OF THE LATE JOHN CLERK, ESQ. OF ELDIN. 115 



Mr Clerk was precisely the man by whom a successful 

 inroad into a foreign territory was likely to be made. He pos- 

 sessed a strong and inventive mind, to which the love of know- 

 ledge, and the pleasure derived from the acquisition of it, were 

 always sufficient motives for application. He had naturally no 

 great respect for authority, or for opinions, either speculative 

 or practical, which rested only on fashion or custom. He had 

 never circumscribed his studies, by the circle of things imme- 

 diately useful to himself; and I may say of him, that he was 

 more guided in his pursuits, by the inclinations and capacities 

 of his own mind, and less by circumstance and situation, than 

 any man I have ever known. Thus it was, that he studied 

 the surface of the land as if he had been a general, and the 

 surface of the sea as an admiral, though he had no direct con- 

 nection with the profession either of the one or of the other. 



From his early youth, a fortunate instinct seems to have 

 directed his mind to naval affairs. It is always interesting to 

 remark the small and almost invisible causes from which ge- 

 nius receives its first impulses, and often its most durable im- 

 pressions. " I had (says he) acquired a strong passion for nau- 

 " tical affairs when a mere child. At ten years old, before I 

 " had seen a ship, or even the sea at a less distance than four 

 " or five miles, I formed an acquaintance at school with 

 " some boys who had come from a distant sea-port, who in- 

 " structed me in the different parts of a ship from a model 

 " which they had procured. I had afterwards frequent oppor- 

 " tunities of seeing and examining ships, at the neighbouring 

 " port of Leith, which increased my passion for the subject ; 

 and I was soon in possession of a number of models, many 

 of them of my own construction, which I used to sail on a 

 piece of water in my father's pleasure-grounds, where there 



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