This distinguished traveler and antiquarian, son of the Rev. Edward
Clarke, was born at Willingdon, in the county of Sussex, on the 5th of
June 1769. Whilst very young, he gave proofs of a roving disposition,
and of a fondness for natural history and chemistry, and many amusing
anecdotes are related of his conduct under the influence of these
predilections. He received the rudiments of education at an academy in
the village of Uckfield; and, in 1779, was sent to the grammar school
at Tunbridge, then under the superintendence of the celebrated
Vicessimus Knox. Here he made but little classical progress, but his
fondness for books was evinced by his habit of reading late at night,
when all his schoolfellows were asleep, for which purpose he spent
great part of his pocket-money in purchasing candles. In 1786, shortly
after which his father died, he entered Jesus College, Cambridge,
where he obtained the situation of chapel clerk, to the duties of
which office he was scrupulously attentive, but distinguished himself
in no branch of university learning, excepting that of English
declamation. He devoted himself, however, with great assiduity to his
self-selected studies, which consisted of history, antiquity, and
every variety of learning comprehended under the term of _belles
lettres_. Natural history, and particularly mineralogy, also occupied
great part of his time; and he evinced a capacity for scientific
pursuits, by the construction of a large balloon at Oxford, and of an
orrery at home, for the purpose of delivering lectures to his sister,
his only auditor. His sole means of support at this time were derived
from an income of about £96 per annum, the source of which was a
Rustat scholarship, and his exhibition from Tunbridge. Thus situated,
and having made a vow to accept no pecuniary assistance from his
mother, whose income was extremely small, he determined to exert
himself, and accordingly, as the time approached for his examination,
he, for the first time, entered upon a regular course of study, and on
proceeding to his degree, in January 1790, he obtained the
mathematical honor of a _junior optime_, which, though it did not
confer a high distinction, enabled the college, with some show of
justice, to elect him afterwards to a fellowship. In the following
April, on the recommendation of the Bishop of Gloucester, he became
tutor to the Honorable Henry Tufton, nephew of the Duke of Dorset,
with whom he made the tour of Great Britain; and, on his return,
published an account of it, but the work is by no means on a level
with his subsequent performances.
In 1791, he went with his pupil to Calais; and, in the following year,
he obtained an engagement to accompany Lord Berwick on a tour to
Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. ‘He was now,’ says Mr. St. John, one
of his biographers, ‘in the position for which nature had originally
designed him.’ ‘An unbounded love of travel,’ are the words of Clarke
himself, ‘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 bosom 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
chaunted the wanderings of pilgrims in her legendary lullabies.’ He
remained abroad about two years, and on his return, became tutor,
successively, to Sir Thomas Mostyn, and to two sons of the present
Marquis of Anglesey. In 1798, having previously taken his degree of M.
A., he resumed his residence at Cambridge; and, in the following year,
set out with his pupil and friend, Mr. Cripps, on a tour through
Denmark, Sweden, Lapland, Finland, Russia, Tartary, Circassia, Asia
Minor, Syria, Palestine, Greece, and Turkey. Having arrived at the
gulf of Bothnia, Clarke declared he would not return until he should
have ‘snuffed the polar air,’ and he accordingly proceeded as far as
Enontakis, in latitude 68 deg. 30 min. 30 sec. north: beyond which,
illness prevented him from venturing.
On the 26th of January 1800, he arrived at Petersburg, whence he
continued his course to Moscow, and Taganrog on the sea of Azoff; and,
on his reaching Achmedshid, in the Crimea, he passed some time with
his pupil in the house of Professor Pallas. He next visited
Constantinople, where he was employed in searching for, and examining,
Greek medals; and, among other curiosities of the Turkish capital, he
contrived to enter the seraglio, ‘where,’ he says, ‘no Frank had
before set his foot.’ Hence he made an excursion to the Troad, at the
prospect of beholding which, he had previously said in a letter to a
friend, ‘Tears of joy stream from my eyes while I write.’ Egypt and
Syria next claimed his attention; and whilst near the lake of
Genesareth, he took particular observation of the Druzes, whom he
describes as ‘the most extraordinary people on earth,’ and whose
custom of prostrating themselves weekly before the molten calf, he
observes, ‘is exactly that worship at which Moses was so incensed in
descending from Mount Sinai.’
In 1801, he returned to Egypt, and whilst in that country, a dispute
arising between the French and English generals respecting the
literary treasures collected by the former, he was deputed by General
Hutchinson to point out those most worthy of being conveyed to
England, which country is indebted to him, amongst other things, for
the acquisition of the famous sarcophagus of Alexander the Great. From
Europe he proceeded to Greece, where his enthusiasm seems to have
reached its highest stretch. ‘It is necessary,’ he exclaims, ‘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 equaled it――no pen can describe it――no
pencil can portray it!’
Our traveler returned to Cambridge in 1802, when, in consequence of
his presents to the university, of which the principal was a Grecian
statue of Ceres, he was presented with the degree of LL. D. It does
not appear at what time he took orders, but in 1806, in which year he
married Angelica, daughter of Sir William Beaumaris Rush, he succeeded
to the college living of Harlton, in Cambridgeshire; and shortly
afterwards to the vicarage of All Saints, Cambridge, where he
officiated with great popularity, and upon which he bestowed an
altar-piece, after the Grecian model. In the year last-mentioned, he
commenced a course of lectures on mineralogy, the excellence of which
induced the university, in 1808, to found a professorship for the
encouragement of that branch of learning, when he was unanimously
elected to the chair. About the same time he received £1,000 from the
curators of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, for the manuscripts he had
collected during his travels, including the famous one known as the
_Patmos Plato_, to which Professor Porson assigned a very high
antiquity. In 1810, the first volume of his travels appeared; and was
succeeded, at subsequent periods, by five others. The publication of
them produced him a sum of £6595; and by no means a more than adequate
one, when it is considered that the work occupied five thousand pages
of quarto letter-press; a task, under which, he says, ‘I should have
sunk, had I not been blessed with double the share of spirits which
commonly belong to sedentary men.’ Yet amidst all this toil and
multifarious employment, he pursued the study of chemistry both with
zeal and success, as appears in one of his letters to a friend, in
September, 1816, in which he says, ‘I sacrificed the whole month of
August to chemistry. 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
eye-brows and eye-lashes, 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 alchemy, for I
have actually decomposed the earths, and attained them in a metallic
form.’ The death of this accomplished traveler took place at the
residence of his father-in-law, on the 9th of March, 1822, and he was
buried on the 18th, in the chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge, with
academic solemnities.
For ardent enterprise, energy of purpose, industry of research, and
extent and variety of observation, few travelers are to be compared
with Dr. Clarke. His works have, on this account, become more popular
than any other of a similar nature, though containing an account of
countries both before and since visited and described. They would
certainly bear abridgement; but it would require a most skillful hand
to select from pages where few paragraphs appear worthy of rejection,
if of curtailment. Although he expresses himself with enthusiasm, and
many of his reflections are hastily and inconsiderately formed, his
style is chaste and clear, and he details the most curious facts with
a simplicity incompatible with exaggeration. In speaking of the second
volume, Lord Byron says, in a letter to the author, ‘in tracing some
of my old paths, adorned by you so beautifully, I receive double
delight. How much you have traversed! I must resume my seven-leagued
boots, and journey to Palestine, which your description mortifies me
not to have seen, more than ever.’
A peculiar feature in the character of Dr. Clarke, is the rapidity
with which he passed from one pursuit to another. ‘I have lived to
know,’ he says in a letter to Dr. D’Oyley, ‘that the great secret of
human happiness is this:――never suffer your energies to stagnate. The
old adage,’ he adds, ‘of “too many irons in the fire,” conveys an
abominable lie. You cannot have too many; poker, tongs, and all――keep
them all going.’ ‘His ardor for knowledge,’ says his biographer, the
Rev. Mr. Otter, ‘not unaptly called by his old tutor, _literary
heroism_, was one of the most zealous, most sustained, and most
enduring principles of action that ever animated a human breast.’ As a
preacher, his biographer speaks of ‘the sublimity and excellence of
his discourses,’ and says that his ardor in the pursuit of science was
‘softened by moral and social views.’ In private life he was amiable
and benevolent; and, to conversation equally interesting and
intelligent, joined the most kind and captivating manners. He was
survived by five sons and two daughters.
In addition to his Travels, Dr. Clarke was the author of Testimony of
different Authors respecting the Colossal Statue of Ceres; The Tomb of
Alexander; Description of the Greek Marbles brought from the Shores of
the Euxine, Archipelago, and Mediterranean; besides some letters and
pamphlets, on subjects relating to science and antiquity.