see, though our hero is described as a man of placid demeanour and somewhat Quakerly appearance, he could be not a little fiery at times—­he sat down and wrote to the commanding officer, entreating leave to sleep at an inn, and proffering the deposit of all his money as a pledge for his reappearance next morning.  The reply was an order that he should surrender his writing materials.  At seven o’clock, the appointed sleeping hour, the sergeant returned and gave the signal for bed by rapping with his cane on the floor, which was speedily covered by a number of dirty bags of mouldy straw—­the regulation mattresses, it would seem, for involuntary recruits.  Jackson—­peppery again—­refused to lie down, but was at last compelled to do so, and between two of the dirtiest fellows of the lot, each of whom had a leg chained to an arm.  The next morning, at his own request, he was brought before the commandant of the town, who had only arrived late the preceding evening, and whom he found seated in his bedroom, ’with all his officers standing round him receiving orders,’ says Jackson, ’with more humility than orderly-sergeants.’  The commandant repeated the offer of ’cavalry or infantry;’ adding that a war was about to commence with the Turks, and that good-behaviour would insure promotion.  However, finding Jackson obstinately persistent in his refusal, he quietly observed, in conclusion, that the emperor, as a matter of rule and of right, ‘impressed’ into his army all such as entered his dominions without certificates of character.  ‘The order was so tyrannical,’ declares our detenu, ’that I could not contain myself.  “Put me in chains, if you please,” I said, “but I tell you, all Germany shall not make me carry a musket for the emperor."’ This impetuous burst of indignation seems to have alarmed the phlegmatic commandant, who accordingly let our adventurer go, counselling him, however, to write to the English ambassador at Vienna for a passport, lest he should get into further trouble.

Jackson passed through the Tyrol into Italy, everywhere indulging his love of scenery and still greater love of adventure; studying with all the acuteness of his countrymen the varied characters of the people he met with, and in his correspondence with home friends, sketching them in language striking for its force, its propriety, and originality.  Some of his remarks on men and manners are conceived in a truly Goldsmithian vein, whilst all testify at once to the goodness of his heart and the quickness of his perceptions.  At Venice he says that he felt it to be ’such a feast of enjoyment as seldom falls to the lot of man, and never to the lot of any but a poor man, who has nothing conspicuous about him to attract the notice of the crowd,’ to possess such facilities as he did for learning what the people of foreign countries really were.