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afterwards at Tonbridge, under the celebrated Vicesimus Knox, -a man to be praised as often as he is named, for his literary accomplishments, and yet more to be respected, for the rare independence of mind which he ever displayed, and his steady adherence, through the worst times, to the cause of liberty. At the age of sixteen, his father's health declining, and the paternal family being very much dependent upon his life, Edward was sent to Jesus College, in order to take advantage of a small office obtained through the kindness of Bishop Beadon, then head of that House; and this, with an exhibition from Tonbridge school, and a scholarship on Sir T. Rustat's foundation, not yielding altogether an income of ninety pounds a year, constituted the whole of his resources while he remained at the University. His father died before he had been there two years; and his mother having, some time previously to that irreparable loss, informed him of the limited means which would remain to the family, he gave a promise, in the sequel most religiously kept by him, never to exceed the sum which his College appointments might afford. Whatever arrears his expenses occasioned (and the liberality of Mr Plainpin, the tutor, enabled him to leave some bills unpaid), he discharged out of the first profits which afterwards accrued from his pupils.

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The three years which he thus passed before taking his Bachelor's degree, appear to have been employed with very slender profit. The peculiar studies of the place had no charms for him, to whom mathematical science was always repulsive; and how far classical pursuits then formed any considerable part of the academic course, may be conjectured from Mr Otter's statement, that all the classical lectures which it is remembered were given during the three years of his residence, were con'fined to the two little tracts of Tacitus, De Moribus Germanorum, and De Vitá Agricola.' Upon this curious anecdote we cannot avoid pausing to observe, that although a very great and salutary change has of late years been effected in the discipline of Cambridge, where classical literature (as our author observes in a note, p. 43) has been cultivated with great diligence and success, yet assuredly the luckless wight who, in the time of Dr Clarke's status pupillaris, should have ventured to raise his voice against the very scanty modicum of ancient literature furnished to the ingenious youth who flocked round the banks of the Cam, would have drawn down upon himself the heaviest displeasure of all true friends to the established order of things -more especially if the remark should have been accompanied with indelicate allusions to the state of matters near the

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Forth and the Clyde. This affords a most instructive lesson to reformers, and a warning to the enemies of all improvement. We now see it freely admitted, by a fast friend of the systemone who has held College and University offices, and probably at this moment enjoys College preferment-that not many years ago there was literally nothing done to teach the classics by those who were paid for the purpose. We say nothing; well convinced, that there is not a man in Cambridge who would not now be ashamed of calling the exposition of a few pages of Tacitus in three years, any thing. It will also be readily admitted now, that there never was any place, pretending to call itself a seat of learning, at any time since the revival of letters, where less was taught than this. But why are such admissions so easily made now? Only because the glaring defect has been remedied. Any one who observed it in Dr Clarke's time, and suggested the remedy, must have been, of course, a 'visionary'— a malecontent'a 'schemer'a lover of 'newfangled systems' --an advocate of untried theories, '--and withal an enemy of the Church, and probably of the State too. So would any one be now called, who should point out the many defects, as glaring, which still exist in the system of University education; but a much smaller number of revilers would give him those choice names; and his suggestions, favourably received by a far larger class, both within the College walls and without, would far more speedily produce the result to which the wise and the good are perpetually looking-reform without destruction.

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Although Dr Clarke profited but little by the learning of the place, he partook not of its vices, of which the prevailing one,' we are informed, was excess of drinking.' He was popular, however, among his fellow collegians, in an extraordinary degree; and in the only branch of display, English declamations, which his acquirements allowed him to attempt, he seems to have had considerable success. His manners, and the regularity of his habits, obtained the favour of his superiors in the College, and every advantage was bestowed upon him to which such merit could fairly lead; while, notwithstanding the constant elasticity of his spirits, he never incurred a single admonition for any excess or any neglect. The following anecdotes are characteristic.

• To illustrate the desultory nature of his occupations at this time, and to give an early specimen of the talent which he always possessed in a very high degree, of exciting an interest in the minds of others towards the objects which occupied his own, it may be worth while here to give some account of a balloon, with which he amused the University in the third year of his residence. This balloon, which was magnificent in its size, and splendid in its decorations, was

constructed and manœuvred, from first to last, entirely by himself. It was the contrivance of many anxious thoughts, and the labour of many weeks, to bring it to what he wished; and when, at last, it was completed to his satisfaction, and had been suspended for some days in the College Hall, of which it occupied the whole height, he announced a time for its ascension. There was nothing at that period very new in balloons, or very curious in the species which he had adopted; but by some means he had contrived to disseminate, not only within the walls of his own College, but throughout the whole University, a prodigious curiosity respecting the fate of his experiment. On the day appointed, a vast concourse of people was assembled, both within and around the College; and the balloon having been brought to its station, the grass-plat within the cloisters, was happily launched by himself, amidst the applause of all ranks and degrees of gownsmen, who had crowded the roof, as well as the area of the cloisters, and filled the contiguous apartments of the master's lodge. The whole scene, in short, succeeded to his utmost wish ; nor is it easy to forget the delight which flashed from his eye, and the triumphant wave of his cap, when the machine, with its little freight, (a kitten,) having cleared the College battlements, was seen soaring in full security over the towers of the great gate. Its course was followed on horseback by several persons, who had voluntarily undertaken to recover it; and all went home delighted with an exhibition, upon which nobody would have ventured, in such a place, but himself; while none were found to lament the unseasonable waste of so much ingenuity and industry, or to express their surprise that to the pleasure of this passing triumph he should have sacrificed the whole of an important term, in which most of his contemporaries were employed in assiduous preparations for their approaching disputations in the schools.

But to gratify and amuse others was ever a source of the greatest satisfaction to himself. In the pursuit of this object, he thought little of any sacrifice he was to make, and still less of any ulterior advantage he might gain; and though it was important to his enjoyment, that the means employed should be, more or less, of a literary or scientific kind, it was by no means essential that they should gratify his own vanity, or reflect any credit upon himself. As a proof of this, it may be mentioned, that only a few months before this exhibition of the balloon in the University, which seemed calculated to excite an interest amongst thousands, he bestowed quite as much time and labour in the construction of an orrery, for the sole purpose of delivering a course of lectures on astronomy in his mother's house, to a single auditor; and that one, his sister. p. 54, 55.

Upon his leaving Cambridge he was chosen by the Duke of Dorset to reside as tutor with his nephew, the Honourable H. Tufton, youngest brother of the Earl of Thanet, and spent about two years with him, during one of which they made an ex

tensive tour in England and Wales. Dr Clarke having kept a journal of this excursion, threw it afterwards into the form of a book of travels, and published it, but without his name. It was a crude and hasty performance, in the judgment of Mr Otter, borne out by a few extracts which he gives of it; but indicated a capacity for greater things, and abounded in proofs of a lively imagination, and a kind disposition. The testimony which our author bears to the character at once manly and amiable of the pupil, and the reciprocal attachment and successful cares of the master, are equally creditable to both.

When this connexion was terminated, by Mr Tufton entering the army, Dr Clarke accepted the invitation of Lord Berwick to travel with him for two years; and they proceeded through part of Germany and Switzerland to Piedmont, and thence by Genoa to Florence, Rome and Naples. He now appears to have set himself to study more earnestly and more profitably than before; and to have supplied in part the deficiency of his earlier education. The love of travel and adventure, which through life was his ruling passion, now gained entire possession of him; and some of his letters written at this period, lose little by a comparison with the most interesting parts of his great work. At Naples, the eruption of Vesuvius was an object of irresistible attraction to him. He appears to have ascended thrice so as to reach the crater, and to have made twelve expeditions in all, up the mountain. On one bccasion which he describes, serious perils seem to have been encountered. We can only afford room for a short extract, from one letter on this subject.

The eruption from the crater increased with so much violence, that we proceeded to make our experiments and observations as speedily as possible. A little above the source of the lava, I found a chimney of about four feet in height, from which proceeded smoke and sometimes stones. I approached and gathered some pure sulphur, which had formed itself upon the edges of the mouth of this chimney, the smell of which was so powerful, that I was forced to hold my breath all the while I remained there. I seized an opportunity to gain a momentary view down this aperture, and perceived nothing but the glare of the red hot lava that passed beneath it. We then returned to examine the lava at its source. Sir W. Hamilton had conceived that no stones thrown upon a current of lava would make any impression. We were soon convinced of the contrary. Light bodies of five, ten, and fifteen pounds weight made little or no impression even at the source, but bodies of sixty, seventy, and eighty pounds were seen to form a kind of bed upon the surface of the lava, and float away with it. A stone of three hundred weight, that had been thrown out by the crater, and lay near the source of the curVOL. XLIV. No. 87.

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rent of lava, I raised upon one end, and then let it fall in upon the liquid lava, when it gradually sunk beneath the surface, and disappeared. If I wished to describe the manner in which it acted upon the lava, it was like a loaf of bread thrown into a bowl of very thick honey, which gradually involves itself in the heavy liquid that surrounds it, and then slowly sinks to the bottom. The lava itself had a glutinous appearance, and, although it resisted the most violent impression, seemed as if it might easily be stirred with a common walking-stick. A small distance from its source, as it flows on, it acquires a darker tint upon its surface, is less easily acted upon, and, as the stream gets wider, the surface having lost its state of perfect solution, grows harder and harder, and cracks into innumerable fragments of very porous matter, to which they give the name of scoriæ, and the appearance of which has led many to suppose that it proceeded thus from the mountain itself, being composed of materials less soluble than the rest of the lava, lighter, and of course liable to float continually on the surface. There is, however, no truth in this. All lava has its first exit from its native volcano, flows out in a liquid state, and all equally in fusion. The appearance of the scoria is to be attributed only to the action of the external air, and not to any difference in the materials that compose it, since any lava whatever, separated from its channel, at its very source, and exposed to the action of the external air, immediately cracks, becomes porous, and alters its form. As we proceeded downward, this became more and more evident, and the same lava, which at its original source flowed in perfect solution, undivided, and free from loose encumbrances of any kind, a little farther down, had its surface loaded with scoriæ in such a manner, that upon its arrival at the bottom of the mountain, the whole current resembled nothing so much as a rolling heap of unconnected cinders from an iron foundry.

"The fury of the crater, continuing to increase, menaced us with destruction if we continued any longer in its neighbourhood. A large stone thrown out to a prodigious height, hung for some time over our heads in the air. Every one gave himself up for lost, until it fell harmless beyond us, shattering itself into a thousand fragments which 'rolled into the valley below. We had not left this spot above five minutes before a shower of stones, issuing from the crater, fell thick upon it, covering the source of the lava, and all the parts about it; so that, had we waited, as I begged to do a little longer, every one of us would have been crushed to atoms. pp. 105-107. The following sketches are of a different cast, but possess very considerable merit.

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"I am much refreshed by sitting in the cool air of the balcony to my breakfast room; and amused with the enchanting prospect I have now before my eyes. All the bay of Naples, covered with light skiffs and pleasure boats; Vesuvius and Somma receiving the gilded rays of the setting sun, which tinges all the coast of Sorrento

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