Born 1769.--Died 1822.
Edward Daniel Clarke was born on the 5th of June, 1769, at Willingdon,
in the county of Sussex. Even when a child he is said to have displayed
great narrative powers, which he exercised as frequently as possible
for the amusement of his father’s domestics and parishioners. In his
boyish studies, however, he was wanting in application; a fault arising
from the quickness and vivacity of his mind, actuated by insatiable
curiosity, and characterized from the beginning by a decided partiality
for natural history. Still, the loss sustained by this species of
negligence he afterward severely felt, when, notwithstanding the habits
of industry which he acquired at a later period of youth, it was found
impossible by any degree of exertion to retrieve the moments misspent
or wasted in boyhood. At the same time there was one advantage derived
from his unstudious inclinations; they urged him to be much abroad
in the open air, where he amused himself with running, leaping, and
swimming, in which last accomplishment he was particularly skilled, and
on one occasion had the satisfaction of saving by this means the life
of his younger brother, who was seized by the cramp while bathing in
the moat which surrounded his father’s house.
In the spring of 1786, through the kindness of Dr. Beadon, afterward
Bishop of Bath and Wells, Clarke obtained the office of chapel clerk
at Jesus College, Cambridge, whither he removed about the Easter of
the above year. Next year he sustained the heavy calamity to lose a
pious, beneficent, affectionate father, by which misfortune, young and
inexperienced as he was, without a profession, and with few prospects
of advancement, he was entirely thrown upon his own resources, his
remaining parent not possessing the means of aiding him with aught
beyond her prayers. Fortunately his deceased father had, instead of
wealth, bequeathed to his family a more valuable inheritance; a name
revered for sanctity, and a number of noble-minded friends, who not
only provided for the immediate necessities of its several members,
but continued to watch over their progress, and on many important
occasions to advance their interests in after-life. Nevertheless,
Clarke had to contend with numerous difficulties. “Soon after the death
of their father,” says Mr. Otter, “the two elder sons returned to
college; and Edward, having now acquired a melancholy title to one of
the scholarships of the society of Jesus College, founded by Sir Tobias
Rustat, for the benefit of clergymen’s orphans, was elected a scholar
on this foundation immediately upon his return. The emoluments of his
scholarship, joined to those of an exhibition from Tunbridge school,
and the profits of his chapel clerk’s place, amounting in the whole
to less than 90_l._ a year, were his principal, indeed it is believed
his only resources during his residence at college; and, however well
they may have been husbanded, it must be evident that, even in those
times of comparative moderation in expense, they could not have been
sufficient for his support, especially when it is understood that
he was naturally liberal to a fault. It does not appear, however,
that he derived during this time any pecuniary assistance from his
father’s friends; and as there is the strongest reason to believe that
he faithfully adhered to the promise he had made to his mother, that
he would never draw upon her slender resources for his support, it
may excite some curiosity to know by what means the deficiency was
supplied. The fact is, that he was materially assisted in providing for
his college expenses by the liberality of his tutor, Mr. Plampin, who,
being acquainted with his circumstances, suffered his bills to remain
in arrear; and they were afterward discharged from the first profits he
derived from his private pupils.”
The indolent inactivity which had marked his school studies did not
desert him at college. He seems, in fact, to have been disgusted with
the system of education pursued at Cambridge, caring nothing for
mathematics, which were there regarded as all in all, and finding
among the other mental pursuits of the place nothing whatever to
kindle the ardour of his ambitious mind. Still the desire of fame,
without which man never performed any thing great, began gradually
to manifest itself in his character both to himself and others.
Exceedingly uncertain as to the mode, he yet determined to acquire
in one way or another a reputation in literature; and while many of
those around him were descanting complacently upon his failings, and
the consequent backwardness of his acquirements, he silently felt the
sting which was so soon to goad him on to a destiny more brilliant than
his compassionate comrades ever dreamed of. His favourite studies,
however, such as they were, he seems to have pursued with considerable
eagerness; and by degrees his taste, after wavering for some time,
settled definitively on literature.
In the spring of 1790 Clarke obtained, through the recommendation of
Dr. Beadon, then Bishop of Gloucester, the office of private tutor to
the honourable Henry Tufton, nephew to the Duke of Dorset. The place
selected for his residence with his pupil, says Mr. Otter, was a large
house belonging to Lord Thanet, inhabited at that time only by one or
two servants, situated in a wild and secluded part of the county of
Kent, and cut off, as well by distance as bad roads, from all cheerful
and improving society; a residence suitable enough to a nobleman with a
large establishment and a wide circle of friends, but the last place,
one would have thought, to improve and polish a young man of family
just entering into active life. His pupil, moreover, had conceived
a dislike for study and for tutors of every kind, which promised to
enhance the tedium of a life spent in such a scene. But Clarke, who
probably sympathized with the young man’s aversion from intellectual
task-work, very quickly succeeded by his gay, lively, insinuating
manners in winning his confidence, and, apparently, in convincing him
that a certain degree of knowledge might be useful, even to a man of
his rank. This agreeable result, which seems to have been somewhat
unexpected, so raised our incipient traveller in the estimation of
the Duke of Dorset, that the engagement, which appears to have been
at first for nine months only, was prolonged another year, the latter
part of which was occupied in making with his pupil the tour of Great
Britain. Of these domestic travels he on his return published the
history; but the performance appears to have been hastily and slovenly
written, and, as has been the fate of many other youthful works, to
have been severely judged by the mature author, jealous of his fame,
and averse from exhibiting to the public the nakedness of his unformed
mind.
Shortly after the conclusion of this tour he accompanied his pupil
in a little excursion to Calais, when he enjoyed the satisfaction,
which none but a traveller can appreciate, of treading for the first
time on foreign ground. In 1792 he was fortunate enough to obtain an
engagement to travel with Lord Berwick, whom he had known at college,
and in the autumn of that year set out in company with that young
nobleman, through Germany and Switzerland into Italy. He was now in the
position for which nature had originally designed him. “An unbounded
love of travel,” says he, “influenced me at a very early period of my
life. It was conceived in infancy, and I shall carry it with me to the
grave. When I reflect upon the speculations of my youth, I am at a
loss to account for a passion which, predominating over every motive
of interest and every tie of affection, urges me to press forward and
to pursue inquiry, even in the bosoms of the ocean and the desert.
Sometimes, in the dreams of fancy, I am weak enough to imagine that the
map of the world was painted in the awning of my cradle, and that my
nurse chanted the wanderings of pilgrims in her legendary lullabies.”
This was the spirit which urged the Marco Polos, the Chardins, and
the Bruces to undertake their illustrious journeys; and if Clarke was
compelled by circumstances to confine his researches to less remote and
better known countries, he exhibited in his rambles through these a
kindred enthusiasm, and similar devotion and energy.
Clarke and his companion having passed the Alps, which, however
frequently seen, still maintain their rank among the most sublime
objects in nature, descended into Italy, visited Turin and Rome, and
then proceeded to Naples, in which city and its environs they remained
nearly two years. In the summer of 1793 there was, as is well known, an
eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which our traveller, now an inhabitant of
Naples, enjoyed ample opportunities of visiting. And here a striking
manifestation of the daring intrepidity of the English occurred: for
not only Clarke himself, part of whose business as a traveller it
was to familiarize himself with danger, but numbers of other English
gentlemen, and even ladies, ascended to the mouth of the burning crater
and the sources of lava-streams in an active state for mere amusement;
where, on one occasion, a lady narrowly escaped death from a large
stone from the volcano, which flew by her like a wheel. At another time
the whole party were menaced with the fate of the elder Pliny. It was
in the month of February. “I found the crater in a very active state,”
says Clarke, “throwing out volleys of immense stones transparent with
vitrification, and such showers of ashes involved in thick sulphurous
clouds as rendered any approach to it extremely dangerous. We ascended
as near as possible, and then crossing over to the lava attempted
to coast it up to its source. This we soon found was impossible,
for an unfortunate wind blew all the smoke of the lava hot upon us,
attended at the same time with such a thick mist of minute ashes from
the crater, and such fumes of sulphur, that we were in danger of
being suffocated. In this perplexity I had recourse to an expedient
recommended by Sir W. Hamilton, and proposed immediately crossing
the current of liquid lava to gain the windward side of it; but felt
some fears, owing to the very liquid appearance the lava there had so
near its source. All my companions were against the scheme, and while
we stood deliberating, immense fragments of stone and huge volcanic
bombs that had been cast out by the crater, but which the smoke had
prevented us from observing, fell thick about us, and rolled by with a
velocity that would have crushed any of us, had we been in the way. I
found we must either leave our present spot, or expect instant death;
therefore, covering my face with my hat, I rushed upon the lava and
crossed over safely to the other side, having my boots only a little
burnt and my hands scorched. Not one of my companions, however, would
stir, nor could any persuasion of mine avail in getting a single guide
over to me. I then saw clearly the whole of the scene, and expected
my friends would every moment be sacrificed to their own imprudence
and want of courage, as the stones from the crater fell continually
around them, and vast rocks of lava bounded by them with great force.
At last I had the satisfaction of seeing them retire, leaving me
entirely alone. I begged hard for a torch to be thrown over to me, that
I might not be lost when the night came on. It was then that André, one
of the ciceroni of Resina, after being promised a bribe, ran over to
me, and brought with him a bottle of wine and a torch. We had coasted
the lava, ascending for some time, when looking back I perceived my
companions endeavouring to cross the lava lower down, where the stream
was narrower. In doing this they found themselves insulated, as it
were, and surrounded by two different rivers of liquid fire. They
immediately pressed forward, being terribly scorched by both currents,
and ran to the side where I was; in doing which one of the guides fell
into the middle of the red-hot lava, but met with no other injury than
having his hands and face burnt, and losing at the same time a bottle
of vin de grave, which was broken in the fall, and which proved a very
unpleasant loss to us, being ready to faint with excessive thirst,
fatigue, and heat. Having once more rallied my forces, I proceeded on,
and in about half an hour I gained the chasm through which the lava had
opened itself a passage out of the mountain. To describe this sight is
utterly beyond all human ability. My companions, who were with me then,
shared in the astonishment it produced; and the sensations they felt in
concert with me were such as can be obliterated only with our lives.
All I had seen of volcanic phenomena before did not lead me to expect
such a spectacle as I then beheld. I had seen the vast rivers of lava
which descended into the plains below, and carried ruin and devastation
with them; but they resembled a vast heap of cinders on the scoriæ of
an iron foundry, rolling slowly along, and falling with a rattling
noise over one another. Here a vast arched chasm presented itself in
the side of the mountain, from which rushed with the velocity of a
flood the clear vivid torrent of lava in perfect fusion, and totally
unconnected with any other matter that was not in a state of complete
solution, unattended by any scoriæ on its surface, or gross materials
of an insolvent nature; but flowing with the translucency of honey, in
regular channels cut finer than art can imitate, and glowing with all
the splendour of the sun.”
In the July of the same year our traveller viewed Vesuvius under
another aspect, when soft, tranquil beauty had succeeded to terrific
sublimity. “While we were at tea in the Albergo Reale,” says he, “such
a scene presented itself as every one agreed was beyond any thing of
that kind they had ever seen before. It was caused by the moon, which
suddenly rose behind the convent on Vesuvius; at first a small bright
line silvering all the clouds, and then a full orb which threw a blaze
of light across the sea, through which the vessels passed and re-passed
in a most beautiful manner. At the same time the lava, of a different
hue, spread its warm tint upon all the objects near it, and threw a
red line across the bay, directly parallel to the reflection of the
moon’s rays. It was one of those scenes which one dwells upon with
regret, because one feels the impossibility of retaining the impression
it affords. It remains in the memory, but then all its outlines and
its colours are so faintly touched, that the beauty of the spectacle
fades away with the landscape; which, when covered by the clouds of the
night, and veiled in darkness, can never be revived by the pencil, the
pen, or by any recourse to the traces it has left upon the mind.”
In the autumn of 1793 Clarke received from Lord Berwick a proposal that
he should accompany him to Egypt and the Holy Land, with which our
traveller, whose secret wishes had long pointed that way, immediately
closed. While preparations were making for the journey, Lord Berwick
suddenly recollected that some living, to which he was to present his
brother, might fall vacant during his absence, and be lost to his
family. He determined, therefore, on sending an express to England; and
when he had hired his courier, Clarke, who perhaps felt the want of
violent exercise, offered to accompany the man, that no time might be
lost. He accordingly set out for England, and having remained two or
three days in London to execute the commission with which he had been
intrusted, he hurried down to Shropshire, and arranged the business
which had brought him to England. This being accomplished, he returned
to London, where, to his infinite surprise and mortification, he found
a letter from Lord Berwick, informing him that the expedition to Egypt
had been postponed or abandoned. His engagement with this nobleman,
however, had not yet expired. He therefore, after a short stay in
England, hastened back to Italy, from whence he finally returned in the
summer of 1794.
Clarke now spent some time with his mother and family at Uckfield, and
in the autumn of the same year undertook, at the recommendation of the
Bishop of St. Asaph, the care of Sir Thomas Mostyn, a youth of about
seventeen. This engagement continued about a year, during which period
he resided with his pupil in Wales, where he became known to Pennant,
with whom he afterward maintained a correspondence. When this connexion
had, from some unexplained causes, ceased to exist, our traveller
undertook a small periodical work called “Le Rêveur,” which, when
twenty-nine numbers had been published without success, was judiciously
discontinued, and sunk so completely into oblivion that not a single
copy, it is believed, could now be found.
In the autumn of 1796 Clarke entered into an engagement with the family
of Lord Uxbridge, which, under whatever auspices begun, was highly
beneficial to himself and satisfactory to his employers. The youth
first placed under his care, delicate and feeble in constitution,
soon fell a prey to disease; but the next youngest son of the family,
the honourable Berkeley Paget, succeeded his brother; and with him,
in the summer and autumn of 1797, our traveller made the tour of
Scotland. This was in every respect an agreeable and fortunate journey
for our traveller, who not only enjoyed the scenery, wild, varied,
and beautiful, which the north of England and many parts of Scotland
afford, but secured in his pupil a powerful friend, who, so long as our
traveller lived, promoted his interests, and when his life had closed,
continued the same benevolent regard to his family.
On the termination of his connexion with Mr. Paget, who was now sent
to Oxford, Clarke retired to Uckfield, where, for a time, he seemed
entirely immersed in the pleasures of field-sports. His devotion
to this species of amusement, however, was destined to be of short
duration. A young gentleman of Sussex, whose education had been very
much neglected, succeeded about this time to a considerable estate,
upon which he intimated his desire of placing himself for three
years under the guidance and instruction of our traveller, first at
Cambridge, and afterward during a long and extensive tour upon the
Continent. The pecuniary part of the proposal was very liberal, says
Mr. Otter, and the plan was entered upon without delay. The traveller
and his pupil remained a whole year at Cambridge, during which the
former, who fully understood the advantages of knowledge, and had been
hitherto prevented by his wandering life from pursuing any regular
course of study, profited quite as much as the latter.
The preliminary portion of their studies being over, Clarke and his
pupil began to prepare for their travels. Two other individuals were
at first associated with them, Professor Malthus, author of the
celebrated treatise on population, and the Rev. Mr. Otter, afterward
the biographer of our traveller. The party set out from Cambridge on
the 20th May, 1799, and arrived at Hamburgh on the 25th. Here they
made but a short stay before they set out for Copenhagen, and from
thence, by way of Stockholm, across the whole of Sweden to Tornea, on
the Gulf of Bothnia. Malthus and Otter left them at the Wener Lake.
Clarke, with all the enthusiasm of a genuine traveller, could never
imagine he had carried his researches sufficiently far; but, having
reached the 66th degree of northern latitude, declared he would not
return until he should have snuffed the polar air. His pupil, Cripps,
seems to have shared largely in his locomotive propensity, and in the
courage which prompts to indulge it. They therefore proceeded towards
the polar regions together; but having reached Enontakis, in latitude
68° 30´ 30´´ north, our traveller, who had previously been seized by a
severe fit of illness, was constrained to abandon the polar expedition
and shape his course towards the south. Writing from Enontakis to his
mother, “We have found,” says he, “the cottage of a priest in this
remote corner of the world, and have been snug with him a few days.
Yesterday I launched a balloon eighteen feet in height, which I had
made to attract the natives. You may guess their astonishment when they
saw it rise from the earth.
“Is it not famous to be here within the frigid zone, more than two
degrees within the arctic, and nearer to the pole than the most
northern shores of Iceland? For a long time darkness has been a
stranger to us. The sun, as yet, passes not below the horizon, but he
dips his crimson visage behind a mountain to the north. This mountain
we ascended, and had the satisfaction to see him make his courtesy
without setting. At midnight the priest of this place lights his pipe
during three weeks in the year by means of a burning-glass from the
sun’s rays.”
Having, for the reason above stated, given up the design of visiting
the polar regions, they returned to Tornea, and thence proceeded
through Sweden and Norway; which latter country (probably for the same
reason which made Pope of the opinion of the last author he read) he
preferred for sublimity of scenery to Switzerland. They then entered
Russia, and arrived at Petersburg on the 26th of January, 1800. Clarke,
it is well known, entertained a very mean opinion of the Russians;
but, judging from the testimony of Bishop Heber--a calmer and more
dispassionate man--as well as from that of many other travellers, it
would appear that his judgment was neither rash nor ill founded. “We
have been here five days,” says he. “Our servants were taken from us
at the frontiers, and much difficulty had we with the Russian thieves
as we came along. Long accustomed to Swedish honesty it is difficult
for us to assume all at once a system of suspicion and caution: the
consequence of this is that they remove all the moveables out of their
way. I wish much to like the Russians, but those who govern them will
take care I never shall. This place, were it not for its magnificence,
would be insufferable. We silently mourn when we remember Sweden. As
for our harps there are no trees to hang them upon; nevertheless we sit
down by the waters of Babylon and weep. They open all the letters, and
therefore there is something for them to chew upon. More I dare not
add; perhaps your experience will supply the rest.”
To this, if we add his picture of the execrable despot who then
governed Russia, enough will have been said of his experience at
Petersburg. “It is impossible,” he writes, “to say what will be the end
of things here, or whether the emperor is more of a madman, a fool, a
knave, or a tyrant. If I were to relate the ravings, the follies, the
villanies, the cruelties of that detestable beast, I should never reach
the end of my letter. Certainly things cannot long go on as they do
now. The other day the soldiers by his order cudgelled a gentleman in
the street because the cock of his hat was not in a line with his nose.
He has sent the Prince of Condé’s army to the right-about, which is
hushed up, and it is to appear that they are ceded to Great Britain. He
refuses passports even to ambassadors for their couriers. One is not
safe a moment. It is not enough to act by rule, you must regulate your
features to the whims of a police officer. If you frown in the street
you will be taken up.”
From Petersburg they proceeded in sledges to Moscow, which, like
most oriental cities, seemed all splendour from a distant view,
but shrunk upon their entering it into a miserable collection of
hovels, interspersed with a few grotesque churches and tawdry
palaces. This place, which is too well known to require me to dwell
much upon its appearance, they quitted to proceed to the Crimea.
Arriving at Taganrog, on the Sea of Azov, Clarke amused himself
with swimming in the Don, the ancient Tanais, between Europe and
Asia, and in thinking of the vast extent of country over which his
good fortune had already carried him, and of the far more glorious
scenes--Palestine--Egypt--Greece--which yet lay in his route. “Do, for
God’s sake imagine,” says he in a letter to a friend, “what I must feel
in the prospect of treading the plains of Troy!--Tears of joy stream
from my eyes while I write.” To a person of such a frame of mind--and
no others should ever leave their firesides--travelling, next to the
performance of virtuous actions, affords the most exquisite pleasure
upon earth. The imagination, impregnated by a classical education with
glowing ideas of what certain scenes once were, invests them with
unearthly splendour, of which no experience can ever afterward divest
them.
Upon their arriving at Achmedshid in the Crimea, they remained some
time in the house of Professor Pallas, who entertained them in so
hospitable a manner that Clarke, who spoke of men as he found them,
could not forbear imparting to his friends at home the warm gratitude
of his heart. “It is with him we now live,” says he, “till the vessel
is ready to sail for Constantinople; and how can I express his kindness
to me? He has all the tenderness of a father to us both. Every thing
in his house he makes our own. He received me worn down with fatigue
and ill of a tertian fever. Mrs. Pallas nursed me, and he cured me, and
then loaded me with all sorts of presents; books, drawings, insects,
plants, minerals, &c. The advantage of conversing with such a man is
worth the whole journey from England, not considering the excellent
qualities of his heart. Here we are in quite an elegant English house;
and if you knew the comfort of lying down in a clean bed after passing
months without taking off your clothes in deserts and among savages,
you would know the comfort we feel. The vessel is at Kosloff, distant
forty miles; and when we leave the Crimea Mr. and Mrs. Pallas and their
daughter, who has been married since we were in the house to a general
officer, go with us to Kosloff; and will dine with us on board the day
we sail. They prepare all our provisions for the voyage.”
The whole of their stay in Russia was rendered so exceedingly
disagreeable--first by the savage tyranny of the emperor, and secondly
by the evil character of his subjects, which, as being everywhere felt,
was infinitely more annoying--that our traveller regarded himself among
a civilized and hospitable people when he reached Constantinople. In
fact, he found himself in a sort of English society which, congregating
together at the palace of the embassy, engaged in the same round of
amusements which would have occupied them in London. The time which
these agreeable occupations left him was employed in searching for
and examining Greek medals, and in viewing such curiosities as were
to be found in Constantinople; among other things the interior of
the seraglio, where no Frank, he says, had before set his foot. He
moreover found time to peruse many of the various publications called
forth by the Bryant controversy respecting the existence of Troy; and
so unsteady was his faith on this point, that, after dipping a little
into the subject, he began to imagine something like a new theory to
explain the manner in which we are required to believe Homer might
have invented the whole groundwork of the Iliad! However, upon shortly
afterward arriving on the spot, this flimsy vagary vanished. Jacob
Bryant and his followers were found to be the pettifogging skeptics
which they have always been considered by sensible men. “The Plain
of Troy now,” exclaims our traveller, “offers every fact you want;
there is nothing doubtful. No argument will stand an instant[3] in
opposition to the test of inquiry upon the spot; penetrating into
the mountains behind the Acropolis the proofs grow more numerous as
you advance, till at length the discussion becomes absurd, and the
nonsense of Bryantism so ridiculous that his warmest partisans would be
ashamed to acknowledge they had ever assented for an instant to such
contemptible blasphemy upon the most sacred records of history.”
[3] An intaglio purchased by Clarke at Constantinople is exceedingly
remarkable, as throwing light upon the original story of Æneas, before
it had been deformed by Virgil or Ovid. “There are poor Turks at
Constantinople, whose business it is to wash the mud of the common
sewers of the city, and the sand of the shore. These people found a
small onyx, with an antique intaglio of most excellent workmanship,
representing Æneas flying from the city, leading his boy by the hand,
and bearing on his shoulders (who do you suppose?)--not his father--for
in that case the subject might have been borrowed from Virgil or
Ovid--but--his wife, with the Penates in her lap; and so wonderfully
wrought that these three figures are brought into a gem of the smallest
size, and wings are added to the feet of Æneas,
‘Pedibus timor addidit alas!’
to express by symbols of the most explicit nature the story and the
situation of the hero. Thus it is proved that a tradition, founded
neither on the works of Homer nor the Greek historians (and perhaps
unknown to Virgil and the Roman poets, who always borrowed their
stories from such records as were afforded by the works of ancient
artists), existed among the ancients in the remotest periods,
respecting the war of Troy. The authenticity of this invaluable
little relic, the light it strews on ancient history, its beauty, and
the remarkable coincidence of the spot on which it was found, with
the locality of the subject it illustrates, interested so much the
late Swedish minister, Mr. Heidensham, and other antiquarians of the
first talents in this part of the world, that I have given it a very
considerable part of this letter, hoping it will not be indifferent to
you.”
From the Troad Clarke proceeded to Rhodes, the Gulf of Glaucus, on the
coast of Asia Minor, and thence by sea to Egypt, where the English
fleet was then lying in Aboukir Bay. He did not, however, see much of
Egypt on this occasion, for the country was still in the possession
of the French; and therefore, after a short visit to Rosetta, he
sailed for Cyprus, and on returning from this voyage proceeded in the
Romulus to Palestine. Here he visited Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem,
and the Lake of Genesareth; near which he enjoyed an opportunity of
conversing with a party of Druses. Almost every traveller in Syria has
given us some new particulars respecting this curious people. “They
are,” says Clarke, “the most extraordinary people on earth; singular
in the simplicity of their lives by their strict integrity and virtue.
They only eat what they earn by their own labour, and preserve at
this moment the superstitions brought by the Israelites out of Egypt.
What will be your surprise to learn that every Thursday they elevate
the molten calf, before which they prostrate themselves, and having
paid their adoration, each man selects among the women present the
wife he likes best, with whom the ceremony ends. The calf is of gold,
silver, or bronze. This is exactly that worship at which Moses was so
incensed in descending from Mount Sinai. The cow was the Venus of the
Egyptians, and of course the calf a personification of animal desire;
a Cupid before which the sacrifices so offensive to Moses were held.
For it is related they set up a molten calf, which Aaron had made from
the earrings of the Israelite women; before which similar sacrifices
were made. And certainly the Druses on Mount Lebanon are a detachment
of the posterity of those Israelites who are so often represented in
Scripture as deserters from the true faith, falling back into the old
superstitions and pagan worship of the country from whence they came.
I could not visit Mount Lebanon; but I took every method necessary to
ascertain the truth of this relation; and I send it you as one of the
highest antiquities and most curious relics of remote ages which has
yet been found upon earth.”
His stay in Palestine was exceedingly short, just sufficient to enable
him to say he had looked at it. He then returned to Aboukir Bay, where
his brother was commander of an English ship; which now, on the 6th of
August, 1801, swarmed with French prisoners like a beehive. When the
road to Cairo was rendered practicable by the defeat of the French,
our traveller proceeded to that city, where the most interesting
objects existing were the beautiful young women who had been torn by
the French soldiers from the harems of the bey; and then, when they
evacuated the country, deserted and abandoned to their fate. Here
he procured a complete copy of the “Arabian Nights,” which, with
many other works that were so many sealed books to him, gave rise to
much unavailing regret that he had bestowed little or no attention
on the Arabic language. The Pyramids he of course admired. “Without
hyperbole,” says he, “they are immense mountains; and when clouds cast
shadows over their white sides they are seen passing as upon the summit
of the Alps.” From the pinnacle of the loftiest he dated one of his
letters to England, all of which are filled with lively dashing gossip,
accompanied with rash, headlong, unphilosophical decisions, which the
reflections of a moment, perhaps, might have served to dissipate. The
news of the capitulation of Alexandria induced him to hurry back to
the coast. He found the French troops still in the city, but preparing
to embark with all speed. Great disputes, he says, had already arisen
between General Hutchinson and Menou respecting the antiquities and
collections of natural history which had been made by the French; the
former claiming them as public, and the latter refusing them as private
property. The part performed by Clarke himself in this affair he shall
relate in his own words:--“When I arrived in the British camp, General
Hutchinson informed me that he had already stipulated for the stone in
question (the Rosetta marble), and asked me whether I thought the other
literary treasures were sufficiently national to be included in his
demands. You may be sure I urged all the arguments I could muster to
justify the proceeding; and it is clear they are not private property.
General Hutchinson sent me to Menou, and charged me to discover
what national property of that kind was in the hands of the French.
Hamilton, Lord Elgin’s secretary, had gone the same morning about an
hour before with Colonel Turner of the Antiquarian Society about the
Hieroglyphic Table. I showed my pass at the gates, and was admitted.
The streets and public places were filled with the French troops, in
desperate bad-humour. Our proposals were made known, and backed with a
menace from the British general that he would break the capitulation
if the proposals were not acceded to. The whole corps of sçavans and
engineers beset Menou, and the poor old fellow, what with us and them,
was completely hunted. We have been now at this work since Thursday
the 11th, and I believe have succeeded. We found much more in their
possession than was suspected or imagined. Pointers would not range
better for game than we have done for statues, sarcophagi, maps, MSS.,
drawings, plans, charts, botany, stuffed birds, animals, dried fishes,
&c. Savigny, who has been years in forming the beautiful collection
of natural history for the republic, is in despair. Therefore we
represented to General Hutchinson, that it would be the best plan to
send him to England also, as the most proper person to take care of the
collection, and to publish its description if necessary.”
No man, I suppose, who has passed beyond the frontiers of his own
country, can fail to have experienced frequent depressions of spirit,
during which he has probably repented him of his wandering habits.
But Clarke was like a weathercock, now pointing to the east, now to
the west. In the island of Zea, off the promontory of Sunium, he
repented heartily of having undertaken the voyage to Greece. “Danger,
fatigue, disease, filth, treachery, thirst, hunger, storms, rocks,
assassins,--these,” he exclaims, “are the realities which a traveller
in Greece meets with!” Anon, at Athens, he writes, “We have been here
three days; we sailed into the port of the Piræus after sunset on the
28th. The little voyage from Cape Sunium to Athens is one of the most
interesting I ever made. The height of the mountains brings the most
distant objects into the view, and you are surrounded by beauty and
grandeur. The sailors and pilots still give to every thing its ancient
name, with only a little difference in the pronunciation. They show you
as you sail along, Ægina and Salamis, Mount Hymettus and Athens, and
Megara, and the mountains of Corinth. The picture is the same as it was
in the earliest ages of Greece. The Acropolis rises to view as if it
were in its most perfect state: the temples and buildings seem entire;
for the eye, in the Saronic Gulf, does not distinguish the injuries
which the buildings have suffered, and nature, of course, is the same
now as she was in the days of Themistocles. I cannot tell you what
sensations I felt: the successions were so rapid I knew not whether to
laugh or to cry,--sometimes I did both.
“Our happiness is complete, we have forgotten all our disasters, and I
have half a mind to blot out all I have written in the first part of
this letter. We are in the most comfortable house imaginable, with a
good widow and her daughter. You do not know Lusieri. He was my friend
in Italy many years ago. Think what a joy to find him here, presiding
over the troop of artists, architects, sculptors, and excavators that
Lord Elgin has sent here to work for him. He is the most celebrated
artist at present in the world. Pericles would have deified him. He
attends us everywhere, and Pausanias himself would not have made a
better cicerone.
“Athens exceeds all that ever has been written or painted from it.
I know not how to give an idea of it; because, having never seen
any thing like it, I must become more familiar with so much majesty
before I can describe it. I am no longer to lament the voyage I lost
with Lord Berwick; because it is exactly that which a man should see
_last_ in his travels. It is even with joy I consider it is perhaps
the end of all my admiration. We are lucky in the time of our being
here. The popularity of the English name gives us access to many things
which strangers before were prohibited from visiting, and the great
excavations that are going on discover daily some hidden treasures.
Rome is almost as insignificant in comparison with Athens as London
with Rome; and one regrets the consciousness that no probable union of
circumstances will ever again carry the effects of human labour to the
degree of perfection they have attained here.”
No one after this will accuse Clarke of being deficient in enthusiasm;
but this is not all. On reaching the summit of Parnassus, he
bursts forth into expressions of admiration, which, if they were
not justified by the sublime beauty of the scenes themselves,
or by the historical glory with which they must be eternally
associated, would be absurd. “It is necessary to forget all that
has preceded--all the travels of my life--all I ever imagined--all
I ever saw! Asia--Egypt--the Isles--Italy--the Alps--whatever you
will! Greece surpasses all! Stupendous in its ruins! Awful in its
mountains!--captivating in its vales--bewitching in its climate.
Nothing ever equalled it--no pen can describe it--no pencil can portray
it!
“I know not when we shall get to Constantinople. We are as yet only
three days’ distance from Athens; and here we sit on the top of
Parnassus, in a little sty, full of smoke, after wandering for a
fortnight in Attica, Bœotia, and Phocis. We have been in every spot
celebrated in ancient story--in fields of slaughter, and in groves of
song. I shall grow old in telling you the wonders of this country.
Marathon, Thebes, Platæa, Leuctra, Thespia, Mount Helicon, the grove
of the Muses, the cave of Trophonius, Cheronea, Orchomene, Delphi, the
Castalian fountain, Parnassus; we have paid our vows in all! But what
is most remarkable, in Greece there is hardly a spot which hath been
particularly dignified that is not also adorned by the most singular
beauties of nature. Independently of its history, each particular
object is interesting.”
From Athens they proceeded by land to Constantinople through ancient
Thrace, by a route partly trodden by Pococke. After a short stay at
this city, they directed their course homewards through Roumelia,
Austria, Germany, and France, and arrived in England after an absence
of upwards of three years. Cripps now returned for a short period
to his family, and Clarke, who had by this time acquired an immense
reputation, took up his residence at Cambridge, where, with very
few intervals of absence, he remained nearly twenty years. He was
very soon rejoined by his pupil, the completing of whose education,
together with the arranging of his curiosities and antiquities, and the
composition of his travels, fully occupied his leisure for some time.
A statue of Ceres which our traveller had dug up, and sent home from
Greece, was presented, on his return, to the university; in consequence
of which the degree of LL.D. was conferred upon Clarke, and that of
M.A. upon his companion.
In 1805 Dr. Clarke published a “Dissertation on the Sarcophagus in the
British Museum,” which, though necessarily neglected by the public,
is said to have given considerable satisfaction to the learned, and
procured for its author many valuable acquaintances. Another and a
very different subject employed his mind throughout a great part of
the following year. This was no less a thing than matrimony; which,
as soon as the idea got footing in his brain, occupied his ardent
imagination to the exclusion of every thing else. His suit, however,
was successful. The lady of his choice became his wife; and to increase
this piece of good fortune, two livings, for he had entered into
orders, were presented him by his friends, the one shortly before,
and the other immediately after his marriage. He now occupied himself
with lectures on mineralogy, which were delivered at the university to
crowded audiences, and were a source of considerable profit. This, as
he expected, led to his appointment as professor of mineralogy; and
“thus,” says Mr. Otter, “were his most sanguine wishes crowned with
success; and thus were his spirit and perseverance rewarded with one of
the rarest and highest honours which the university could bestow.”
Dr. Clarke now began to think of turning the treasures he had picked up
in his travels to account; he sold his MSS. to the Bodleian Library at
Oxford for 1000_l._, and his Greek coins to Mr. Payne Knight for 100
guineas. The publication of his travels next followed, and produced him
a clear sum of 6595_l._ In the year 1814 his old passion for travelling
revived, and an expedition was projected into the Grecian Archipelago
for the purpose of collecting antiquities, manuscripts, &c. But he was
overruled by his friend, who probably believed that his constitution
was now unequal to the fatigue which would be the inevitable attendant
on such a mission. To this scheme he would appear to have been urged by
the extravagant manner in which he had for some time lived; but a more
practicable, or at least a more certain mode of recovering from the
effects of this false step presented itself; which was no other than
reducing his expenses, and living within his income. This he had the
courage to undertake and execute; and from that day forward seems to
have led the life of a sensible man. His passion now took a new turn,
and he was wholly absorbed by chymistry. In September, 1816, he wrote
as follows to a friend: “I sacrificed the whole month of August to
chymistry. Oh how I did work! It was delightful play to me, and I stuck
to it day and night. At last, having blown off both my eyebrows and
eyelashes, and nearly blown out both my eyes, I ended with a bang that
shook all the houses round my lecture-room. The Cambridge paper has
told you the result of all this alchymy, for I have actually decomposed
the earths, and obtained them in a metallic form.”
I adopt from Mr. Otter the following account of Clarke’s death. It was
hastened, if not entirely caused, by continued high-wrought mental
excitement. He was carried to town for advice by Sir William and Lady
Rush, where he was attended by Sir Astley Cooper, Dr. Bailey, and Dr.
Scudamore, but their efforts to save him were in vain; the rest of
his life, about a fortnight, over which a veil will soon be drawn,
was like a feverish dream after a day of strong excitement, when the
same ideas chase each other through the mind in a perpetual round,
and baffle every attempt to banish them. Nothing seemed to occupy his
attention but the syllabus of his lectures, and the details of the
operations he had just finished; nor could there exist to his friends
a stronger proof that all control over his mind was gone, and that the
ascendency of such thoughts at a season when the devotion so natural
to him, and of late so strikingly exhibited under circumstances far
less trying, would, in a sounder state, have been the prime, if not
the only, mover of his soul. One lucid interval there was, in which,
to judge from the subject and the manner of his conversation, he had
the command of his thoughts, as well as a sense of his danger; for in
the presence of Lieut. Chappel and Mr. Cripps, he pronounced a very
pathetic eulogium on Mrs. Clarke, and recommended her earnestly to the
care of those about him; but when the currents of his thoughts seemed
running fast towards those pious contemplations on which they would
naturally have rested, his mind suddenly relapsed into the power of its
former occupants, from which it never more was free. At times, indeed,
gleams of his former kindness and intelligence would mingle with the
wildness of his delirium, in a manner the most striking and affecting;
and then, even his incoherences, to use his own thoughts respecting
another person who had finished his race shortly before him, was as
the wreck of some beautiful decayed structure, when all its goodly
ornaments and stately pillars fall in promiscuous ruin. He died on
Saturday, the 9th of March, and was buried in Jesus College chapel on
the 18th of the same month.