Notice of the late Sheldon Clark. 225 
covery by his telescope of Halley’s comet*—the first observation 
of this comet that had been made in this country, although as- 
tronomers in various parts of the United States had been on the 
look-out, without success; this discovery was justly regarded, 
“as proof that the instrument was a fine one for observations of 
this sort.” 
. Mr. Clark was now fully before the public as a munificent pa- 
tron of learning, and was justly so regarded, especially if his 
education, his position, his pursuits and his means are duly con- 
sidered. His feelings were, in a good degree, identified with the 
prosperity of the college. . He attended, occasionally, its quarterly 
exhibitions and its commencements; he passed some days or 
weeks, every winter in New Haven, frequenting the college halls 
and the society of its officers and their families, and returned 
with renewed zeal to his agricultural labors. 
Mr. Clark was elected by his fellow-townsmen, a member of 
the State Legislature for 1825, as well as in several succeeding 
nd served honorably during the sessions at Hartford and 
New Haven. io Rand pales Ase iniias: mpheet ofr, 
A portrait of Mr. Clark was requested for the College, and one 
was presented by him. It was painted by Samuel F. B. Morse, 
Esq., and was a very successful effort ; the likeness was aceurate, 
and although painted in 1825, sixteen years before his death, it 
remained good to the last, except that he had grown corpulent. 
It hangs in the south room of the Trumbull Gallery. : 
It appears that Mr. Clark had made up his mind how to dis- 
pose ultimately of his estate, before he could possibly know the 
effect of his actual donations on his fame, for his will was made 
and deposited with me, before the first of those donations had 
been accepted by the Corporation of Yale College, or made known 
tothe public. The will, duly executed, bears date March Sth, 
1823, just two months before the meeting of the Corporation, at 
which his first proposition, that for founding a professorship, was 
bind oni dbl’ language shall explain his views, 
accepted. Here again his own languag' ' 
as expressed in that solemn moment, when men look death in 
the face, and record the purposes that are to be fulfilled when 
they are in their‘graves. | 
a a eigenen annen 
* By Prof: Olmsted and Prof: Loomis, now:of the Western Reserve College 
at Hudson, Ohio, then a tutor in Yale College. 
Vol. xu1, No. 2.—July-Sept. 1841. 29 
