Jackson’s reputation was not by any means wholly dependent on his skill in expressing in type the character of ancient and difficult manuscripts.

During the time he was occupied in the works above described, he made several useful additions to his foundry. Amongst others, he cut a beautiful {323} fount of Pica Greek for Mr. Bowyer, “who,” says Nichols,[664] “used to say that the types in common use were no more Greek than they were English.”

“He had also, under the direction of Joseph Steele, the ingenious author of Prosodia Rationalis,[665] augmented the number of musical notes by such as represent the emphasis and cadence of prose.” This curious work, designed to show how the recitation of Garrick and other eminent speakers might be transmitted to posterity in score, was printed by Nichols in 1779, being an amplified edition of a treatise published four years previously,[666] in which Jackson’s “expression symbols” were made use of.

The most important work of his later years was undoubtedly the splendid fount of 2-line English Roman, cut for Mr. Bensley, about the year 1789, for Macklin’s Bible.[667] As in the case of the Bezæ Gospels, he did not live to see the completion of his labours in the publication of this grand edition, which did not appear till some years after his death, and then in a type not wholly his own, but supplemented, in close facsimile, by a fount cut by his former apprentice and manager, Vincent Figgins.[668] Jackson’s grand letter is justly counted among his greatest achievements, exhibiting, as Nichols observes, a pattern of the most perfect symmetry to which the art had at that time arrived.”[669]

A crowning monument to the skill of this excellent artist is Robert Bowyer’s sumptuous edition of Hume’s History of England, printed by Bensley[670] in 1806, in a Double Pica type, on which Jackson was engaged at the time of his death. On the execution of this fount he appears to have staked his reputation; “Mr. Jackson,“ says his biographer in the Gentleman’s Magazine,[671]” had been engaged to cut the letter for the projected edition of Hume’s History of England, which he declared should ‘be the most exquisite performance of the kind in this or any other country.’ And accordingly he had, in a great degree, accomplished his purpose, but his anxiety and application were so intense that his health suffered and he fell a victim to the great undertaking.” {324}

This circumstance was made the occasion of a curious and affecting Elegy, of which we will venture to inflict a specimen on the reader, not on account of its merit, but as being a rare instance of a letter-founder becoming the object of a poetical tribute:—

Although anxiety and overwork may have contributed to Jackson’s death, the immediate cause was a severe attack of scarlet-fever, which carried him off on January 14th, 1792, in the 59th year of his age. The last few years of his life had been considerably troubled. In 1790 his foundry was destroyed by a fire, in which his moulds and matrices were seriously damaged. The shock of this calamity affected both his health and his energy, and the management of his business was, during his later years, left almost entirely in the hands of his trusted servant, Mr. Vincent Figgins. The foundry was rebuilt, and the damaged materials were, as far as possible (though not wholly), replaced at the time of his death.

Mr. Jackson was twice married—first to Miss Elizabeth Tassell, originally a whinster in Spitalfields, “a very worthy woman,” says Nichols, “and an excellent wife, who greatly contributed by her care and industry to his getting forward in his first entering into business” She died in 1783, and, in the following year, Mr. Jackson married Mrs. Pasham, widow of a well-known printer in Blackfriars,[672] a union which materially assisted him in the means of carrying on his {325} business. This lady died in 1791, her husband surviving his bereavement only a few months. He was buried in the same grave with his two wives in the ground of Spa Fields Chapel.