418 Biographical Sketch of the late Rev. Dr. Clarke. [Dec. 



a complicated operation in chemistry, for obtaining cadmium 

 from sheet zinc. On Tuesday the 12th, he wrote from his bed 

 upon the same subject to the Rev. Mr. Lunn (who had frequently 

 assisted him in his operations) ; and on Thursday the 20th, 

 another letter to Dr. Wollaston, reporting his last operation. 

 On Friday the 21st, Mr. Lunn saw him, when he was quite 

 rational upon this subject, as far as he was permitted to speak, 

 though sick and in bed. On Saturday he was carried to town 

 for advice, by Sir William and Lady Rush, where he was at- 

 tended by Sir Astley Cooper, Dr. Bailey, and Dr. Scudamore. 

 But their efforts to save him were in vain ; the rest of his life, 

 about a fortnight, over which a veil will soon be drawn, was like 

 a feverish dream after a day of strong excitement, when the 

 same ideas chase each other through the mind in a perpetual 

 round, and baffle every attempt to banish them. Nothing 

 seemed to occupy his attention, but the syllabus of his Lectures, 

 and the details of the operations, which he had just finished : 

 nor could there exist to his friends a stronger proof that all 

 control over his mind was gone, than the ascendancy of such 

 thoughts, at a season when the devotion so natural to him, and 

 of late so strikingly exhibited under circumstances far less trying, 

 would, in a sounder state, have been the prime, if not the only 

 mover of his soul. One lucid interval there was, in which, to 

 judge from the subject and manner of his conversation, he had 

 the command of his thoughts as well as a sense of his danger ; 

 for in the presence of Lieut. Chappel and Mr. Cripps, he pro- 

 nounced a very pathetic eulogium upon Mrs. Clarke, and 

 recommended her earnestly to the care of those about him ; but 

 when the current of his thoughts seemed running fast towards 

 those pious contemplations in which they would naturally have 

 rested, his mind suddenly relapsed into the power of its former 

 occupants, from which it never more was free. At times indeed 

 o-leams of his former kindness and intelligence would minole 

 with the wildness of his delirium in a manner the most striking 

 and affecting ; and then even his incoherences, to use his own 

 thought respecting another person, who had finished his race 

 shortly before him, were as the wreck of some beautiful decayed 

 structure, when all its goodly ornaments and stately pillars fall in 

 promiscuous ruin. He died on Saturday, the 9th of March, and 

 was buried in Jesus College Chapel, on the 18th of the same 

 month. 



" He left seven children ; five sons and two daughters ; the 

 eldest not fifteen years of age at the time of his death. 



" Few persons have left the world more honoured or more 

 regretted. The tears of genius have been shed around his 

 tomb, and every mark with which respect or kindness can 

 honour departed merit is preparing to grace his memory. 



" A monument, erected in Jesus College Chapel, nearhisgrave, 



