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610 turning his leaf and some other little attentions, there became some sort of intimacy between us, so that I gained admittance to the frequent repetitions of this oratorio."

Jackson made the acquaintance and gained the friendship of Gainsborough. Of him he says: "His profession was painting, music was his amusement," and the reverse might be said with equal truth of Jackson. Each undertook to instruct the other in his own art, and Jackson rather prided himself on his paintings than on his music. In his volume of essays, The Four Ages, he gives his reminiscences of Gainsborough, and they are amusing. His account can here be briefly summed up:—

"There were times when music seemed to be his employment, and painting his diversion. When I first knew him he lived at Bath, where Giardini had been exhibiting his then unrivalled powers on the violin. His performance made Gainsborough enamoured of that instrument; and conceiving, like the servant maid in the Spectator, that the music lay in the fiddle, he was frantic until he possessed himself of the very instrument which had given him so much pleasure but seemed much surprised that the music of it remained behind with Giardini.

"He had scarcely recovered this shock when he heard Abel on the viol-di-gamba. The violin was hung on the willow—Abel's viol-di-gamba was purchased, and the house resounded with melodious thirds and fifths. Many an adagio and many a minuet were begun, but never completed. This was wonderful, as it was Abel's own instrument, and therefore ought to have produced Abel's own music.

"Fortunately, my friend's passion had now a fresh object—Fischer's hautboy; but I do not recollect that