Читать книгу: «Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420», страница 3

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.

At Albenga, in Piedmont, Jackson arrived one night, tired, hungry, and drenched with rain. Intending to put up at the 'Albergo di San Dominico,' which he had been informed was the best inn, he went by accident to the convent of the same name, and entering, called loudly to be shewn to a private room. 'Instead of telling me I was wrong,' he says, 'the young brethren looked waggish, and began to laugh: when a man is cold and hungry, he can ill brook being the sport of others;' so accordingly—peppery again—he shook his stick angrily at the young monks. And at last one of the most courteous and demure of the number, coming forward, said that although theirs was not exactly a public-house, still the stranger was heartily welcome to walk in, rest, and refresh himself. Discovering his mistake, Jackson of course lost no time in making his bow, his apologies, and acknowledgments.

He returned to England by way of France, having but six sous in his pockets when he reached Bordeaux, where an English merchant, a total stranger, advanced him a few pounds. On the road, he was frequently taken for an Irishman, and not seldom for an Irish priest; under which impression, many civilities were paid him by the simple inhabitants of the country he traversed. Ultimately he landed at Southampton, with just four shillings in his possession; his once black coat having turned a rusty brown, his hat shovel-shaped by ill-usage, and his whole aspect so comical, that the mob hooted him, under the belief that he was a Methodist preacher. Proceeding inland on foot, in the direction of Southampton, he overtook a poor man walking along the road whose looks of unutterable misery induced our traveller to stop and inquire what ailed him. He told Jackson he had a son and daughter dying of a disorder apparently contagious, and that no physician would attend them, as he was too poor to pay the fees. Jackson at once offered his services, which were gratefully accepted. He saw his patients, and prescribed for them, and his heart was touched by their simple expressions of gratitude. 'Their thankfulness,' he says, 'for a thing that would perhaps do them no good, gave me more pleasure than a fee of, I believe, twenty guineas, much in need of it as I was.' The night had gathered in before he reached Winchester, where, at a respectable inn, he partook of such refreshment as his means afforded, and then desired to be shewn to his bedroom. The answer was, that the house contained no bedroom for such as he, and he was finally driven out with the coarsest abuse into the streets. The hour was ten o'clock, the month December, and the severity of the weather may be guessed from the fact, that the snow lay deep on the ground. After wandering about for some time, he at last obtained shelter in a small house in the outskirts of the city. The next day he fared little better. 'On Sunday morning,' he relates, 'I was sixty-four miles from London, and had only one shilling in my pocket. I was hungry, but durst not eat; thirsty, and I durst not drink, for fear of being obliged to lie all night at the side of a hedge in a cold night in December. After dark, I travelled over to Bagshot; was denied admittance into some of the public-houses, ill used in others.' He sought in vain permission even to lie in a barn; but a labourer he fortunately fell in with conducted him to a house, where, at the sacrifice of his last shilling, he secured at length a bed. The next day—foot-sore, penniless, and starving—he entered London. After remaining there a brief space—January 1784—in spite of the inclement season, he set off, again on foot, to Perth—a journey that occupied him three weeks, as he was detained on the way by some friends whom he visited. At Perth, where his old regiment then lay previous to its disbandment, he amused himself by studying Gaelic, and the controversy respecting Ossian and his poems. Quitting Perth, he travelled, still on foot, through the Highlands, the inhabitants of which he was, in the first instance, disposed to class with savages; but when he had observed the originality of conception, the breadth of humour, and the elevated sentiments which mark the Celt, his opinions underwent a total revolution. He was especially delighted with a ragged old reiver or cattle-lifter whom he encountered, and who had given shelter to the Young Chevalier in the braes of Glenmoriston after the battle of Culloden.

On his return to Edinburgh, Jackson married a lady of fortune, the daughter of Dr Stephenson, and niece of his old friend Colonel Francis Shelley, of the 71st regiment; and was enabled by this accession to his means once again to visit Paris, where he not only resumed his medical studies, but acquired the mastery of several languages, Arabic amongst the rest. Having graduated M.D. at Leyden, he came back again to England, and commenced practice at Stockton-upon-Tees, in Durham. Although his reputation speedily became considerable, especially in cases of fever, he seems scarcely to have liked his new avocation. He found solace, however, in his favourite study of languages, which he pursued with unremitting ardour—constantly reading through the Greek and Latin classics, and not only rendering himself familiar with the best works of the modern continental authors, but also with the literature of the Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, and Gaelic tongues. The Bostan of Saadi is said to have been one of his most favourite poems.

On the war breaking out in 1793, Dr Jackson—who, in 1791, had published a valuable work on the fevers of Jamaica and continental America—applied for employment as army-physician; but Mr Hunter, the director-general of the medical department of the army, considering none eligible for such employment who had not served as staffer regimental surgeon, or apothecary to the forces, Jackson agreed to accept, in the first instance, the surgeoncy of the 3d Buffs, on the understanding, that at a future time, he should be nominated physician as he desired. Mr Hunter, however, died soon after this; and his promise was not fulfilled by the Board which succeeded him in the medical direction of the army, and which appears to have pursued Dr Jackson with uniform hostility.

Returning to England with the troops, it was offered to him to accompany, in the capacity of chief medical officer, Sir Ralph Abercromby's expedition against some of the West India islands; and although no employment could possibly have been more agreeable to his taste, he, much to Sir Ralph's chagrin, declined the flattering proposal, on the grounds, that lower terms had been offered to him than to another professional man. Nothing but a sense of professional delicacy, it is plain, governed him in this transaction, for he immediately afterwards embarked (April 1796) as second medical officer in another expedition to San Domingo. During his abode in this island, he was unwearied in enlarging his acquaintance with tropical diseases—observing the rule he had followed in Holland of noting down by the patient's bedside the minutest particulars of every case he attended, the effects of the treatment pursued, and whatever else might shed light on the intricacies of pathological science. He also gave a larger practical operation to the scheme he had years before devised of amending the dietaries of military hospitals.

After the evacuation of San Domingo in 1798, our physician paid a visit to the United States, where he was received with signal distinction, his reputation having preceded him. The latter part of the year found him again at Stockton, publishing a work on contagious and endemic fevers, 'more especially the contagious fever of ships, jails, and hospitals, vulgarly called the yellow-fever of the West Indies;' together with 'an explanation of military discipline and economy, with a scheme for the medical arrangements of armies.' He undertook, about this time, by desire of Count Woronzow, the Russian ambassador, the medical charge of seventeen hundred Russian soldiers, who were stationed in the Channel Islands in a sad state of disease and disorganization; and so admirably did he acquit himself, and so perfect were the hospital provisions he made, that (1800) the commander-in-chief nominated him physician and head of the army-hospital depôt at Chatham—as he says, 'without any application or knowledge on his part.' This appointment was the cause of his subsequent misfortunes.

At Chatham, with the warm approbation of Major-General Hewett, commanding the depôt, he introduced that system of hospital reform which had elsewhere operated so successfully. The changes he effected, as soon as they were made, became known to the Medical Board, and were publicly approved of by one of its members. However, shortly afterwards, an epidemic broke out in the depôt (then removed to the Isle of Wight), arising from the fact, that the barracks were overcrowded with young recruits, but which the Medical Board ascribed to Jackson's innovations, and reported so to the Horse-Guards. The commander-in-chief directed an inquiry to take place before a medical board impannelled for the purpose, and the result of that inquiry may be guessed from a communication made by the War-Office to the commandant of the depôt. This states 'the unanimous opinion of the Board to have exculpated Dr Jackson from all improper treatment of diseases in the sick,' and the commander-in-chief's gratification, 'that an opportunity has thus been given to that most zealous officer of proving his fitness for the important situation in which he is placed.' The result of this wretched intrigue, however, was that Jackson, disgusted with the whole affair, requested to be placed on half-pay, to which request the Duke of York, with marked reluctance, at last (March 1803) acceded.

In his retirement at Stockton, Jackson put forth two valuable works, one on the medical economy of armies, and another on that of the British army in particular, and was much gratified by an offer to accompany, as military secretary, General Simcoe, just appointed commander-in-chief in India. The general's sudden death, however, put an end to this plan; and Jackson continued at Stockton, addressing frequent representations to government on the defective medical arrangements in the military service—representations the very receipt of which were not acknowledged by Mr Pitt, to whom they were forwarded. The Peninsular war commencing, Dr Jackson was again named Inspector of Hospitals, but was not, thanks to the persevering enmity of the Medical Board, sent on foreign service, although he volunteered to sink his rank, and go in any capacity. The Board even succeeded, by calumnious statements that he had purchased his diploma—statements he readily confuted—in preventing his appointment to the Spanish liberating army; although the British government had formally requested him to accept such an appointment, and agreed to give credentials testifying to his capacity and trustworthiness. This last disappointment led him, in an unguarded moment—peppery to the last—to inflict a slight personal chastisement on the surgeon-general, for which he was imprisoned six months in the King's Bench.

But the triumph of his enemies was not of long duration. In 1810 the Board was dissolved, and the control of the medical department vested in a director-general, with three principal inspectors subordinate to him. Then did Jackson return to active service, and from 1811 to 1815 was employed in the West Indies; his reports from whence embracing every topic relating to medical topography, to sanitary arrangements, and to the observed phenomena of tropical disease, are it is not too much to say, invaluable. His hints as to the choice of sites for barracks, the propriety of giving to soldiers healthy employment and recreation, as a means of averting sickness, his suggestions as to the treatment of fevers and other endemic diseases, may be found in the various works he has published, embodying the fruits of his West Indian experience.

In 1819, he was sent by government to Spain, where the yellow-fever had broken out, and his report upon its characteristics has been universally admitted to supply the fullest information on the subject that had hitherto been communicated to the public. He availed himself of his presence in that part of Europe to pay a visit to Constantinople and the Levant; and, retaining his energy to the last, when a British force was sent to Portugal in 1827, he desired permission to accompany it. The sands of his life, however, were then fast running out, and on the 6th of April in the same year he died, after a short illness, at Thursby, near Carlisle, in the 77th year of his age. Thus closed a long career of usefulness; for it is not too much to say, that few men of his time laboured harder to benefit his fellow-creatures than did Dr Robert Jackson.

THE MYSTERIOUS LADY

It is thirty years since we first met the Mysterious Lady at a fashionable sea-side boarding-house, and on our introduction, we found that her brother, General Jerningham, was well known to some members of our family. For five-and-twenty years afterwards she haunted us at intervals; and so singularly and secretly conducted were all her movements, that had she lived in the days of the Inquisition, Miss Jerningham might have proved one of its most valuable agents and coadjutors. She was a thin, middle-aged personage, or, more correctly speaking, of uncertain age, and without anything remarkable in her exterior, which was decidedly lady-like, if we except a pair of the very smallest and most restless brown eyes that were ever set in mortal's head. These eyes expressed suspicion, together with intelligence and close observation. They were clear and sparkling, and shaded by no drooping fringes; and some folks declared that Miss Jerningham slept with her eyes open. On conversing with her, she appeared to have been everywhere and to know everything; but the moment any allusion was made to the future, any attempt to discuss her prospective plans, then did the little brown eyes assume a reddish tinge, their expression passing from suspicion and alarm to the most stubborn resolve. All this was somewhat ludicrous, because nobody really felt particular interest in her movements, or desired to pry into her actions; but on discovering what appeared to be the weak point in her character—because it was out of all proportion strong—idle people, in search of amusement, availed themselves of the knowledge to lead her a very uncomfortable life. Her most intimate friends never knew, for months together, where she was to be found; and it was currently reported that General Jerningham had once advertised in the Times for his sister. Certain it is, she always conned the newspapers with avidity, particularly the portion devoted to anonymous communications and the mystical interchange of sentiments; and we frequently suspected that her interest arose from a deeper source than mere curiosity. The simple query: 'Where do you think of passing this autumn, Miss Jerningham?' threw her into a state of strange excitement; and she always commenced her answer somewhat in the following strain: 'Letters of importance, daily looked for, will determine me—circumstances over which I have no control: it is possible that I may visit Cowes;' but a possibility declared in this way by Miss Jerningham was never known to come to pass. Wherever she chanced to be seen, former acquaintances popped upon her with uplifted hands, exclaiming: 'What! you here? Why, we thought you were at Ilfracombe'—or some other far-away place. 'How long have you been here?—how long do you stay?' were questions easily parried; but if a more searching investigation commenced, then the Mysterious Lady turned, and twisted, and doubled painfully; but somehow always managed to elude and baffle her persecutors.

Miss Jerningham's moral rectitude and unimpeachable propriety of conduct—unsullied by the breath of detraction—rendered her in a great measure impervious to downright ill-nature; but still she was open to teasing and bantering; and the more she was teased, and the more she was bantered, the more impenetrable she became. We endeavoured to find out from herself—but unsuccessfully—if she had always led such a roving kind of existence, and also how it originated; for General Jerningham had a nice villa near the metropolis, and a small, amiable, domestic circle, ready to receive and welcome the wanderer. But no: she came upon them unawares, and at periods when they least expected her, and disappeared again as suddenly, they knew not why nor whither. In this way she vanished from the boarding-house where we first met her, with no intimation of her intention even to our hostess, till her baggage was ready and the coach at the door.

'Where is Miss Jerningham?' was the unanimous cry when she did not appear in her usual place.

'She left us early this morning,' quietly replied the landlady.

'Gone—really gone?' was repeated in various tones of disappointment; and one old gentleman, who had paid the absent lady marked attention, demanded in a chagrined voice: 'Pray, where has she gone? Can you tell us that, ma'am?—heigh!'

'No, sir, I cannot,' replied our hostess. 'All I can say is, that Miss Jerningham is a very honourable and generous lady, and wherever she is, I wish her well.'

'Humph!' said the old gentleman gruffly; 'she must have a good fortune to do as she does.'

'Yes, sir, she must,' was the reply: 'and go where she will, I believe that Miss Jerningham always gives plentiful alms. It seems her settled habit, like.'

'Settled habit!' muttered the old gentleman: 'she hasn't got a settled habit, ma'am: she is a most unsettled and extraordinary individual.'

'Well, sir, perhaps so,' replied Mrs Smith; 'but Miss Jerningham is quite the lady.' And in that opinion we all coincided, supposing our hostess by the word lady to have meant gentlewoman.

A few months afterwards she called upon us in London. She was not staying with her brother, but declined giving her address, remarking that it was not worth while, as she was about to change her abode immediately. By accident, however, we discovered afterwards that Miss Jerningham had lodged for the whole period within a dozen doors of us. Our surprise was lessened in after-years at the pertinacity with which she continued to appear to us, although always at uncertain intervals; for a service rendered by our father, referring to some banking transaction, apparently never escaped her memory, and she invariably alluded to this act of kindness with expressions of gratitude. This circumstance operated, we conjectured, as an encouragement to bestow on us an unusual mark of confidence and friendship, for such Miss Jerningham considered it when requesting permission to add our address to an advertisement she was about inserting in the Times for 'eligible board and lodging.' She knew that newspapers were prohibited articles in our circle, consequently we had no opportunity of finding out that portion of the transaction she wished to conceal. In what locality this 'eligible board and lodging' was advertised for, we never inquired, judging it would be needless to do so, but we consented to receive the letters Miss Jerningham expected in answer.

Poor Miss Jerningham! great was her amazement as well as our own when, in the course of three days, we had amassed for her consideration and perusal no less than seventy-seven letters directed to 'X.Y.Z.' What temptations were held forth in the advertisement which elicited so many replies we never were made acquainted with: Miss Jerningham counted the letters, tied them up, and carried them off in triumph. Next day we received a handsome present of some chimney-ornaments, with 'Miss Jerningham's regards and best thanks;' but we saw no more of the Mysterious Lady for some years. When we did meet again in a quiet country town, she had been to America, and we had experienced vicissitude and bereavement. Our altered mode of living made no difference to Miss Jerningham: she accompanied us home, for we met in the market-place; but as it is not so easy to keep one's place of abode secret in a small gossipping community, for once in her life she made a virtue of necessity, and openly divulged the fact of her locale, number and all specified. She did not know a creature in the town or in the suburbs—she came there for solitude. Conjecture was afloat in all quarters as to who or what she could be. Some said she must be a gentlewoman, because she wore velvet and satin, and gold chains—moreover, paid well for everything. Others affirmed she might be a gentlewoman—gentlewomen did queer things sometimes—but there must be some very strange reason for a lone and unknown female to drop from the skies, as it were, in the midst of strangers. For our own part, our mind was easier on her account, now that she had broken through her rule of secrecy; and we even hoped that when we saw her again, she might go a step farther, and throw off the veil entirely.