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Show 282 .!)._DAY SPEKT AT night; ju the day time 1 was uneasy, ju the night I had little rest, I sometimes never closed my eyelid< for grief." It became not now so much a trial for academical reputation as to write a work which should he useful to Afrjca. It is not surprising that a. work, written under the force of such feeling", should have gained the prize, us it did. Clarkson was summoned from London to Cambridge, to deliver his prize essay -publicly. Ile says of himself, on returning back to. London: "'l'hc subject of it almost wholly engrossed my thoughts. I become at times very serious] y aJYccteil while on the road. I stopped my horse occasionally, dismounted, and walked. "I frequently tried to persuade myself that the contents of my essay could not be true, but the more I rcllcotcd on the authorities on which they wore fuundcd, tho more I gave them credit. Coming in sirrht of \Vade's Mill, in Ilortforushirc, I sat clown disc: nsolato on tho turf by tho roadside, and held my horse. Ilcro a thought came into my mind, that if the contents of the essay were true, it was time that somebody should soc these calamities to an end." PLAYFORD IlALL 283 These reflections, fiS it nppcars, were put on~ for awhile, but returned [!gain. 'rh.is young and noble heart ·was of n kind that could not comfort itself so easily for a brother's sorro 11• as many clo. Ilc says of himself: "In the course of the autumn of the same ycm·, I walked lrcqucntly into the woods that I might think of the subject in solitude, and find relief to my mind there; but there the qtrcstion still recurred, 1 nrc these things trnc ?' StiU the answer followccl as instantaneously,' they nrc;' still the result nccomp::micd it,-su.rcly some person should interfere. I began to envy tho:m who hnd scats in Parliament, riches, and 'riucly-cxtencled connections, which would enable them to take up this cause. "Finding scarcely any one, at the time, who thought of it, I was turned frequently to myself, but hero many difficultic.s arose. It struck me, among others, that a young man only twenty-four years of age couJd not have that solid judgment, or that knowledge of men, manners, nntl thin~, which were requisite to qualify him to undertake a task of such magnitude and importance; and with whom was I to unite? I believed, also, that it looked so much like one of the |