1824.] late Rev. Dr. Clarke. 417 



and repose, he often found such long arrears of composition or 

 correction for his Travels as required the strongest application 

 to recover. It was not so much the number and variety of his 

 employments that broke down his health, as the extreme and 

 intense anxiety with which some of them, particularly the philo- 

 sophical, were pursued by him ; an anxiety which intruded upon 

 his hours of rest, and rendered him insensible to those corporeal 

 warnings, which usually guard other men against too continued 

 or too intense an employment of their faculties. In the autumn 

 of 1821, his wife, far advanced in pregnancy, and three of his 

 younger children, sickened one by one with a typhus fever ; and 

 in a few days were all reduced by the violence of the disorder to 

 a state of the most imminent danger. All happily recovered ; 

 but the fatigue and anxiety which Dr. Clarke underwent, aggra- 

 vated the symptoms of his disorder, on its return in the winter 

 of this year. This was succeeded by a sort of crisis, during 

 which he was more thoroughly sensible of the perilous state of 

 his health, than at any other period either before or after. 



" A short and deceitful interval of ease followed, in which the 

 intermitting of the disorder gave him reason to hope that he 

 was slowly recovering ; under which impression he entered once 

 more, in the middle of the month, upon a course of chemical 

 experiments, preparatory to his Lectures, which were to begin 

 in March ; and from the moment he had stepped within the 

 circle of these fascinating operations, there was no longer either 

 thought or power of retreating ; for the usual excitement attend- 

 ing this preparation co-operating with the effects of the disorder, 

 which ultimately terminated in an affection of the brain, brought 

 on a course of unnatural efforts, infinitely exceeding all his 

 former imprudencies, and partaking strongly of the delirium 

 which quickly followed. ' 1 have left him in an evening,' says 

 a friend, ' about this time, with a promise that he would go to 

 bed, and on the following morning have found that he had been 

 up a considerable part of the night, engaged in a series of 

 unwholesome operations with sulphuretted hydrogen/ In this 

 melancholy state of self-abandonment, deaf to the remonstrances 

 of his friends, insensible of his own danger, almost incapable of 

 self-control, and intent only upon the due performance of his 

 approaching duties, he supported an ineffectual struggle with 

 his disorder till the middle of February, when his strength 

 entirely failing him, and being no longer able to stand up, he 

 sunk reluctantly into his bed, and from thence dictated to his 

 servant the course of operations he wished to pursue, and there 

 received from him the results. Up to this time, however, the 

 arrangements of his mind seem to have been vivid and distinct 

 as far as philosophy was concerned, and its energies unabated. 

 His last paper, in the Annals of Philosophy (N*§. vol. iii. p. 1U6), 

 is dated the 6th of February, and contains a clear statement of 



New Series, vol. VIII. 2 E 



