volumes of the Collections of that institution, and is one of the best efforts of his mind and pen. He was also the author of the able and eloquent memorial to the legislature, asking a grant from the state, which was obtained for that society to the amount of 12,000 dollars. An additional grant of $5,000 has also recently been made, which is in part attributable to his exertions and influence, and by which that society has been enabled to preserve to the state and county, its invaluable historical treasures, and, doubtless, ere long will realize the important views of its first formation, and all the expectations of its friends.*

Mr. Clinton was also a member of the Academy of Arts, and evinced his favourable views of that subject, and his ardour in promoting its interests, in an excellent discourse which he delivered to that institution. He was a member of most of the literary and philosophical societies of Philadelphia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Charleston, and New-York.

He was also many years a Regent of the University, not only holding that station officially as the Governor of the state, but previously elected as a tribute to his talents and learning.

In 1812, Mr. Clinton received from Queens, now Rutgers College, of New-Jersey, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws: the same honour was conferred upon him in 1824, by the trustees of his alma mater, Columbia College.

But his reputation was not confined to the country he immediately benefited by his services. In the literary circles, and in the scientific institutions of Europe, his name was familiarly known as the most eminent men of his day. It is an evidence of the

among

* See Appendix, B.

high estimation in which he was held, that he was elected an honorary member of many of the learned societies of Great Britain, and of the continent of Europe, and that he held an extensive correspondence with some of the most distinguished men of the age. He was an honorary member of the Linnæan and the Horticultural Societies of London, and of the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh, and was in habits of correspondence with the late Sir James Edward Smith, the learned president of the first, and with Mr. Knight, and Mr. J. Sabine, the able officers of the Horticultural institution.*

The acknowledged reputation which Mr. Clinton attained in his literary character, when we take into view his extensive public services, is to be ascribed, not only to his native taste and ardent love of knowledge, but to the extraordinary industry and order with which he performed his numerous and various duties. At a very early period of his life, he acquired and cultivated habits of great industry: he rose at an early hour at all seasons of the year. He observed the utmost punctuality in all his engagements; this too he was the better enabled to accomplish, by means of the order and regularity with which he divided the several duties of the day; illustrating by example, that well known truth, that he who has the most numerous avocations, is the most attentive and the most punctual in the performance of all: every hour not occupied by his numerous public duties, was devoted to general literature. History, poetry, taste, belles lettres, metaphysics, natural history, theology, all in turn occupied those portions of his time, not devoted to public business, or the duties of the various

* See Appendix, C.

stations he filled: and he studiously noted with his pen, every fact or principle that he deemed important, or that might be rendered subservient to his intellectual improvement, or to the profit of others by this habit, of collecting in his common-place book what he considered of value, he was enabled to concentrate the ample stores of his knowledge upon the various subjects which occupied his more immediate pursuit: even those smaller portions of the day that are lost by most men, were not unemployed by him: like the goldsmith, who carefully accumulates the smaller particles that drop beneath his hand, and which collected, constitute the ingot; Mr. Clinton, in like manner carefully treasured up the minutest fragments of time, which though inconsiderable in themselves, compose an aggregate of great value. Accordingly, when released from the severer duties which engaged his attention, a volume of the classics, some work of science, or some of the later productions of a Scott, a Campbell, a Southey, or a Byron, whose writings have shed an unusual splendour upon the age that gave them birth, occupied those moments of relaxation: and I may add, that he had a large and well selected library of scarce and valuable works, which continually urged him to augment those. sources of knowledge and enjoyment.

The ordinary and more frivolous amusements of fashionable life presented no attractions to his mind; on the contrary, they were by him, I believe through life, most studiously avoided, as not only involving the loss of time, money, and reputation, but utterly incompatible with those pursuits and views that belong to a man who has at heart his dignity of character, the higher interests of science, or his country's welfare.

This leads me to notice the merits of Mr. Clinton as a writer and speaker. Mr. Clinton, as a public speaker, was slow and

deliberate in his manner, manifesting the constant exercise of his understanding while in the act of delivery: he also observed great order in the plan of his discourse, arranging his arguments with precision, and with the view of giving to each its appropriate place and effect, exhibiting thereby much previous and careful consideration of his subject; yet such was the quickness of his perception and power of analysis, that he did not require long preparatory deliberation to embrace a full view of the merits of the question which came before him.

The language in which he was to convey his sentiments, the illustration with which they were to be enforced, and the ornament with which his discourse was to be embellished, cost him little or no exertion in the preparation; for such was his constant habit of reading the best writings of the standard English classics and historians, as well as the most esteemed of the periodical publications upon the different branches of human knowledge, and other valuable writings of the present time, an age teeming with instruction, and unprecedented in beauty and simplicity of style, that those aids to eloquence were ever present to his mind, requiring no effort to summon them to his purpose: the same observation is no less applicable to his written discourses, than to those which were delivered extemporaneously, for such was his facility and rapidity in composition, derived from long practice, the moment he had analysed and elaborated the subject in his mind, it only required the time necessary for the mechanical transcription of it, to prepare his discourse for publication. It is a fact falling within my own personal knowledge, that one of his most elaborate messages to the legislature, and which were among his most finished and the most admired of his compositions, was written in the short space of twenty-four hours.

His daily practice, and which during the greater part of his life he had pursued, of recording important facts and occurrences, which may have had relation to the various subjects which fell within his province as a statesman, a philosopher, or a polite scholar, ever supplied him with the most abundant means of illustrating the immediate subject of his investigation. For like Boyle, Locke, Gibbon, Edwards, Priestley, and Franklin, he always read with his pencil in his hand; accordingly, it will be found that every page which Mr. Clinton has written or published, displays the valuable fruits of the labour which in this way he has undergone.

Upon whatever subject his talents were put in requisition, and no man was more frequently called upon for the performance of public service, owing to this daily use of the common place book, he ever astonished his friends by the sudden and unexpected, as well as the able discharge of any duty he may have had occasion to perform. In like manner, such were the ample stores of his mind, that when an extemporaneous expression of his views or opinions was demanded, whether upon the seat of justice, the floor of the senate, or upon any other public occasion, at the shortest notice he could summon to his purpose all the resources of his highly gifted and cultivated understanding; with these at his command, it may be added, Mr. Clinton was enabled to give full force to the discussion in which he was engaged, and to avail himself of the peculiar advantage it afforded him of directing his attention to, and of observing the effects of his argument upon, every individual of the body he addressed. Such too was his perception of the effect produced upon his auditory, that I have often heard him say, that when speaking in the senate, or other deliberative assemblies, he could decide at the moment