412 Biographical Sketch of ' ihe [Dec. 



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The next object connected with liis travels to which he 

 directed the public attention, was the celebrated Sarcophagus, 

 now in the British Museum, captured from the French at Alex- 

 andria. It is well known how instrumental Dr. Clarke had 

 been in discovering this noble monument of Egyptian art, when 

 it bad been clandestinely embarked for France, on board a 

 hospital ship, in the port of Alexandria, and in rescuing it from 

 the hands of General Menou, and the French Institute, who 

 clung to it with a degree of obstinacy almost incredible : and it 

 was very natural that the interest he had taken in it in Egypt, 

 should revive with its arrival in England ; especially as the 

 origin of the monument soon became the subject of much spe- 

 culation and perplexity amongst the learned, and Dr. Clarke 

 conceived himself to be possessed of evidence calculated to throw 

 light upon it. Under this impression he drew up, in 1805, a 

 Dissertation on the Sarcophagus in the British Museum, brought 

 from Alexandria. It was inscribed to Lord Hutchinson, under 

 whose authority he had acted in Alexandria, and the main 

 object of it was to vindicate the pretensions of the monument to 

 the title of the tomb of Alexander. To this hypothesis he had 

 been first led by the name it bore (the tomb of Iscander), 

 amongst the most ancient race of the neighbouring inhabitants, 

 coupled with the extreme veneration felt for it as such by the 

 Turks and other persons of every description in the city of 

 which this hero was the founder ; and having been afterward 

 partially confirmed in his opinion by the reports he found in the 

 works of early travellers, as well as by the conversation of 

 learned men on the continent, and at last more decidedly by an 

 accurate examination of such classical authors, as had treated 

 of the subject of Alexander's death and burial, he collected his 

 proofs and arguments in a manuscript, which, after being handed 

 about among his friends, in 1804, was by their advice published 

 in the following year, under the title already mentioned. The 

 work had been placed in the hands of Lord Hutchinson, with a 

 view to its being printed by the Antiquarian Society, but was 

 afterward withdrawn at the suggestion of his friends, who 

 thought it would appear more expeditiously, as well as advanta- 

 geously, from the University press, the managers of which 

 undertook to print it. 



" It was ornamented with an accurate coloured engraving of 

 the tomb, from a drawing by Alexander, and accompanied with 

 several appendices, in one of which was inserted a learned and 

 ingenious illustration by Dr. Parr, of a Greek inscription found 

 among the ruins of Tithorea by the author ; and being the first 

 book in which the name of Edward Clarke had appeared in the 

 title page (all his former publications having been anonymous), 

 it was otherwise got up with great care, and at no inconsiderable 

 cost. But this over-nursing was in one respect injurious to it. 



