Sir Isaac Newton, he was offered by the court the place of
master of the mint, worth on an average from L1200 to L1500 a year. This
secular preferment, however, he absolutely refused. In 1728 was
published "A Letter from Dr Clarke to Benjamin Hoadly, F.R.S.,
occasioned by the controversy relating to the Proportion of Velocity and
Force in Bodies in Motion," printed in the _Philosophical Transactions_.
In 1729 he published the first twelve books of Homer's _Iliad_. This
edition, dedicated to William Augustus, duke of Cumberland, was highly
praised by Bishop Hoadly. On Sunday, the 11th of May 1729, when going
out to preach before the judges at Serjeants' Inn, he was seized with a
sudden illness, which caused his death on the Saturday following (May
17, 1729).

Soon after his death his brother Dr John Clarke, dean of Sarum,
published, from his original manuscripts, _An Exposition of the Church
Catechism_, and ten volumes of sermons. The _Exposition_ is composed of
the lectures which he read every Thursday morning, for some months in
the year, at St James's church. In the latter part of his life he
revised them with great care, and left them completely prepared for the
press. Three years after his death appeared also the last twelve books
of the _Iliad_, published by his son Samuel Clarke, the first three of
these books and part of the fourth having, as he states, been revised
and annotated by his father.

In disposition Clarke was cheerful and even playful. An intimate friend
relates that he once found him swimming upon a table. At another time
Clarke on looking out at the window saw a grave blockhead approaching
the house; upon which he cried out, "Boys, boys, be wise; here comes a
fool." Dr Warton, in his observations upon Pope's line,

"Unthought-of frailties cheat us in the wise,"

says, "Who could imagine that Locke was fond of romances; that Newton
once studied astrology; that Dr Clarke valued himself on his agility,
and frequently amused himself in a private room of his house in leaping
over the tables and chairs?"

_Philosophy._--Clarke, though in no way an original thinker, was
eminent in theology, mathematics, metaphysics and philology, but his
chief strength lay in his logical power. The materialism of Hobbes,
the pantheism of Spinoza, the empiricism of Locke, the determinism of
Leibnitz, Collins' necessitarianism, Dodwell's denial of the natural
immortality of the soul, rationalistic attacks