SKETCH OF SEARS COOK WALKER. 121 



of mental alienation appeared, and he was taken to the hospital at 

 Mount Hope, near Baltimore. Thence he was removed in the fol- 

 lowing April to Trfenton, N. J,, where under the skillful care of 

 Dr. Buttolph,the superintendent of the institution, his disordered 

 brain gradually regained its normal tone. Visits of friends, cor- 

 respondence on the subjects of his researches, and finally his books 

 and papers were allowed him. While still at Trenton he com- 

 puted the ephemeris of Neptune for the American Astronomical 

 Ephemeris of 1855. In the fall of 1852 Mr. Walker left the asy- 

 lum apparently cured, although much debilitated by his illness, 

 and went to Cincinnati for a visit to his brother, Hon. Timothy 

 Walker, intending to remain until the following spring. He took 

 in hand certain labors for the Coast Survey and prepared to re- 

 sume in full his former sphere of activity. He had fixed a time 

 for returning to Washington and re-engaged his apartments in 

 the city, but he was not destined to make the journey. An attack 

 of fever was followed by other maladies, and Walker soon found 

 himself engaged in a second severe struggle with disease. In this 

 condition Hamlet's problem" To be, or not to be "forced itself 

 upon his thought with all its puzzling considerations. The sound 

 mind in a sound body can give but one reply to this problem, but 

 coming as it did to Walker at a moment when Reason was not 

 firm in her seat, it elicited the opposite response, and on January 

 30, 1853, he launched himself into the mysterious after-life. His 

 remains were placed in Spring Grove Cemetery, near Cincinnati. 



The character of Sears Walker was marked by a childlike sim- 

 plicity which many persons could hardly realize was not assumed 

 to cover shrewd designs. He was impulsive, but his impulses 

 were always noble and generous. Highly magnanimous, he was 

 always prompt to acknowledge an error, and to overlook not only 

 mistakes but even lapses from honor and justice in others. Intel- 

 lectually he had the ability of genius. He was unadapted and dis- 

 inclined for participation in the world's affairs, and could not re- 

 frain sufficiently for his physical welfare from intellectual labor. 



Although his fame was won in the abstruse field of mathemat- 

 ics, his linguistic attainments were of a high order. In college 

 he was as conspicuous for his classical as for his mathematical 

 ability. During his years of teaching his knowledge of the lan- 

 guages was in daily use, and throughout life the literatures^ of 

 Greece, of Rome, and of Italy were a source of enjoyment to him. 

 His powerfully retentive memory was stored with long passages 

 from the poets of the past, Tasso being his especial favorite. 



