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.