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the poems and prose writings of Jonson, though these would of themselves make a fame. "The Forest" and "Underwoods" are fine poems. His translations, especially that of "The Art of Poetry," are accurate and full of the spirit of the originals. His English grammar is incomparably the best of its day; and the collection which he calls "Timber" is a vast repository of the cogitations of a great scholar, a shrewd thinker, and a large observer.—J. F. W.

JORDAENS, Jacob, was born at Antwerp in 1594, and died there in 1678. He was the scholar of Adam Van Oort and an assistant of Rubens, of whom he was a confirmed imitator. Jordaens was a painter of great ability, but of not much taste; his colouring is forcible, but wants refinement. His large altarpieces, which are numerous, betray this characteristic want of refinement. There is a portrait of Jordaens by P. Pontius after Vandyck: he himself also etched a few plates.—R. N. W.

JORDAN, Camille, a French politician and orator, was born at Lyons in 1771, and educated there as a lay pupil at the seminary of St. Irenée. The French revolution found him a youth of eighteen, the friend of his senior, Mounier the constitutionalist, and not forgetful of the religion which he had learned at the jesuit seminary. He published some pamphlets against the civic constitution proposed for the French clergy, aided the movement at Lyons against the tyranny of the national convention, and took refuge from its vengeance in Switzerland. Thence he proceeded to England, where he studied carefully our politics and institutions, and acquired the friendship of such leading whigs as Fox, Erskine, and Lord Holland. Returning to France after the close of the Reign of Terror, he was sent by the department of the Rhone to the council of Five Hundred, where he protested with striking eloquence against the proscription of the Roman catholic religion. His political career was suspended by the coup d'état of the 18th Fructidor; and again an exile he withdrew to Switzerland, and proceeded thence to Germany to join his old friend Mounier, who, under the patronage of the grand-duke, superintended an educational institution at Weimar. There are several references to Camille Jordan in the correspondence of Göthe and Schiller. After the 18th Brumaire he returned to France, and published an anti-Napoleonic pamphlet, but was not molested. At the Restoration he became a deputy, and a prominent member of the constitutionalist party in the chamber, becoming more liberal as the government became more repressive. He died in the May of 1821, regretted for the sweetness of his disposition, and respected for the elevation of his character. He left no elaborate work behind him. By translations from Klopstock and Schiller he contributed slightly to make known in France the literature of Germany, which he had studied diligently at Weimar.—F. E.

JORDAN, Charles Etienne, a French writer, born at Berlin, 27th August, 1700, of a family originally from Dauphiny. He studied at Magdeburg; then at Geneva, with the intention of entering the ministry; and then at Lausanne. In 1721 he returned to Berlin, and became pastor of the French church at Potzlow, and afterwards at Prentzlow. Grief for the death of his wife in 1732 threw him into a state of melancholy; and after travelling in France, England, and Holland, he devoted himself to study. In 1740 he was named privy councillor, and curator of the academies of Prussia. The city of Berlin was much indebted to his labours in the abolition of mendicity, improvements in the administration of justice, and in public education. In 1741 he accompanied Frederick II. in the campaign of Silesia, and in 1744 he was named vice-president of the Royal Academy of Berlin. At his death in 1745 Frederick the Great composed his elegy, and read it at the academy—erected a monument to his memory, and placed on it this epitaph—"Here lies Jordan, friend of the muses and of the king." He published an account of his travels; a "Collection of Pieces;" and a "Life of M. Lacrose." The tenth volume of the posthumous works of Frederick consists of Jordan's correspondence with the king.—P. E. D.

JORDAN, Johann Christoph, an eminent antiquary, privy councillor to the king of Bohemia, published good notes on the Chronology of Dionysius Halicarnassus, on Polybius, and on Diodorus Siculus. He was also the author of a treatise, "De Originibus Slavicis." He died about 1740.—D. W. R.

JORDAN, Mrs., a celebrated actress, whose real name was Dorothy Bland, was born at Waterford about 1762; her mother, Mrs. Bland, being then an actress. In 1777 the young player appeared on the stage for the first time at Dublin, under the name of Miss Francis. After an engagement at Cork she proceeded in 1782 to Leeds in Yorkshire, and making an engagement with Tate Wilkinson, once a fellow-player with her mother, Miss Bland achieved great success at Leeds, York, Sheffield, Hull, and Wakefield. In 1785 she quitted Wilkinson's company for an engagement at Drury Lane, London, where her admirable playing and agreeable appearance won great applause. She played both in tragedy and comedy, appearing one day as Viola in the Twelfth Night, and on the next as Imogen in Cymbeline; but unquestionably she excelled in comic parts, in which she showed real genius. Her style of playing was emphatically natural, and yet it was the result of consummate art. In 1790 she formed a domestic connection with the duke of Clarence, afterwards King William IV., which lasted more than twenty years, during which period she bore him several children. She still, however, remained on the stage. Her habits of profuse expenditure sometimes pressed heavily on the duke's embarrassed finances, and she played to make a purse of her own. In 1811 the pair separated at the duke's request, for reasons which remain unexplained. Going abroad to live on the allowance received from the duke of Clarence, Mrs. Jordan could not keep free from debt, and she died in comparative poverty at St. Cloud, 3rd July, 1816.—R. H.

JORDAN, Thomas, city poet, playwright, and actor, flourished in the reign of Charles I., and was a member of the company at the Red Bull, where he acted the part of Lepida in Messalina. He survived the gloomy period of the civil war and the Commonwealth, and witnessed the Restoration and reign of Charles II., dying, as it is supposed, about 1685. He wrote four plays and various pageants and poems, for a list of which see Biographia Dramatica.—R. H.

JORDEN, Edward, physician, born in Kent in 1569. He first studied at Oxford, but afterwards visited several foreign universities, and took his degree at that of Padua. He practised medicine in London, became a fellow of the College of Physicians, and enjoyed considerable reputation in his profession. Having engaged in a scheme for the manufacture of alum and obtained a grant from James I. of the profits from the same, but having afterwards had this grant revoked, he suffered in consequence great pecuniary loss. He died in 1632.—W. B—d.

JORGENSON, Jorgen, whose career is one of the most extraordinary episodes in modern history, was born at Copenhagen in the year 1779. His father was clock and watchmaker to the Danish court. At the age of fourteen the boy Jorgen was sent to England, where, after being bound apprentice on board a collier, he entered, we are told, the English navy. Returning in 1806 to Copenhagen, he obtained the command of a Danish privateer, in which he sailed to the coasts of England with the intention of making prizes; but being compelled to strike to superior force near Flamborough head, he was carried to London as a prisoner of war, although afterwards released on his parole. As England and Denmark were then engaged in hostilities, the condition of Iceland, at that time as at present a part of the Danish dominions, and which was principally dependent on the mother-country for its supplies, had become wretched in the extreme. Instigated by Jorgenson, who broke his parole to accompany the expedition as interpreter and chief adviser, a London merchant of the name of Phelps freighted a vessel with a cargo of provisions, and despatched it to the island. In January, 1809, the ship reached Reykiavik, the Icelandic capital. The penalty of death had been denounced by the resident Danish authorities against all who should trade with foreigners; but the Clarence, Jorgenson's ship, threatened to begin hostilities in case of refusal, and the result was the partial concession of the desired traffic. Other events followed, which our space will not allow us to relate; but the termination of all was the occurrence of two incidents sufficiently startling, and recalling the exploits of the early vikings, or of the pirate-captains of the Elizabethan age. Obstacles being still interposed to the full establishment of commercial relations, a small party of English sailors landed on Sunday the 25th of June; proceeded to the residence of the governor. Count Trampe; took him prisoner, and coolly carried him off to the ship, without encountering any resistance. The very next day two proclamations by Jorgenson appeared, in which he decreed the freedom of Iceland, and declared it to be politically independent of Denmark in all time to come; while a third proclamation on the 11th of July put the climax on