18 A. Gray — Botanical Necrology of 1885. 



fondness for chemistry and botany, as it did that of the writer 

 of this notice a few years afterward. He also came under the 

 instruction or companionship of Dr. Lewis C. Beck, a younger 

 brother of his medical preceptor Dr. T. Romeyn Beck, attended 

 a course of private lectures on Botany given by Dr. Wm. 

 Tully, entered into correspondence with Eafinesque, Torrey, 

 etc., and so bid fair to give himself to scientific studies, as we 

 may suppose with the approval of his father, who, it is well 

 known, had a decided scientific bent. But Governor Clinton's 

 death in February, 1828, wrought a change in his prospects 

 and in the course of his life. Acting upon the advice of his 

 father's friend, Ambrose Spencer, the distinguished Chief Jus- 

 tice of the State, he took up the study of law, attended the 

 law-lectures of Judge Gould at Litchfield, Connecticut, and 

 continued his studies at Oanandaigua, N. Y., in the office of 

 John C. Spencer, whose daughter he married. Admitted to 

 the bar in 1831, he established himself at Buffalo in 1836, 

 and practiced his profession most acceptably at the bar until the 

 year 1854, when he became judge of the Superior Court of 

 that city. This honorable position he continued to hold with 

 entire approbation until January, 1878, when he retired under 

 the provision of the constitution upon attaining the age of 70 

 years. Then he resumed the practice of the law for two or 

 three years; but at length he took up his residence in Albany, 

 partly for the more convenient rendering of his service as a 

 Regent of the University of the State, and its Vice Chancellor, 

 but mainly for investigating and editing the papers and writ- 

 ings of his great uncle George Clinton. On the afternoon of 

 the 7th of September he took an accustomed walk in the .Rural 

 Cemetery of Albany, and there he died, probably quite instan- 

 taneously ; for when his body was found two or three hours 

 later, some unwithered sprays of White Melilot, which he had 

 gathered, were still clasped in his hand. 



Judge Clinton's professional life need not here be considered. 

 I did not know him, but knew of him, as a botanist in 

 his younger days. About the year 1860, after buying a 

 botanical book for his daughter, the turning over its pages 

 revived an almost forgotten delight; and when his attention was 

 again given to the flowers he had long neglected, we soon came 

 into correspondence. " I might have become a respectable 

 naturalist," he writes, " but was torn from it in my youth. . . . 

 To become a botanist is now hopeless; I am, and must remain, 

 a mere collector. But then I collect for my friends and for the 

 Buffalo Society of the Natural Sciences. If I can please my 

 friends and help the Society, it pleases me. I want it to suc- 

 ceed. Money I cannot give it, and I give it all I can, the ben- 

 efit of my example and pleasant labors." An instructive and 



