Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/429

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Clarke
421
Clarke

health was very delicate, and he settled down to a quiet literary life, undertaking the education of Thomas Steele, well known in the Pitt administration, and his brother Robert.

In 1778 he issued 'proposals for printing by subscription, price two guineas, a folio Edition of the New Testament in Greek, with selections from the most eminent critics and commentators.' The design met with no response. He died, after gradual decay and paralysis, in November 1786. He left three sons: the Rev. James Stanier [q. v.], Edward Daniel [q. v.], and George, of the royal navy, who was drowned in the Thames in 1806. His only daughter, Anne, was married to Captain Parkinson, who was with Nelson at Trafalgar.

[Clarke's Works; Otter's Life of Edward D. Clarke, i. 41, 61; Monthly Review, vol. xxviii.; Lower's Worthies of Sussex, p. 267; Nichols's Illustr. viii. 637; Nichols's Lit. Aneod. iii. 492, iv. 279, 311, 367, 382, 467, 476, 721, viii. 406.]

J. W.-G.

CLARKE, EDWARD DANIEL, LL.D. (1769–1822), traveller, antiquary, and mineralogist, was born on 5 June 1769 at the vicarage of Willingdon in Sussex. He was the second son of the Rev. Edward Clarke (traveller and author, 1730-1786 [q. v.]), by Anne, daughter of Thomas Grenfield of Guildford, and was a grandson of William Clarke the antiquary (1696-1771) [q. v.] After being instructed by a clergyman at Uckfield, Clarke was sent in 1779 to Tonbridge grammar school. About Easter 1786 he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, as chapel clerk. He read a good deal of English poetry, history, numismatics, and antiquities. He also made some study of natural science, especially mineralogy. On one occasion he won great local applause by the construction of a balloon, which he sent up from his college, bearing a kitten. He graduated B.A. 1790, M.A. 1794 (Graduati Cantribrig.) On leaving the university he was engaged at Hothfield in 1790 as tutor to the Hon. Henry Tufton, with whom, in the following year, he made a tour of Great Britain. Clarke published a journal of it, but most of the copies were destroyed or lost soon after publication. During the tour he collected some mineralogical specimens which formed the nucleus of his collection. In July 1792 he proceeded to Italy as a companion to Lord Berwick. He visited Turin, Genoa, Bologna, Florence, Rome, and Naples, keeping a journal, in which, among other items, there is a description of Vesuvius and a lively account of the liquefaction of St. Januarius's blood at Naples. He returned to England 30 Nov. 1793, out was again on the continent from January 1794 till the summer; he went up the Rhine and visited Venice and other Italian cities. While in Italy he collected vases, coins, and minerals. From the summer of 1794 till the autumn of 1796 he was tutor in the family of Sir Roger Mostyn in Wales, and, after that, in the family of Lord Uxbridge. In 1797 he travelled in Scotland, and kept a full journal, but did not perceive the importance of folklore. The superstitions of the islanders of St. Kilda are numerous (he says), but 'it is futile to enumerate all the silly chimeras with which credulity has filled the imaginations of a people so little enlightened.' He had now become a fellow, and also the bursar, of Jesus College, and went to reside there at Easter 1798. At this time he had as a pupil Mr. John Marten Cripps, a young man of independent means. It was arranged that Clarke should accompany Cripps as his companion on a European tour, the latter allowing Clarke a salary. On 20 May 1799 the two friends set out for the north of Europe, accompanied by Malthus (the writer on population' and by William Otter (afterwards bishop of Chichester), Clarke's lifelong friend and biographer.

Clarke was 'feverishly impatient' about his travels. In his journey from the Werner to Tomea, which, including a stay at Stockholm, occupied about eighteen days, he was 'never in bed more than four hours out of forty-eight.' Malthus and Otter soon dropped off, but Clarke and Cripps pressed on. Beiore they left the north of Europe they had completely traversed Denmark, Sweden, Laplana, part of Finland, and Norway, devoting most time to Sweden. At Enontakis in Lapland Clarke launched a balloon, eighteen feet high, which he had made for the diversion of the natives. He spent some time at the university of Upsal, and examined the whole of the mining district of Dalecarlia. All this time he was diligently collecting minerals, plants, drawings, and manuscript maps of much importance. In January 1800 Clarke was at St. Petersburg. In Russia he specially collected plants and seeds, and accumulated about eight hundred specimens of the minerals of Siberia. He was at Taganrok on the Sea of Azov in June 1800. Clarke's constitution was good, but about this time he suffered from illness: 'Plants, minerals, antiquities, statistics, geography, customs, insects, animals, climates, everything I coidd observe and preserve I have done; but it is with labour and pain of body and mind.' He was delighted with his reception by the Cossacks ('the best fellows upon earth') and the Calmucs. The part of Asia, however, visited by Clarke and Cripps was 'full of