CHAP. V. WILLIAM JACKSON. 129 fully performed in the principal musical towns of his native county of York, furnishes an interesting illustration of the triumph of perseverance over difficulties in the pursuit of musical science. He is the son of a miller at Masham, a little town situated in the valley of the Yore, in the northwest corner of Yorkshire. Musical taste seems to have been hereditary in the family, for his father played the fife in the band of the Masham Volunteers, and was a singer in the parish choir. His grandfather also was leading singer and ringer at Masham Church; and one of the boy's earliest musical treats was to be present at the bell-pealing on Sunday mornings. During the service, his wonder was still more excited by the organist's performance on the barrel-organ, the doors of which were thrown open behind to let the sound fully into the church, by which the stops, pipes, barrels, staples, keyboard, and jacks, were fully exposed, to the wonderment of the little boys sitting in the gallery behind, and to none more than our young musician. At eight years of age he began to play upon his father's old fife, which, however, would not sound D; but his mother remedied the difficulty by buying for him a onekeyed flute; and shortly after, a gentleman of the neighbourhood presented him with a flute with four silver keys. As the boy made no progress with his "book learning," being fonder of cricket, fives, and boxing, than of his school lessons-the village schoolmaster giving him up as "a bad job"-his parents sent him off to a school at Pately Bridge. While there he found congenial society in a club of village choral singers at Brighouse Gate, and with them he learnt the sol-fa-ing gamut on the old English plan. He thus became drilled in the reading of music, in which he soon became a proficient. His progress astonished the club, and he returned home full of musical ambition. He now learnt to play upon his father's old piano, but with little melodious result; and he became eager to possess a fingerorgan, but had no means of procuring one. About this time, a neighbouring parish clerk had purchased for an K 130 WILLIAM JACKSON, CHAP. V. insignificant sum, a small disabled barrel-organ, which had gone the circuit of the northern counties with a show. The clerk tried to revive the tones of the instrument, but failed; at last he bethought him that he would try the skill of young Jackson, who had succeeded in making some alterations and improvements in the hand-organ of the parish church. He accordingly brought it to the lad's house in a donkey cart, and in a short time the instrument was repaired, and played over its old tunes again, greatly to the owner's satisfaction. The thought now haunted the youth that he could make a barrel-organ, and he determined to do so. His father and he set to work, and though without practice in carpentering, yet, by dint of hard labour and after many failures, they at last succeeded; and an organ was constructed which played ten tunes very decently, and the instrument was generally regarded as the marvel of the neighbourhood. Young Jackson was now frequently sent for to repair old church organs, and to put new music upon the barrels which he added to them. All this he accomplished to the satisfaction of his customers, after which he proceeded with the construction of a four-stop finger-organ, adapting to it the keys of an old harpsichord. This he learnt to play upon,-studying' Callcott's Thorough Bass ' in the evening, and working at his trade of a miller during the day; occasionally also tramping about the country as a "cadger," with an ass and a cart. During summer he worked in the fields, at turnip-time, hay-time, and harvest, but was never without the solace of music in his leisure evening hours. He next tried his hand at musical composition, and a dozen of his anthems were shown to the late Mr. Camidge, of York, as "the production of a miller's lad of fourteen." Mr. Camidge was pleased with them, marked the objectionable passages, and returned them with the encouraging remark, that they did the youth great credit, and that he must "go on writing." A village band having been set on foot at Masham, young Jackson joined it, and was ultimately appointed CHAP. V. A SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIAN. 131 leader. He played all the instruments by turns, and thus acquired a considerable practical knowledge of his art: he also composed numerous tunes for the band. A new fingerorgan having been presented to the parish church, he was further appointed organist. He now gave up his employment as a journeyman miller, and commenced tallow-chandling, still employing his spare hours in the study of music. In 1839 he published his first anthem— For joy let fertile valleys sing;' and in the following year he gained the first prize from the Huddersfield Glee Club, for his 'Sisters of the Lea.' His other anthem, ‘God be merciful to us,' and the 103rd Psalm, written for a double chorus and orchestra, are well known. In the midst of these minor works, Jackson proceeded with the composition of his oratorio,-The Deliverance of Israel from Babylon.' His practice was, to jot down a sketch of the ideas as they presented themselves to his mind, and to write them out in score in the evenings, after he had left his work in the candle-shop. His oratorio was published in parts, in the course of 1844-5, and he published the last chorus on his twenty-ninth birthday. The work was exceedingly well received by musical critics, and has been frequently performed with great success in the northern towns. Mr. Jackson is now settled at Bradford, and not long since had the honour of leading his fine company of Bradford choral singers before Her Majesty at Buckingham Palace; on which occasion, as well as at the Crystal Palace, some fine choral pieces of his composition, from his MS. work (since published), entitled "The Year,' were performed with great effect. Such is a very brief outline of the career of a self-taught English musician, who promises, in the maturity of his powers, to take high rank among native composers. His life affords but another illustration of the power of selfhelp, and the force of courage and industry, in enabling a man to surmount and overcome early difficulties and obstructions of no ordinary kind. PRACTICAL industry, wisely and vigorously applied, never fails of success. It carries a man onward and upward, brings out his individual character, and powerfully stimulates the action of others. All may not rise equally, yet each, on the whole, very much according to his deserts. Though all cannot live on the piazza," as the Tuscan proverb has it, "every one may feel the sun." 66 We have already referred to some illustrious Commoners raised from humble to elevated positions by the power of application and industry; and we might point to even the Peerage itself as affording equally instructive examples. One reason why the peerage of England has succeeded so well in retaining its vigour and elasticity, arises from the fact that, unlike the peerages of other countries, it has been fed from time to time by the best industrial blood of the country-the very "liver, heart, and brain of Britain." Like the fabled Antæus, it has been invigorated and refreshed by frequently touching its mother earth, and mingling freely with that most ancient order of nobility -the working order; as Lord Chesterfield inferentially admitted it to be when he placed as the first of his pedigree," ADAM de Stanhope-EVE de Stanhope." The blood of all men doubtless flows from equally remote sources; and the proximate roots of most families in this CHAP. VI. INTERMINGLING OF CLASSES. 133 country, not many centuries ago, closely intermingled in the common Teutonic stock from which we derive our origin. The grand pervading features of the race-industry, energy, and the spirit of independence-have ever remained the same. To this day the adventurous daring of the Vikings crops out from time to time in our common soldiers and sailors, as in the aristocratic officers who lead them; and the same noble spirit looks out from under the peasant's garb as well as the peer's ermine. Besides, there has been a constant rising and falling in society going on-new families taking the place of the old, which have subsided in many cases into the ranks of the common people. The civil wars and rebellions ruined the old nobility, and dispersed their families, but did not destroy them. They became farmers, mechanics, and labourersmingling again with the great industrial race from which they had originally sprung. Thus, not many years since, the representative of the earldom of Mar was discovered in the person of a labourer in a Northumberland coal-pit; and at this day, it is understood that the lineal representative of Simon de Montfort, England's premier baron, is a saddler in Tooley Street. Hugh Miller, when working as a stonemason near Edinburgh, was served by a hodman, who was one of the numerous claimants for the earldom of Craufordall that was wanted to establish his claim being a missing marriage certificate; and while the work was going on, the cry resounded from the walls many times in the day, of— "John, Yearl Crauford, bring us anither hod o' lime." The great bulk of our peerage is comparatively modern, so far as the titles go; but it is not the less noble that it has been recruited to so large an extent from the ranks of honourable industry. In olden times, the wealth and commerce of London, conducted as it was by energetic and enterprising men, was a prolific source of peerages. Thus, the earldom of Cornwallis was founded by Thomas Cornwallis, the Cheapside merchant; that of Essex by William Capel, the draper; and that of Craven by William Craven, |