Jackson was a pupil of John Travers, and wrote canzonets and elegies after the model established by Travers, close to, but separate from, the glee tradition. He was organist of Exeter Cathedral and a theorist on music. A friend of Thomas Gainsborough, he corresponded with him on the subject of aesthetics.

Lyrics: Matthew Prior

In vain you tell your parting lover,
You with fair winds may waft him over;
Alas, what winds can happy prove,
Which bear me far from what I love!
Alas, what dangers on the main
Can equal those that I sustain
From slighted vows and cold disdain?

Be gentle, and in pity choose
To wish the wildest tempest loose;
That thrown again upon the coast,
Where first my shipwrecked heart was lost,
I may once more repeat my pain,
Once more in dying notes complain
Of slighted vows and cold disdain.