(Meridian) CHAPTER 8
THE STUDENT AND SCHOLAR
Hitherto our narrative has turned mainly on those incidents of life, and traits of character, which relate to the subject of our memoir as a Christian minister: but a biography of Adam Clarke would be essentially defective, in which a respectful homage was not rendered to his memory as a scholar and a man of letters. Unhappily, the scanty limits of the present work will not allow of extensive disquisition [treatise] on this topic, were the writer ever so well able to indulge in it. Necessity prescribes that our pages should teem with facts rather than fancies, and should treasure up materials which the thoughtful reader may make the subject of his own considerations. For myself, I enter on this chapter with a mortifying sense of insufficiency. I am not going to affect the critic, or to sit in judgment on the intellect and learning of a man the latchet of whose shoes I should have been unworthy to unloose. On the other hand, I may be doing a pleasurable service to my readers by collecting and setting down such notices of his mental development as have been given, here and there, by Dr. Clarke himself, or by those who knew him intimately.
We are first led back to the village-school in Ireland, where the child, under the indignant glance of his disappointed and anxious father, tried to learn, but could not. The circumstances under which this physical inability was overcome have been already detailed. His intellect seemed to undergo a sudden regeneration. The ability to learn was given him, as it were, in an instant of time. In his own words, "it was not acquired by slow degrees; there was no conquest over inaptitude and dullness by persevering and gradual conflict: the power seemed generated in a moment, and in a moment there was a transition from darkness to light, from mental imbecility to intellectual rigor; and no means nor excitements were brought into operation but those mentioned in the narrative. * The reproaches[1]
of his schoolfellow were the spark which fell on the gunpowder and inflamed it instantly. The inflammable material was there before, but the spark was wanting. This would be a proper subject for the discussion of those who write on the philosophy, of the human mind."
Dr. Clarke always considered this incident as having an important bearing on his destiny, and often mentioned it as "a singular providence which gave a strong characteristic coloring to his subsequent life." He says that it may not be unworthy the consideration of the instructors of youth, but may teach the masters of the rod and ferula [stick] that those are not the instruments of instruction, though proper enough for the correction of the obstinate and indolent; that motives to emulation, and the prevention of disgrace, may be in some cases more effectual than any punishment
inflicted on the flesh. "Let not the reader imagine from this detail," says he, "that A. C. found no difficulty afterwards in the acquisition of knowledge. He ever found an initial difficulty to comprehend anything; and till he could comprehend in some measure the reason of a thing, he could not acquire the principle itself. In this respect there was a great difference between him and his brother: the latter apprehended a subject at first sight, and knew as much of it in a short time as ever he knew after: the former was slow in apprehension, and proceeded with great caution, till he was sure of his principles; he then went forward with vigor, in pushing them to their utmost legitimate consequences."
These two brothers had for some time but an interrupted school-tuition, from the demand which the garden and fields made upon their labor. "Before and after school-hours was the only time their father could do anything in his little farm; the rest of the toil, except in those times when several hands must be employed to plant and sow and gather in the fruits of the earth, was performed by his two sons. This cramped their education, but labor omnia vincit improbus: the two brothers went 'day about' to school, and he who had the advantage of the day's instruction remembered all he could, and imparted on his return to him who continued in the farm all the knowledge he had acquired in the day. Thus they were alternately instructors and scholars, and each taught and learned for the other.
This was making the best of their circumstances; and such a plan is much more judicious than that which studies to make one son a scholar while the others are the drudges of the family, whereby jealousies and feuds are often generated." *[2]
No doubt this alternation of rustic exercise with school-seclusion had a good effect in strengthening the child's physical constitution, and in contributing to insure him a healthy mind in a healthy body. Good air and exercise have a wondrous influence in giving tone to the intellect, as in after-life Adam Clarke found, when, a wandering itinerant, he read many a book and thought out many a sermon sub dio, on the high road, or in the wayside field. So in his school-days, in summer-time, his lessons were often conned [learned by heart] in the open air. "The school," he tells us, "was situated in the skirt of a wood on a gently-rising eminence, behind which a hill, thickly covered with bushes of different kinds and growth, rose to a considerable height. In front of this there was a great variety of prospect both of hill and dale, where, in their seasons, all the operations of husbandry might be distinctly seen. The boys who could be trusted were permitted in the fine weather to go into the wood to study their lessons." On this pleasant slope, with the auburn and purple moorlands spread out before him, the sunlit sea in the distance, and the smoke from the cottage chimneys here and there rising into the quiet sky, the boy would find that the pages of Virgil had a charm which made the task of construing, a labor of love. "Quid faciat laetas segetes," &c., would have a commentary on the page of nature before him, as well as in the words of the annotator in the margin.
What makes a plenteous harvest; when to turn The fruitful soil, and when to sow the corn;
The care of sheep, of oxen, and of kine;
And how to raise on elms the teeming vine;
The birth and genius of the frugal bee, I sing, Maecenas, and I sing to thee." *[3]
"In this most advantageous situation," to quote his own words, "Adam read the Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil, where he had almost every scene described in those poems, exhibited in real life before his eyes. If ever he enjoyed real intellectual happiness, it was in that place and in that line of study. These living scenes were often finer comments on the Roman poet than all the labored notes and illustrations of the Delphin editors and the Variorum critics."
The glimpses which his school-books gave into the by-gone times of Greek and Roman history, awoke in his mind a strong desire to become more fully acquainted with them; and, among other methods which his scanty means allowed him, he procured "an old copy of Littleton's Dictionary, and made himself master of all the proper names, so that there was neither person nor place in the classic world of which he could not give an account. This made him of great consideration among his schoolfellows, and most of them in all the forms generally applied to him for information."
His love of reading had already become intense and unconquerable. "To gratify this passion, he would undergo any privations. The pence that he and his brother got, they carefully saved for the purchase of some book ... Theirs was but a little library, but to them right precious." He gives a list of some of the books; where, with Jack the Giant-killer, we have Guy Earl of Warwick, the Seven Wise Masters, the Nine Worthies of the World, the Seven Champions, Sir Francis Drake, Robinson Crusoe, and Montelion, or the Knight of the Oracle; the Gentle Shepherd, the Peruvian Tales, and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments; with many others.
In those fanciful days he greatly delighted himself with whatever books he could get of a romantic kind, written in a metrical form; and, as he grew up, he became extensively read in the popular ballad-literature both of England and Ireland. In after-years he used to boast that his library contained some of the choicest specimens of the old poetic romances. His mind, indeed, may not have been poetical; and the pleasure which in later days he found in that description of reading, resulted rather from the insight it gave him into the manners and feelings of past generations, than from any sympathy with the charms of the poem itself. In that respect he read only as an antiquarian [one who studies antiquities]. Thus, referring to the metrical ballads of Sir Walter Scott, he said, "I scarcely ever give myself the trouble to read the poetry: the notes are the most valuable part of the book to me, and these I can convert to my own purposes." Nor is it at all improbable that the first impulse of his mind to antiquarian studies was communicated by his converse, in childhood, with these versified traditions of the past.
Nor was he without some skill in those days in stringing rhymes together. A specimen which has come down to us, composed "one Saturday afternoon, at a time when he had not learned to write small hand, so that he was obliged to employ his brother to write down the verses from his lips,"
shows, if not a precocity [premature development] of genius, yet an amount of talent which, if cultivated, would have given him a place, at least, among our second-rate poets. *[4]
Along with his classical lessons at school, in Greek and Latin, he received some instruction in mathematics and French; in which departments a good foundation was laid for the progressive attainments of coming life. One circumstance we should not omit: He tells us he found it much easier to learn after his conversion to God. "Though he could not well enter into the spirit of Lucian and Juvenal, which he then read, yet he was surprised to find how easy, in comparison of former times,
learning appeared. The grace which he had received greatly illumined and improved his understanding, and learning now seemed to him little more than an exercise of memory. He has often said, 'After I found the peace of God, I may safely assert that I learned more in one day than I could formerly in a month. And no wonder; my soul began to rise out of the ruins of its fall, by the favor of the Eternal Spirit. I found that religion was the gate to true learning, and that they who went through their studies without it had double work to do.' "
In English reading, he was engaged at this time with some very good books, which were sanctified to his improvement both in mind and heart. Such were the works of Derham and Ray. He read them with Kersey's and Martin's Dictionaries by him for the explanation of technical words. Baxter's
"Saints' Everlasting Rest," and the Life of the devoted Brainerd, he perused with solemn and prayerful joy. These two latter books seem to have given him a great impulse toward the ministry;
and this was probably what he meant when, expressing his obligations to Mrs. Rutherford, who had lent them to him, he said that it was she who had made him a preacher.
Such was the stage of mental culture he had attained, when entering, under the circumstances already related, on the life and labors of an itinerant Methodist preacher. On leaving Ireland for Kingswood, these treasures of the mind were his only patrimony. Even of books of his own he had scarcely any to take away. "I brought from home an English Bible, a Greek Testament, Prideaux's Connection, and Young's Night Thoughts, on the margin of which I had written a number of notes.
It was a favorite with some of my children, and remained in the family when the others had gone.
Young I twice recaptured; once from Anna, and once from Eliza; but where it now is I cannot tell."
In the first Circuit some few attempts were made to keep up his classical reading, but with little effect, from the want of suitable books, and the necessity of preparation for the constant work of preaching, on which he had now fully entered. In the course of the year, as we have seen, he was induced by the influence of well meant but barbarous advice to give up scholastic learning altogether. Yet it may be questioned whether the four years' recess from those particular studies, which followed his adoption of that advice, was really detrimental to his mental education, considered as a whole. A man requires something more than Greek and Latin to be a preacher of the Gospel. A mere classical scholar, whose mind is not stored with general knowledge, and whose reasoning faculties are suffered to lie dormant, is but poorly fitted for the grand labors of the Christian ministry; and Adam Clarke, while he left Homer and Virgil to their repose, was earnestly engaged in gathering in, and in giving forth to others, the precious fruits of that knowledge of the word and ways of God which makes the moral life of man strong, healthy, and beautiful. He began the study of the Hebrew Bible, read a good deal in French, and made his first essay in authorship itself, by translating some of the Abbe' Maury's Discourse on Pulpit Eloquence for the Arminian Magazine. He, moreover, enlarged his acquaintance with the works of the great English theologians.
He read widely and diligently, morning, noon, and night, not only in his different places of sojourn, but in walking and riding as well. Thus those years were by no means lost, but, probably, more substantially improved than they would have been by the bald word-studies he had been led for that time to abandon. However this be considered, the time came when he could conscientiously resume them. Mr. Wesley, to whom in 1786 he had sent the translation from Maury, in kindly acknowledging it, charged him "to cultivate his mind, as far as his circumstances would allow, and not to forget anything he had ever learned." "This," says he, "was a word in season, and, next to the
Divine oracles, of the highest authority with Mr. C. He began to reason with himself thus: ' What would he have me to do? He certainly means that I should not forget the Latin and Greek which I have learned; but then he does not know that by a solemn vow I have abjured the study of those languages for ever. But was such a vow lawful? Is the study of Hebrew and Greek, the languages in which God has given the Old and New Testaments, sinful? It must have been laudable in some, else we should have had no translations. Is it likely that what must have been laudable in those who have translated the sacred writings, can be sinful in any, especially in ministers of God's holy word? I have made the vow, it is true; but who required it? What have I gained by it? I was told it was dangerous, and would fill me with pride, and pride would lead me to perdition: but who told me so? Could Mr.
_____, at whose suggestions I abandoned all the se studies, be considered as a competent judge? I fear I have been totally in error, and that my vow may rank with rash ones. Which, then, is the greater evil, -- to keep it, or to break it? I should beg pardon from God for having made it: and, if it were sinful to make, it is so to keep it.' So he kneeled down, and begged God to forgive the rash vow, and to undo any obligation which might remain. He arose satisfied that he had done wrong in making it, and that it was his duty now to cultivate his mind in every way, to be a workman needing not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."
In resuming the classics, he found he had so far forgotten the grammatical forms, as to be obliged to begin almost de novo. But he now took care to lay the foundations strongly in acquiring the Greek and Latin accidences; and, going to work in good earnest, soon regained what had been lost, and thenceforth made steady advancements.
From the time of his appointment to Bristol, after his return from the Channel Islands, he was unusually successful in gathering together in his library the best editions of the classical authors, and spread out his reading in all directions, till in the lapse of years, spent in persevering study, he had become familiar with the great authors of antiquity, from Homer and Herodotus down to the Neo-Platonists of Alexandria and the Byzantine annalists. In communion with these great minds he lived through the ages of the past: he saw, in the drama of the Iliad, Troy sink in flame and thunder;
he wandered with Ulysses in his homeward way, and voyaged with the Argonauts through the gorgeous scenes portrayed by Apollonius. He sat with Theocritus among the wild thyme of the Sicilian hills; with Hannibal he gazed on Italy from the Alpine rocks; and stood with Scipio amid the ruins of Carthage. He heard Demosthenes on the Pnyx, Cicero at the bar, and Plato in the academic grove. And these sights and voices of times for ever gone did not yield him pleasure only, they brought him profit: he read with a purpose, and made every acquisition subservient to the great design of his life, the elucidation of the Bible, and the advancement of religious truth among mankind. He had ascertained that all knowledge helped to promote this end; and wherever it was to be obtained, there was he. Ubi mel ibi apis; and, like the bee, he gathered honey from every flower.
This profiting appears to all who are acquainted with his works, and especially in the Commentary;
in reading which, we see how affluent was the author's erudition [great learning], and with what advantage he employs it in illustrating the sacred text, seeking to bring every imagination and thought of even heathen minds into subservience to the cause of Christ, and to make the heroes, historians, poets, and philosophers of the pagan world, so many Nethinim, to do such employment as they could in the courts of the one true God.