Self-Help: With Illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance by Samuel Smiles

Author:Samuel Smiles
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2008-09-08T22:49:00+00:00

The career of the late William Jackson, author of `The Deliverance of Israel,' an oratorio which has been successfully performed in the principal 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 was 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 barrelorgan, 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 one-keyed 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 Pateley 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 was thus well 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 finger-organ, but had no means of procuring one. About this time, a neighbouring parish clerk had purchased, for an 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 handorgan 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.

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