JONSON 



3172 



JORDAN 



versity. After leaving school he was set to 

 learning the brickmaker's trade, but tiring of 

 this occupation he ran away and joined the 

 English army which was fighting the Spaniards 

 in the Netherlands. There he distinguished 

 himself by killing 

 a soldier in a 

 duel, both armies 

 watching the 

 combat from the 

 lines. On his re- 

 turn to England 

 he began a the- 

 atrical career as 

 an actor and re- 

 viser of old plays, 

 like his celebrated 

 contemporary, , <Q RARE BEN JONSON ,, 

 Shakespeare. 



Jonson's first important play, Every Man in 

 His Humor, written to ridicule the city life of 

 his day, was presented in 1598, one of the 

 parts being played by Shakespeare. Numer- 

 ous other dramatic works followed, and his 

 masques (dramatic, spectacles in which the 

 characters are mythological personages) so 

 pleased King James I that he appointed the 

 author poet laureate in 1619. His life on the 

 whole, however, was stormy, for he quarreled 

 with nearly all his literary friends, and he was 

 nearly hanged at one time for killing an actor 

 in a duel. There is a tradition that Shakes- 

 peare died from the effects of a fever con- 

 tracted while he was entertaining Jonson and 

 a fellow-poet, Michael Drayton, at the Strat- 

 ford Tavern. Jonson himself outlived his 

 famous friend twenty-one years, and though 

 he died in poverty he was buried with great 

 honor in Westminster Abbey. 



Jonson's work as a dramatist is best repre- 

 sented by three satires, Every Man in His 

 Humor, Cynthia's Revels and The Poetaster; 

 the comedies Volpone, or the Fox, the Alchem- 

 ist, and Epicoene, or the Silent Woman; and 

 the tragedies Sejanus and Catiline. The Sad 

 Shepherd, a pastoral poem of great beauty, 

 was left unfinished at his death. Modern 

 readers remember him best for his little poems 

 and songs, such as the one beginning : 



Drink to me only with thine eyes, 



And I will pledge with mine ; 

 Or leave a kiss but in the cup 



And I'll not look for wine. 

 The thirst that from the soul doth rise 



Doth ask a drink divine, 

 But might I of Jove's nectar sup, 



I would not change for thine. 



JOP'LIN, Mo., the county seat of Jasper 

 County, is a commercial city whose principal 

 industries center about zinc and lead ores 

 products. It is situated in the extreme south- 

 western part of the state, within four miles of 

 the western state line, 154 miles south of Kan- 

 sas City and ninety-three miles west of Spring- 

 field. It is on Shoal Creek, and on the Frisco 

 Lines, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, the 

 Kansas City Southern, the Missouri & North 

 Arkansas, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, the 

 Missouri, Oklahoma & Gulf and the Missouri 

 Pacific railroads. Two interurban electric lines 

 connect with more than forty towns. The 

 population, almost entirely American, was 32,- 

 073 in 1910 and 33,216 in 1916 (Federal esti- 

 mate). The area of the city is nearly sixteen 

 square miles. 



A Federal building, erected in 1904 at a cost 

 of $100,000, a courthouse, Carnegie Library, 

 Y. M. C. A. building, opera house and banks, 

 hotels and churches are among the prominent 

 buildings. There are five parks containing 

 about 340 acres. The schools include public 

 and parish schools, business colleges and the 

 Academy of Our Lady of Mercy. 



Joplin is centrally located in one of the 

 richest zinc and lead regions in the world. 

 About 14,000 miners are employed in the opera- 

 tion of nearly 450 mining plants in this dis- 

 trict, whose output of zinc and lead ores in 

 1914 was valued at $28,000,000 (see ZINC; 

 LEAD). The chief industrial enterprises of the 

 city are smelting, paint and white lead works, 

 foundries and machine shops. It is the trade 

 center of a large and fertile agricultural and 

 fruit-growing section. 



In 1871 Joplin was incorporated as a town, 

 and in 1888 was chartered as a city. In 1914 

 the commission form of government was 

 adopted. F.L.Y. 



JORDAN, a river in Palestine whose name 

 is associated with some of the most vital events 

 of the dead past. To the Church it will always 

 remain of peculiar interest because along its 

 course and in its valley to westward the Chris- 

 tian religion struggled through its foundation 

 years. Rising in the northern mountain springs 

 of Palestine, it makes a sharp descent and 

 flows for most of its 200 miles below sea level. 

 It winds in and out through a deep valley, 

 called the Ghor, emptying into the Dead Sea, 

 whose surface is about 1,300 feet below the 

 Mediterranean. 



In the short distance of ten miles from Lake 

 Merom to the Lake of Tiberias, better known 



