We cannot but think the reader will consider these slight notices of how our fathers viewed the science of self-defence—now, for a season only, as we trust, “fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf”—as a fitting preface to the life of Jackson, who flourished in the palmy days of pugilism; one of “nature’s gentlemen,” who not only supplanted Mendoza, but took a higher position in the social scale than any boxer who preceded or followed him, no less from the firmness and urbanity of his manners, than the high requisites he possessed for shining as an athlete. John Jackson was born in London, in 1768, and was the son of an eminent builder, by whom the arch was thrown over the Old Fleet Ditch, near the mouth of the River Fleet, flowing from the Hampstead and Highgate Hills, and crossed by bridges at Holborn and Ludgate. This forms the great sewer of Blackfriars from the north into the new Low Level, over which run Farringdon Street (the site of the old Fleet Market), and Bridge Street, leading to the splendid bridge by Cubitt, with its ugly iron companion carrying the L. C. & D. R. John Jackson’s uncles were farmers, and tenants of the Duke of Bedford and the Marquis of Hertford. Nature had bestowed upon him all those athletic requisites which constitute the _beau ideal_ of perfect manhood. There was a happy combination of muscular development with proportionate symmetry in his frame (his height was five feet eleven, and his weight fourteen stone), which rendered him a fitting model for the sculptor, and excited the admiration of all those by whom these qualities are appreciated. At the age of nineteen he became a frequenter of the sparring schools, and displayed such talents as proved that he was destined to eclipse the most favoured of his cotemporaries; added to which, possessing as he did the _suaviter in modo_ as well as the _fortiter in re_, he soon found patrons of the highest grade. It is stated that a conversation with Colonel Harvey Aston[60] led to his first encounter in the prize ring. Fewterel, a Birmingham boxer, as yet unbeaten, had been the conqueror, says “Pancratia,” in eighteen battles. The meeting took place at Smitham Bottom, near Croydon, June 9th, 1788. We copy the report.