John Clarke was a leading spirit amongst his fellows at Cardinal
College, as he had been at Cambridge amongst the graduates there.
It was not that he sought popularity, or made efforts to sway the
minds of those about him, but there was something in the
personality of the man which seemed magnetic in its properties; and
as a Regent Master in Arts, his lectures had attracted large
numbers of students, and whenever he had disputed in the schools,
even as quite a young man, there had always been an eager crowd to
listen to him.

Last summer an unwonted outbreak of sickness in Oxford had driven
many students away from the city to adjacent localities, where they
had pursued their studies as best they might; and at Poghley, where
some scholars had been staying, John Clarke had both preached and
held lectures which attracted much attention, and aroused
considerable excitement and speculation.

Dr. Langton had taken his two daughters to Poghley to be out of the
area of infection, and there the family had bettered their previous
slight acquaintance with Clarke and some of his friends. They had
Anthony Dalaber and Hugh Fitzjames in the same house where they
were lodging; and Clarke would come and go at will, therein growing
in intimacy with the learned physician, who delighted in the deep
scholarship and the original habit of thought which distinguished
the young man.

"If he live," he once said to his daughters, after a long evening,
in which the two had sat discoursing of men and books and the
topics of the day--"if he live, John Clarke will make a mark in the
university, if not in the world. I have seldom met a finer