From the Troad Clarke proceeded to Rhodes, the Gulf of Glaucus, on the coast of Asia Minor, and thence by sea to Egypt, where the English fleet was then lying in Aboukir Bay. He did not, however, see much of Egypt on this occasion, for the country was still in the possession of the French; and therefore, after a short visit to Rosetta, he sailed for Cyprus, and on returning from this voyage proceeded in the Romulus to Palestine. Here he visited Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem, and the Lake of Genesareth; near which he enjoyed an opportunity of conversing with a party of Druses. Almost every traveller in Syria has given us some new particulars respecting this curious people. “They are,” says Clarke, “the most extraordinary people on earth; singular in the simplicity of their lives by their strict integrity and virtue. They only eat what they earn by their own labour, and preserve at this moment the superstitions brought by the Israelites out of Egypt. What will be your surprise to learn that every Thursday they elevate the molten calf, before which they prostrate themselves, and having paid their adoration, each man selects among the women present the wife he likes best, with whom the ceremony ends. The calf is of gold, silver, or bronze. This is exactly that worship at which Moses was so incensed in descending from Mount Sinai. The cow was the Venus of the Egyptians, and of course the calf a personification of animal desire; a Cupid before which the sacrifices so offensive to Moses were held. For it is related they set up a molten calf, which Aaron had made from the earrings of the Israelite women; before which similar sacrifices were made. And certainly the Druses on Mount Lebanon are a detachment of the posterity of those Israelites who are so often represented in Scripture as deserters from the true faith, falling back into the old superstitions and pagan worship of the country from whence they came. I could not visit Mount Lebanon; but I took every method necessary to ascertain the truth of this relation; and I send it you as one of the highest antiquities and most curious relics of remote ages which has yet been found upon earth.”
His stay in Palestine was exceedingly short, just sufficient to enable him to say he had looked at it. He then returned to Aboukir Bay, where his brother was commander of an English ship; which now, on the 6th of August, 1801, swarmed with French prisoners like a beehive. When the road to Cairo was rendered practicable by the defeat of the French, our traveller proceeded to that city, where the most interesting objects existing were the beautiful young women who had been torn by the French soldiers from the harems of the bey; and then, when they evacuated the country, deserted and abandoned to their fate. Here he procured a complete copy of the “Arabian Nights,” which, with many other works that were so many sealed books to him, gave rise to much unavailing regret that he had bestowed little or no attention on the Arabic language. The Pyramids he of course admired. “Without hyperbole,” says he, “they are immense mountains; and when clouds cast shadows over their white sides they are seen passing as upon the summit of the Alps.” From the pinnacle of the loftiest he dated one of his letters to England, all of which are filled with lively dashing gossip, accompanied with rash, headlong, unphilosophical decisions, which the reflections of a moment, perhaps, might have served to dissipate. The news of the capitulation of Alexandria induced him to hurry back to the coast. He found the French troops still in the city, but preparing to embark with all speed. Great disputes, he says, had already arisen between General Hutchinson and Menou respecting the antiquities and collections of natural history which had been made by the French; the former claiming them as public, and the latter refusing them as private property. The part performed by Clarke himself in this affair he shall relate in his own words:—“When I arrived in the British camp, General Hutchinson informed me that he had already stipulated for the stone in question (the Rosetta marble), and asked me whether I thought the other literary treasures were sufficiently national to be included in his demands. You may be sure I urged all the arguments I could muster to justify the proceeding; and it is clear they are not private property. General Hutchinson sent me to Menou, and charged me to discover what national property of that kind was in the hands of the French. Hamilton, Lord Elgin’s secretary, had gone the same morning about an hour before with Colonel Turner of the Antiquarian Society about the Hieroglyphic Table. I showed my pass at the gates, and was admitted. The streets and public places were filled with the French troops, in desperate bad-humour. Our proposals were made known, and backed with a menace from the British general that he would break the capitulation if the proposals were not acceded to. The whole corps of sçavans and engineers beset Menou, and the poor old fellow, what with us and them, was completely hunted. We have been now at this work since Thursday the 11th, and I believe have succeeded. We found much more in their possession than was suspected or imagined. Pointers would not range better for game than we have done for statues, sarcophagi, maps, MSS., drawings, plans, charts, botany, stuffed birds, animals, dried fishes, &c. Savigny, who has been years in forming the beautiful collection of natural history for the republic, is in despair. Therefore we represented to General Hutchinson, that it would be the best plan to send him to England also, as the most proper person to take care of the collection, and to publish its description if necessary.”
No man, I suppose, who has passed beyond the frontiers of his own country, can fail to have experienced frequent depressions of spirit, during which he has probably repented him of his wandering habits. But Clarke was like a weathercock, now pointing to the east, now to the west. In the island of Zea, off the promontory of Sunium, he repented heartily of having undertaken the voyage to Greece. “Danger, fatigue, disease, filth, treachery, thirst, hunger, storms, rocks, assassins,—these,” he exclaims, “are the realities which a traveller in Greece meets with!” Anon, at Athens, he writes, “We have been here three days; we sailed into the port of the Piræus after sunset on the 28th. The little voyage from Cape Sunium to Athens is one of the most interesting I ever made. The height of the mountains brings the most distant objects into the view, and you are surrounded by beauty and grandeur. The sailors and pilots still give to every thing its ancient name, with only a little difference in the pronunciation. They show you as you sail along, Ægina and Salamis, Mount Hymettus and Athens, and Megara, and the mountains of Corinth. The picture is the same as it was in the earliest ages of Greece. The Acropolis rises to view as if it were in its most perfect state: the temples and buildings seem entire; for the eye, in the Saronic Gulf, does not distinguish the injuries which the buildings have suffered, and nature, of course, is the same now as she was in the days of Themistocles. I cannot tell you what sensations I felt: the successions were so rapid I knew not whether to laugh or to cry,—sometimes I did both.
“Our happiness is complete, we have forgotten all our disasters, and I have half a mind to blot out all I have written in the first part of this letter. We are in the most comfortable house imaginable, with a good widow and her daughter. You do not know Lusieri. He was my friend in Italy many years ago. Think what a joy to find him here, presiding over the troop of artists, architects, sculptors, and excavators that Lord Elgin has sent here to work for him. He is the most celebrated artist at present in the world. Pericles would have deified him. He attends us everywhere, and Pausanias himself would not have made a better cicerone.
“Athens exceeds all that ever has been written or painted from it. I know not how to give an idea of it; because, having never seen any thing like it, I must become more familiar with so much majesty before I can describe it. I am no longer to lament the voyage I lost with Lord Berwick; because it is exactly that which a man should see last in his travels. It is even with joy I consider it is perhaps the end of all my admiration. We are lucky in the time of our being here. The popularity of the English name gives us access to many things which strangers before were prohibited from visiting, and the great excavations that are going on discover daily some hidden treasures. Rome is almost as insignificant in comparison with Athens as London with Rome; and one regrets the consciousness that no probable union of circumstances will ever again carry the effects of human labour to the degree of perfection they have attained here.”
No one after this will accuse Clarke of being deficient in enthusiasm; but this is not all. On reaching the summit of Parnassus, he bursts forth into expressions of admiration, which, if they were not justified by the sublime beauty of the scenes themselves, or by the historical glory with which they must be eternally associated, would be absurd. “It is necessary to forget all that has preceded—all the travels of my life—all I ever imagined—all I ever saw! Asia—Egypt—the Isles—Italy—the Alps—whatever you will! Greece surpasses all! Stupendous in its ruins! Awful in its mountains!—captivating in its vales—bewitching in its climate. Nothing ever equalled it—no pen can describe it—no pencil can portray it!
“I know not when we shall get to Constantinople. We are as yet only three days’ distance from Athens; and here we sit on the top of Parnassus, in a little sty, full of smoke, after wandering for a fortnight in Attica, Bœotia, and Phocis. We have been in every spot celebrated in ancient story—in fields of slaughter, and in groves of song. I shall grow old in telling you the wonders of this country. Marathon, Thebes, Platæa, Leuctra, Thespia, Mount Helicon, the grove of the Muses, the cave of Trophonius, Cheronea, Orchomene, Delphi, the Castalian fountain, Parnassus; we have paid our vows in all! But what is most remarkable, in Greece there is hardly a spot which hath been particularly dignified that is not also adorned by the most singular beauties of nature. Independently of its history, each particular object is interesting.”
From Athens they proceeded by land to Constantinople through ancient Thrace, by a route partly trodden by Pococke. After a short stay at this city, they directed their course homewards through Roumelia, Austria, Germany, and France, and arrived in England after an absence of upwards of three years. Cripps now returned for a short period to his family, and Clarke, who had by this time acquired an immense reputation, took up his residence at Cambridge, where, with very few intervals of absence, he remained nearly twenty years. He was very soon rejoined by his pupil, the completing of whose education, together with the arranging of his curiosities and antiquities, and the composition of his travels, fully occupied his leisure for some time. A statue of Ceres which our traveller had dug up, and sent home from Greece, was presented, on his return, to the university; in consequence of which the degree of LL.D. was conferred upon Clarke, and that of M.A. upon his companion.
In 1805 Dr. Clarke published a “Dissertation on the Sarcophagus in the British Museum,” which, though necessarily neglected by the public, is said to have given considerable satisfaction to the learned, and procured for its author many valuable acquaintances. Another and a very different subject employed his mind throughout a great part of the following year. This was no less a thing than matrimony; which, as soon as the idea got footing in his brain, occupied his ardent imagination to the exclusion of every thing else. His suit, however, was successful. The lady of his choice became his wife; and to increase this piece of good fortune, two livings, for he had entered into orders, were presented him by his friends, the one shortly before, and the other immediately after his marriage. He now occupied himself with lectures on mineralogy, which were delivered at the university to crowded audiences, and were a source of considerable profit. This, as he expected, led to his appointment as professor of mineralogy; and “thus,” says Mr. Otter, “were his most sanguine wishes crowned with success; and thus were his spirit and perseverance rewarded with one of the rarest and highest honours which the university could bestow.”
Dr. Clarke now began to think of turning the treasures he had picked up in his travels to account; he sold his MSS. to the Bodleian Library at Oxford for 1000l., and his Greek coins to Mr. Payne Knight for 100 guineas. The publication of his travels next followed, and produced him a clear sum of 6595l. In the year 1814 his old passion for travelling revived, and an expedition was projected into the Grecian Archipelago for the purpose of collecting antiquities, manuscripts, &c. But he was overruled by his friend, who probably believed that his constitution was now unequal to the fatigue which would be the inevitable attendant on such a mission. To this scheme he would appear to have been urged by the extravagant manner in which he had for some time lived; but a more practicable, or at least a more certain mode of recovering from the effects of this false step presented itself; which was no other than reducing his expenses, and living within his income. This he had the courage to undertake and execute; and from that day forward seems to have led the life of a sensible man. His passion now took a new turn, and he was wholly absorbed by chymistry. In September, 1816, he wrote as follows to a friend: “I sacrificed the whole month of August to chymistry. Oh how I did work! It was delightful play to me, and I stuck to it day and night. At last, having blown off both my eyebrows and eyelashes, and nearly blown out both my eyes, I ended with a bang that shook all the houses round my lecture-room. The Cambridge paper has told you the result of all this alchymy, for I have actually decomposed the earths, and obtained them in a metallic form.”