introduction to this eminent man; and his door was always open to those young men who were of a poetical cast of mind. Even Dr. Wolcot, the venomous Peter Pindar, had a kindly word to say for him in verse. His favourite composer of words for his songs was one Bampfylde, a Devonshire poet, whose sonnets have never been collected, and which would not commend themselves to modern taste. Rendal, a polished versifier, composed for him a series of fairy personifications, with distinct scenery and appropriate action, to introduce new combinations of music. The fays were in caverns, on lakes, on a volcano, among glaciers, in the billows of the sea, in groves lit by the evening star. The music of the "Fairy Fantasies," as these were called, was one of the latest compositions of Jackson.
Jackson occupied and amused himself with literary compositions. His Thirty Letters touched on many interesting points of art, literature, and philosophy.
In The Four Ages he put together a collection of various articles and stories. The volume took its title from the leading essay, in which he showed that the opinion of the Ancients as to a sequence of Golden, Silver, Brass, and Iron Ages should be inverted—that early man began in the Iron Age, and that society and culture were rapidly progressing to the Golden Age.
Dr. Burney said with severity, yet not without some truth, of Jackson: "He has never been remarkable for sailing with the tide of general opinion on any occasion. He would, perhaps, suppose the whole universe rather than himself to be in the wrong, in judging of any of the arts." The critic ascribed his perverse ingenuity to "prejudice, envy, a provincial taste, or perhaps all together, which prevented his candid attention."
