must we go to Exeter to ask Mr. Jackson how to please and be pleased? Are we to have no music in our concerts but elegies and balads? Mr. Jackson's favourite style of music has been elegies, but what is an elegy to a tragedy or to an epic poem? He sees but one angle of the art of music, and to that all his opinions are referred. His elegy is no more than a closet in a palace."
The great Handel Commemoration in Westminster Abbey in 1784 affected the organist of Exeter Cathedral with an attack of the spleen, from which he seems never to have recovered. At first, when that gigantic project was announced, he declared it to be impracticable, for that so stupendous a band, composed of many hundred instruments, could produce only a universal and deafening clash. When, however, the miracle succeeded, he took exception at the selection of pieces that had been performed. Lest Handel should obtain an exclusive triumph, he protested that there were other musicians beside Handel who deserved to be heard, and merited as high honours as were accorded to him. In 1790 came Haydn to London, and the cup of Jackson's wrath overflowed. His ear could not endure the lively melodies and gorgeous effects of The Creation. It was then, in the rage of his heart, that he published his Observations. Artists and amateurs, according to him, who welcomed the ravishing music of Haydn were taking "their present musical pleasure from polluted sources." And on his accustomed principle and in his usual style he declared that, "judging of the sensations of others by his own, the public is not pleased with what it applauds with rapture."
Jackson entertained the greatest contempt for the physicians of his day, and perhaps not unjustly. He imagined that all the diseases to which man is heir are
