre of a rich agricultural and fruit-growing district, but its growth has been chiefly due to its situation in one of the most productive zinc and lead regions in the country, for which it is the commercial centre. In 1906 the value of zinc-ore shipments from this Missouri-Kansas (or Joplin) district was $12,074,105, and of shipments of lead ore, $3,048,558. The value of Joplin's factory product in 1905 was $3,006,203, an increase of 29.3% since 1900. Natural gas, piped from the Kansas fields, is used for light and power, and electricity for commercial lighting and power is derived from plants on Spring River, near Vark, Kansas, and on Shoal creek. The municipality owns its electric-lighting plant; the water-works are under private ownership. The first settlement in the neighbourhood was made in 1838. In 1871 Joplin was laid out and incorporated as a town; in 1872 it and a rival town on the other side of Joplin creek were united under the name Union City; in 1873 Union City was chartered as a city under the name Joplin; and in 1888 Joplin was chartered as a city of the third class. The city derives its name from the creek, which was named in honour of the Rev. Harris G. Joplin (c. 1810-1847), a native of Tennessee.

JOPPA, less correctly JAFFA (Arab. _Yafa_), a seaport on the coast of Palestine. It is of great antiquity, being mentioned in the tribute lists of Tethmosis (Thothmes) III.; but as it never was in the territory of the pre-exilic Israelites it was to them a place of no importance. Its ascription to the tribe of Dan (Josh. xix. 46) is purely theoretical. According to the authors of Chronicles (2 Chron. ii. 16), Ezra (iii. 7) and Jonah (i. 3) it was a seaport for importation of the Lebanon timber floated down the coasts or for ships plying even to distant Tarshish. About 148 B.C. it was captured from the Syrians by Jonathan Maccabaeus (1 Macc. x. 75) and later it was retaken and garrisoned by Simon his brother (xii. 33, xiii. 11). It was restored to the Syrians by Pompey (Jos., _Ant._ xiv. 4, 4) but again given back to the Jews (ib. xiv. 10, 6) with an exemption from tax. St Peter for a while lodged at Joppa, where he restored the benevolent widow Tabitha to life, and had the vision which taught him the universality of the plan of Christianity.

According to Strabo (xvi. ii.), who makes the strange mistake of saying that Jerusalem is visible from Joppa, the place was a resort of pirates. It was destroyed by Vespasian in the Jewish War (68). Tradition connects the story of Andromeda and the sea-monster with the sea-coast of Joppa, and in early times her chains were shown as well as the skeleton of the monster itself (Jos. _Wars_, iii. 9, 3). The site seems to have been shown even to some medieval pilgrims, and curious traces of it have been detected in modern Moslem legends.

In the 5th and 11th centuries we hear from time to time of bishops of Joppa, under the metropolitan of Jerusalem. In 1126 the district was captured by the knights of St John, but lost to Saladin in 1187. Richard Coeur de Lion retook it in 1191, but it was finally retaken by Malek el 'Adil in 1196. It languished for a time; in the 16th century it was an almost uninhabited ruin; but towards the end of the 17th century it began anew to develop as a seaport. In 1799 it was stormed by Napoleon; the fortifications were repaired and strengthened by the British.

The modern town of Joppa derives its importance, first, as a seaport for Jerusalem and the whole of southern Palestine, and secondly as a centre of the fruit-growing industry. During the latter part of the 19th century it greatly increased in size. The old city walls have been entirely removed. Its population is about 35,000 (Moslems 23,000, Christians 5000, Jews 7000; with the Christians are included the "Templars," a semi-religious, semi-agricultural German colony of about 320 souls). The town, which rises over a rounded hillock on the coast, about 100 ft. high, has a very picturesque appearance from the sea. The harbour (so-called) is one of the worst existing, being simply a natural breakwater formed by a ledge of reefs, safe enough for small Oriental craft, but very dangerous for large vessels, which can only make use of the seaport in calm weather; these never come nearer than about a mile from the shore. A railway and a bad carriage-road connect Joppa with Jerusalem. The water of the town is derived from wells, many of which have a brackish taste. The export trade of the town consists of soap of olive oil, sesame, barley, water melons, wine and especially oranges (commonly known as Jaffa oranges), grown in the famous and ever-increasing gardens that lie north and east of the town. The chief imports are timber, cotton and other textile goods, tiles, iron, rice, coffee, sugar and petroleum. The value of the exports in 1900 was estimated at £264,950, the imports £382,405. Over 10,000 pilgrims, chiefly Russians, and some three or four thousand tourists land annually at Joppa. The town is the seat of a kaimakam or lieutenant-governor, subordinate to the governor of Jerusalem, and contains vice-consulates of Great Britain, France, Germany, America and other powers. There are Latin, Greek, Armenian and Coptic monasteries; and hospitals and schools under British, French and German auspices. (R. A. S. M.)

JORDAENS, JACOB (1593-1678), Flemish painter, was born and died at Antwerp. He studied, like Rubens, under Adam van Noort, and his marriage with his master's daughter in 1616, the year after his admission to the gild of painters, prevented him from visiting Rome. He was forced to content himself with studying such examples of the Italian masters as he found at home; but a far more potent influence was exerted upon his style by Rubens, who employed him sometimes to reproduce small sketches in large. Jordaens is second to Rubens alone in their special department of the Flemish school. In both there is the same warmth of colour, truth to nature, mastery of chiaroscuro and energy of expression; but Jordaens is wanting in dignity of conception, and is inferior in choice of forms, in the character of his heads, and in correctness of drawing. Not seldom he sins against good taste, and in some of his humorous pieces the coarseness is only atoned for by the animation. Of these last he seems in some cases to have painted several replicas. He employed his pencil also in biblical, mythological, historical and allegorical subjects, and is well-known as a portrait painter. He also etched some plates.

See the elaborate work on the painter, by Max Rooses (1908).

JORDAN, CAMILLE (1771-1821), French politician, was born in Lyons on the 11th of January 1771 of a well-to-do mercantile family. He was educated in Lyons, and from an early age was imbued with royalist principles. He actively supported by voice, pen and musket his native town in its resistance to the Convention; and when Lyons fell, in October 1793, Jordan fled. From Switzerland he passed in six months to England, where he formed acquaintances with other French exiles and with prominent British statesmen, and imbibed a lasting admiration for the English Constitution. In 1796 he returned to France, and next year he was sent by Lyons as a deputy to the Council of Five Hundred. There his eloquence won him consideration. He earnestly supported what he felt to be true freedom, especially in matters of religious worship, though the energetic appeal on behalf of church bells in his _Rapport sur la liberté des cultes_ procured him the sobriquet of Jordan-Cloche. Proscribed at the _coup d'état_ of the 18th Fructidor (4th of September 1797) he escaped to Basel. Thence he went to Germany, where he met Goethe. Back again in France by 1800, he boldly published in 1802 his _Vrai sens du vote national pour le consulat à vie_, in which he exposed the ambitious schemes of Bonaparte. He was unmolested, however, and during the First Empire lived in literary retirement at Lyons with his wife and family, producing for the Lyons academy occasional papers on the _Influence réciproque de l'éloquence sur la Révolution et de la Révolution sur l'éloquence_; _Études sur Klopstock_, &c. At the restoration in 1814 he again emerged into public life. By Louis XVIII. he was ennobled and named a councillor of state; and from 1816 he sat in the chamber of deputies as representative of Ain. At first he supported the ministry, but when they began to show signs of reaction he separated from them, and gradually came to be at the head of the constitutional opposition. His speeches in the chamber were always eloquent and powerful. Though warned by failing health to resign, Camille Jordan remained at his post till his death at Paris, on the 19th of May 1821.

To his pen we owe _Lettre à M. Lamourette_ (1791); _Histoire de la
conversion d'une dame Parisienne_ (1792); _La Loi et la religion
vengées_ (1792); _Adresse à ses commettants sur la révolution du 4
Septembre 1797_ (1797); _Sur les troubles de Lyon_ (1818); _La Session
de 1817_ (1818). His _Discours_ were collected in 1818. The "Fragments
choisis," and translations from the German, were published in
_L'Abeille française_. Besides the various histories of the time, see
further details vol. x. of the _Revue encyclopédique_; a paper on
Jordan and Madame de Staël, by C. A. Sainte-Beuve, in the _Revue des
deux mondes_ for March 1868 and R. Boubée, "Camille Jordan à Weimar,"
in the _Correspondant_ (1901), ccv. 718-738 and 948-970.

JORDAN, DOROTHEA (1762-1816), Irish actress, was born near Waterford, Ireland, in 1762. Her mother, Grace Phillips, at one time known as Mrs Frances, was a Dublin actress. Her father, whose name was Bland, was according to one account an army captain, but more probably a stage hand. Dorothy Jordan made her first appearance on the stage in 1777 in Dublin as Phoebe in _As You Like It_. After acting elsewhere in Ireland she appeared in 1782 at Leeds, and subsequently at other Yorkshire towns, in a variety of parts, including Lady Teazle. It was at this time that she began calling herself Mrs Jordan. In 1785 she made her first London appearance at Drury Lane as Peggy in _A Country Girl_. Before the end of her first season she had become an established public favourite, her acting in comedy being declared second only to that of Kitty Clive. Her engagement at Drury Lane lasted till 1809, and she played a large variety of parts. But gradually it came to be recognized that her special talent lay in comedy, her Lady Teazle, Rosalind and Imogen being specially liked, and such "breeches" parts as William in _Rosina_. During the rebuilding of Drury Lane she played at the Haymarket; she transferred her services in 1811 to Covent Garden. Here, in 1814, she made her last appearance on the London stage, and the following year, at Margate, retired altogether. Mrs Jordan's private life was one of the scandals of the period. She had a daughter by her first manager, in Ireland, and four children by Sir Richard Ford, whose name she bore for some years. In 1790 she became the mistress of the duke of Clarence (afterwards William IV.), and bore him ten children, who were ennobled under the name of Fitz Clarence, the eldest being created earl of Munster. In 1811 they separated by mutual consent, Mrs Jordan being granted a liberal allowance. In 1815 she went abroad. According to one story she was in danger of imprisonment for debt. If so, the debt must have been incurred on behalf of others--probably her relations, who appear to have been continually borrowing from her--for her own personal debts were very much more than covered by her savings. She is generally understood to have died at St Cloud, near Paris, on the 3rd of July 1816, but the story that under an assumed name she lived for seven years after that date in England finds some credence.

See James Boaden, _Life of Mrs Jordan_ (1831); _The Great
Illegitimates_ (1830); John Genest, _Account of the Stage_; Tate
Wilkinson, _The Wandering Patentee; Memoirs and Amorous Adventures by
Sea and Land of King William IV._ (1830); _The Georgian Era_ (1838).

JORDAN, THOMAS (1612?-1685), English poet and pamphleteer, was born in London and started life as an actor at the Red Bull theatre in Clerkenwell. He published in 1637 his first volume of poems, entitled _Poeticall Varieties_, and in the same year appeared _A Pill to Purge Melancholy_. In 1639 he recited one of his poems before King Charles I., and from this time forward Jordan's output in verse and prose was continuous and prolific. He freely borrowed from other authors, and frequently re-issued his own writings under new names. During the troubles between the king and the parliament he wrote a number of Royalist pamphlets, the first of which, _A Medicine for the Times, or an Antidote against Faction_, appeared in 1641. Dedications, occasional verses, prologues and epilogues to plays poured from his pen. Many volumes of his poems bear no date, and they were probably written during the Commonwealth. At the Restoration he eulogized Monk, produced a masque at the entertainment of the general in the city of London and wrote pamphlets in his support. He then for some years devoted his chief attention to writing plays, in at least one of which, _Money is an Ass_, he himself played a part when it was produced in 1668. In 1671 he was appointed laureate to the city of London; from this date till his death in 1685 he annually composed a panegyric on the lord mayor, and arranged the pageantry of the lord mayor's shows, which he celebrated in verse under such titles as _London Triumphant, or the City in Jollity and Splendour_ (1672), or _London in Luster, Projecting many Bright Beams of Triumph_ (1679). Many volumes of these curious productions are preserved in the British Museum.

In addition to his numerous printed works, of which perhaps _A Royal
Arbour of Loyall Poesie_ (1664) and _A Nursery of Novelties in Variety
of Poetry_ are most deserving of mention, several volumes of his poems
exist in manuscript. W. C. Hazlitt and other 19th-century critics
found more merit in Jordan's writings than was allowed by his
contemporaries, who for the most part scornfully referred to his
voluminous productions as commonplace and dull.

See Gerard Langbaine, _Account of the English Dramatic Poets_ (1691);
David Erskine Baker, _Biographia Dramatica_ (4 vols., 1812); W. C.
Hazlitt, _Handbook to the Popular, Poetical and Dramatic Literature of
Great Britain_ (1867); F. W. Fairholt, _Lord Mayors Pageants_ (Percy
Society, 1843), containing a memoir of Thomas Jordan; John Gough
Nichols, _London Pageants_ (1831).

JORDAN, WILHELM (1819-1904), German poet and novelist, was born at Insterburg in East Prussia on the 8th of February 1819. He studied, first theology and then philosophy and natural science, at the universities of Konigsberg and Berlin. He settled in Leipzig as a journalist; but the democratic views expressed in some essays and the volumes of poems _Glocke und Kanone_ (1481) and _Irdische Phantasien_ (1842) led to his expulsion from Saxony in 1846. He next engaged in literary and tutorial work in Bremen, and on the outbreak of the revolution, in February 1848, was sent to Paris, as correspondent of the _Bremer Zeitung_. He almost immediately, however, returned to Germany and, throwing himself into the political fray in Berlin, was elected member for Freienwalde, in the first German parliament at Frankfort-on-Main. For a short while he sided with the Left, but soon joined the party of von Gagern. On a vote having been passed for the establishment of a German navy, he was appointed secretary of the committee to deal with the whole question, and was subsequently made ministerial councillor (_Ministerialrat_) in the naval department of the government. The naval project was abandoned, Jordan was pensioned and afterwards resided at Frankfort-on-Main until his death on the 25th of June 1904, devoting himself to literary work, acting as his own publisher, and producing numerous poems, novels, dramas and translations.

Among his best known works are: _Demiurgos_ (3 vols., 1852-1854), a
"Mysterium," in which he attempted to deal with the problems of human
existence, but the work found little favour; _Nibelunge_, an epic poem
in alliterative verse, in two parts, (1) _Sigfnedsage_ (1867-1868;
13th ed. 1889) and (2) _Hildebrants Heimkehr_ (1874; 10th ed.
1892)--in the first part he is regarded as having been remarkably
successful; a tragedy, _Die Wittwe des Agis_ (1858); the comedies,
_Die Liebesleugner_ (1855) and _Durchs Ohr_ (1870; 6th ed. 1885); and
the novels _Die Sebalds_ (1885) and _Zwei Wiegen_ (1887). Jordan also
published numerous translations, notably _Homers Odyssee_ (1876; 2nd
ed. 1889) and _Homers Ilias_ (1881; 2nd ed. 1894); _Die Edda_ (1889).
He was also distinguished as a reciter, and on a visit to the United
States in 1871 read extracts from his works before large audiences.

JORDAN (the down-comer; Arab. _esh-Sheri'a_, the watering-place), the only river of Palestine and one of the most remarkable in the world. It flows from north to south in a deep trough-like valley, the Aulon of the Greeks and Ghor of the Arabs, which is usually believed to follow the line of a fault or fracture of the earth's crust. Most geologists hold that the valley is part of an old sea-bed, traces of which remain in numerous shingle-banks and beach-levels. This, they say, once extended to the Red Sea and even over N.E. Africa. Shrinkage caused the pelagic limestone bottom to be upheaved in two ridges, between which occurred a long fracture, which can now be traced from Coelesyria down the Wadi Araba to the Gulf of Akaba. The Jordan valley in its lower part keeps about the old level of the sea-bottom and is therefore a remnant of the Miocene world. This theory, however, is not universally accepted, some authorities preferring to assume a succession of more strictly local elevations and depressions, connected with the recent volcanic activity of the Jaulan and Lija districts on the east bank, which brought the contours finally to their actual form. In any case the number of distinct sea-beaches seems to imply a succession of convulsive changes, more recent than the great Miocene upheaval, which are responsible for the shrinkage of the water into the three isolated pans now found. For more than two-thirds of its course the Jordan lies below the level of the sea. It has never been navigable, no important town has ever been built on its banks, and it runs into an inland sea which has no port and is destitute of aquatic life. Throughout history it has exerted a separatist influence, roughly dividing the settled from the nomadic populations; and the crossing of Jordan, one way or the other, was always an event in the history of Israel. In Hebrew times its valley was regarded as a "wilderness" and, except in the Roman era, seems always to have been as sparsely inhabited as now. From its sources to the Dead Sea it rushes down a continuous inclined plane, broken here and there by rapids and small falls; between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea its sinuosity is so great that in a direct distance of 65 m. it traverses at least 200 m. The mean fall is about 9 ft. in the mile. The Jordan has two great sources, one in Tell el-Kadi (Dan) whence springs the Nahr Leddan, a stream 12 ft. broad at its birth; the other at Banias (anc. Paneas, Caesarea-Philippi), some 4 m. N., where the Nahr Banias issues from a cave, about 30 ft. broad. But two longer streams with less water contest their claim, the Nahr Barrighit from Coelesyria, which rises near the springs of the Litany, and the Nahr Hasbany from Hermon. The four streams unite below the fortress of Banias, which once held the gate of the valley, and flow into a marshy tract now called Huleh (Semechonitis, and perhaps Merom of Joshua). There the Jordan begins to fall below sea-level, rushing down 680 ft. in 9 m. to a delta, which opens into the Sea of Galilee. Thereafter it follows a valley which is usually not above 4 m. broad, but opens out twice into the small plains of Bethshan and Jericho. The river actually flows in a depression, the Zor, from a quarter to 2 m. wide, which it has hollowed out for itself in the bed of the Ghor. During the rainy season (January and February), when the Jordan overflows its banks, the Zor is flooded, but when the water falls it produces rich crops. The floor of the Ghor falls gently to the Zor, and is intersected by deep channels, which have been cut by the small streams and winter torrents that traverse it on their way to the Jordan. As far south as Kurn Surtabeh most of the valley is fertile, and even between that point and the Dead Sea there are several well-watered oases. In summer the heat in the Ghor is intense, 110° F. in the shade, but in winter the temperature falls to 40°, and sometimes to 32° at night. During the seasons of rain and melting snow the river is very full, and liable to freshets. After twelve hours' rain it has been known to rise from 4 to 5 ft., and to fall as rapidly. In 1257 the Jordan was dammed up for several hours by a landslip, probably due to heavy rain. On leaving the Sea of Galilee the water is quite clear, but it soon assumes a tawny colour from the soft marl which it washes away from its banks and deposits in the Dead Sea. On the whole it is an unpleasant foul stream running between poisonous banks, and as such it seems to have been regarded by the Jews and other Syrians. The Hebrew poets did not sing its praises, and others compared it unfavourably with the clear rivers of Damascus. The clay of the valley was used for brickmaking, and Solomon established brass foundries there. From crusading times to this day it has grown sugar-cane. In Roman times it had extensive palm-groves and some small towns (e.g. Livias or Julias opposite Jericho) and villages. The Jordan is crossed by two stone bridges--one north of Lake Huleh, the other between that lake and the Sea of Galilee--and by a wooden bridge on the road from Jerusalem to Gilead and Moab. During the Roman period, and almost to the end of the Arab supremacy, there were bridges on all the great lines of communication between eastern and western Palestine, and ferries at other places. The depth of water varies greatly with the season. When not in flood the river is often fordable, and between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea there are then more than fifty fords--some of them of historic interest. The only difficulty is occasioned by the erratic zigzag current. The natural products of the Jordan valley--a tropical oasis sunk in the temperate zone, and overhung by Alpine Hermon--are unique. Papyrus grows in Lake Huleh, and rice and cereals thrive on its shores, whilst below the Sea of Galilee the vegetation is almost tropical. The flora and fauna present a large infusion of Ethiopian types; and the fish, with which the river is abundantly stocked, have a great affinity with those of the rivers and lakes of east Africa. Ere the Jordan enters the Dead Sea, its valley has become very barren and forbidding. It reaches the lake at a minus level of 1290 ft., the depression continuing downwards to twice that depth in the bed of the Dead Sea. It receives two affluents, with perennial waters, on the left, the Yarmuk (Hieromax) which flows in from the volcanic Jaulan a little south of the Sea of Galilee, and the Zerka (Jabbok) which comes from the Belka district to a point more than half-way down the lower course. On the right the Jalud descends from the plain of Esdraelon to near Beisan, and the Far'a from near Nablus. Various salt springs rise in the lower valley. The rest of the tributaries are wadis, dry except after rains.

Such human life as may be found in the valley now is mainly migratory. The Samaritan villagers use it in winter as pasture-ground, and, with the Circassians and Arabs of the east bank, cultivate plots here and there. They retire on the approach of summer. Jericho is the only considerable settlement in the lower valley, and it lies some distance west of the stream on the lower slopes of the Judaean heights.

See W. F. Lynch, _Narrative of the U.S. Expedition_, &c. (1849); H. B.
Tristram, _Land of Israel_ (1865); J. Macgregor, _Rob Roy on the
Jordan_ (1870); A. Neubauer, _La Géographie du Talmud_ (1868); E.
Robinson, _Physical Geography of the Holy Land_ (1865); E. Hull,
_Mount Seir_, &c. (1885), and _Memoir on the Geology of Arabia
Petraea_, &c. (1886); G. A. Smith, _Hist. Geography of the Holy Land_
(1894); W. Libbey and F. E. Hoskins, _The Jordan Valley_, &c. (1905).
See also PALESTINE. (C. W. W.; D. G. H.)

JORDANES,[1] the historian of the Gothic nation, flourished about the middle of the 6th century. All that we certainly know about his life is contained in three sentences of his history of the Goths (cap. 50), from which, among other particulars as to the history of his family, we learn that his grandfather Paria was notary to Candac, the chief of a confederation of Alans and other tribes settled during the latter half of the 5th century on the south of the Danube in the provinces which are now Bulgaria and the Dobrudscha. Jordanes himself was the notary of Candac's nephew, the Gothic chief Gunthigis, until he took the vows of a monk. This, according to the manner of speaking of that day, is the meaning of his words _ante conversionem meam_, though it is quite possible that he may at the same time have renounced the Arian creed of his forefathers, which it is clear that he no longer held when he wrote his Gothic history. The _Getica_ of Jordanes shows Gothic sympathies; but these are probably due to an imitation of the tone of Cassiodorus, from whom he draws practically all his material. He was not himself a Goth, belonging to a confederation of Germanic tribes, embracing Alans and Scyrians, which had come under the influence of the Ostrogoths settled on the lower Danube; and his own sympathies are those of a member of this confederation. He is accordingly friendly to the Goths, even apart from the influence of Cassiodorus; but he is also prepossessed in favour of the eastern emperors in whose territories this confederation lived and whose subject he himself was. This makes him an impartial authority on the last days of the Ostrogoths. At the same time, living in Moesia, he is restricted in his outlook to Danubian affairs. He has little to say of the inner history and policy of the kingdom of Theodoric: his interests lie, as Mommsen says, within a triangle of which the three points are Sirmium, Larissa and Constantinople. Finally, connected as he was with the Alans, he shows himself friendly to them, whenever they enter into his narrative.

We pass from the extremely shadowy personality of Jordanes to the more interesting question of his works.

1. The _Romana_, or, as he himself calls it, _De summa temporum vel origine actibusque gentis Romanorum_, was composed in 551. It was begun before, but published after, the _Getica_. It is a sketch of the history of the world from the creation, based on Jerome, the epitome of Florus, Orosius and the ecclesiastical history of Socrates. There is a curious reference to Iamblichus, apparently the neo-platonist philosopher, whose name Jordanes, being, as he says himself, _agrammatus_, inserts by way of a flourish. The work is only of any value for the century 450-550, when Jordanes is dealing with recent history. It is merely a hasty compilation intended to stand side by side with the _Getica_.[2]

2. The other work of Jordanes commonly called _De rebus Geticis_ or _Getica_, was styled by himself _De origine actibusque Getarum_, and was also written in 551. He informs us that while he was engaged upon the _Romana_ a friend named Castalius invited him to compress into one small treatise the twelve books--now lost--of the senator Cassiodorus, on _The Origin and Actions of the Goths_. Jordanes professes to have had the work of Cassiodorus in his hands for but three days, and to reproduce the sense not the words; but his book, short as it is, evidently contains long verbatim extracts from the earlier author, and it may be suspected that the story of the _triduana lectio_ and the apology _quamvis verba non recolo_, possibly even the friendly invitation of Castalius, are mere blinds to cover his own entire want of originality. This suspicion is strengthened by the fact (discovered by von Sybel) that even the very preface to his book is taken almost word for word from Rufinus's translation of Origen's commentary on the epistle to the Romans. There is no doubt, even on Jordanes' own statements, that his work is based upon that of Cassiodorus, and that any historical worth which it possesses is due to that fact. Cassiodorus was one of the very few men who, Roman by birth and sympathies, could yet appreciate the greatness of the barbarians by whom the empire was overthrown. The chief adviser of Theodoric, the East Gothic king in Italy, he accepted with ardour that monarch's great scheme, if indeed, he did not himself originally suggest it, of welding Roman and Goth together into one harmonious state which should preserve the social refinement and the intellectual culture of the Latin-speaking races without losing the hardy virtues of their Teutonic conquerors. To this aim everything in the political life of Cassiodorus was subservient, and this aim he evidently kept before him in his Gothic history. But in writing that history Cassiodorus was himself indebted to the work of a certain Ablabius. It was Ablabius, apparently, who had first used the Gothic sagas (_prisca carmina_); it was he who had constructed the stem of the Amals. Whether he was a Greek, a Roman or a Goth we do not know; nor can we say when he wrote, though his work may be dated conjecturally in the early part of the reign of Theodoric the Great. We can only say that he wrote on the origin and history of the Goths, using both Gothic saga and Greek sources; and that if Jordanes used Cassiodorus, Cassiodorus used, if to a less extent, the work of Ablabius.

Cassiodorus began his work, at the request of Theodoric, and therefore before 526: it was finished by 533. At the root of the work lies a theory, whencesoever derived, which identified the Goths with the Scythians, whose country Darius Hystaspes invaded, and with the Getae of Dacia, whom Trajan conquered. This double identification enabled Cassiodorus to bring the favoured race into line with the peoples of classical antiquity, to interweave with their history stories about Hercules and the Amazons, to make them invade Egypt, to claim for them a share in the wisdom of the semi-mythical Scythian philosopher Zamolxis. He was thus able with some show of plausibility to represent the Goths as "wiser than all the other barbarians and almost like the Greeks" (Jord., _De reb. Get._, cap. v.), and to send a son of the Gothic king Telephus to fight at the siege of Troy, with the ancestors of the Romans. All this we can now perceive to have no relation to history, but at the time it may have made the subjugation of the Roman less bitter to feel that he was not after all bowing down before a race of barbarian upstarts, but that his Amal sovereign was as firmly rooted in classical antiquity as any Julius or Claudius who ever wore the purple. In the eighteen years which elapsed between 533 and the composition of the _Getica_ of Jordanes, great events, most disastrous for the Romano-Gothic monarchy of Theodoric, had taken place. It was no longer possible to write as if the whole civilization of the Western world would sit down contentedly under the shadow of East Gothic dominion and Amal sovereignty. And, moreover, the instincts of Jordanes, as a subject of the Eastern Empire, predisposed him to flatter the sacred majesty of Justinian, by whose victorious arms the overthrow of the barbarian kingdom in Italy had been effected. Hence we perceive two currents of tendency in the _Getica_. On the one hand, as a transcriber of the philo-Goth Cassiodorus, he magnifies the race of Alaric and Theodoric, and claims for them their full share, perhaps more than their full share, of glory in the past. On the other hand he speaks of the great anti-Teuton emperor Justinian, and of his reversal of the German conquests of the 5th century, in language which would certainly have grated on the ears of Totila and his heroes. When Ravenna is taken, and Vitigis carried into captivity, Jordanes almost exults in the fact that "the nobility of the Amals and the illustrious offspring of so many mighty men have surrendered to a yet more illustrious prince and a yet mightier general, whose fame shall not grow dim through all the centuries." (_Getica_, lx. § 315).

This laudation, both of the Goths and of their Byzantine conquerors, may perhaps help us to understand the motive with which the _Getica_ was written. In the year 551 Germanus, nephew of Justinian, accompanied by his bride, Matasuntha, grand-daughter of Theodoric, set forth to reconquer Italy for the empire. His early death prevented any schemes for a revived Romano-Gothic kingdom which may have been based on his personality. His widow, however, bore a posthumous child, also named Germanus, of whom Jordanes speaks (cap. 60) as "blending the blood of the Anicii and the Amals, and furnishing a hope under the divine blessing of one day uniting their glories." This younger Germanus did nothing in after life to realize these anticipations; but the somewhat pointed way in which his name and his mother's name are mentioned by Jordanes lends some probability to the view that he hoped for the child's succession to the Eastern Empire, and the final reconciliation of the Goths and Romans in the person of a Gotho-Roman emperor.

The _De rebus Geticis_ falls naturally into four parts. The first
(chs. i.-xiii.) commences with a geographical description of the three
quarters of the world, and in more detail of Britain and Scanzia
(Sweden), from which the Goths under their king Berig migrated to the
southern coast of the Baltic. Their migration across what has since
been called Lithuania to the shores of the Euxine, and their
differentiation into Visigoths and Ostrogoths, are next described.
Chs. v.-xiii. contain an account of the intrusive Geto-Scythian
element before alluded to.

The second section (chs. xiv.-xxiv.) returns to the true history of
the Gothic nation, sets forth the genealogy of the Amal kings, and
describes the inroads of the Goths into the Roman Empire in the 3rd
century, with the foundation and the overthrow of the great but
somewhat shadowy kingdom of Hermanric.

The third section (chs. xxv.-xlvii.) traces the history of the West
Goths from the Hunnish invasion to the downfall of the Gothic kingdom
in Gaul under Alaric II. (376-507). The best part of this section, and
indeed of the whole book, is the seven chapters devoted to Attila's
invasion of Gaul and the battle of the Mauriac plains. Here we have in
all probability a verbatim extract from Cassiodorus, who (possibly
resting on Ablabius) interwove with his narrative large portions of
the Gothic sagas. The celebrated expression _certaminis gaudia_
assuredly came at first neither from the suave minister Cassiodorus
nor from the small-souled notary Jordanes, but is the translation of
some thought which first found utterance through the lips of a Gothic
minstrel.