265 



CLARKSON, THOMAS. 



CLAUDE. 



says sarcastic tl.tngs of Clarke, alludes to it in the ollowing passage 

 of the ' Duncia J,' b. iv., L 455 : 



" We nobly take the high priori road, 

 And reason downward till we doubt of God.'* 



Other writers and thinkers of perhaps equal ability assent to his 

 argument. The 'Evidences' also met with strong opposition. The 

 foundation of morality, according to Clarke, consists in the immutable 

 differences, relations, and eternal fitness of things. The last expression 

 being of frequent occurrence in this discourse, acquired a fashionable 

 usage in the ethical vocabularies of the day. Regardless of moral 

 sentiment, so fully developed since by Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and 

 Adam Smith, 'Clarke insists solely upon the principle that the criterion 

 of moral rectitude is in the conformity to, or deviation from, the 

 natural and eternal fitness of things : in other words, that an immoral 

 act is an irrational act, that is, an act in violation of the actual ratios 

 of existent things. The endeavour to reduce moral philosophy to 

 mathematical certainty was characteristic of that age, and led to the 

 formation of theories remarkable perhaps more for their ingenuity 

 than utility. Dr. Price is an apologist for the moral theory of Clarke, 

 and among its oppugners we may instance Sir James Mackintosh. 

 (Dissertat. ' Encyc. Brit') 



In 1706 Clarke obtained, through Bishop More, the rectory of St. 

 Bennett's in London. He published in the same year an answer to the 

 treatise of Dr. Dodwell ' On the Soul,' in which that divine contends 

 that it is not immortal until made so by baptism. Several rejoinders 

 followed on each side, [COLLINS, ANTHONY.] Clarke at this time 

 published a Latin translation of the treatise ' On Optics,' by his friend 

 Sir Isaac Newton, who in acknowledgment presented him with 500i 

 for his five children. His patron, Dr. More, next procured for him the 

 rectorship of St. James's, and a chaplaincy to Queen Anne, which 

 induced him to take his degree of D.D. In 1712 he published his 

 edition of Caesar's ' Commentaries,' in folio, with notes, and some fine 

 engravings. The game year appeared his treatise on ' The Scripture 

 Doctrine of the Trinity;' a work which involved him for the remainder 

 of his life in a controversy, in which his principal adversary was 

 Dr. Waterland. The Lower House of Convocation, in 1714, com- 

 plained to the bishops of the heterodox and dangerous tendency of its 

 Arian tenets, and Clarke was prevailed upon to declare that he was 

 sorry for his offence. A circumstantial account of this proceeding ia 

 given in the 'Apology for Dr. Clarke,' 1714. Hia favourite subject 

 was the doctrine of philosophical liberty and necessity ; on which he 

 began, in 1715, to carry on an amicable controversy with Leibnitz. In 

 advocating the doctrine of free will, Dr. Clarke had constantly in view 

 the subversion of the writings of Spinoza. The death of Leibnitz left 

 the controversy undecided, and Clarke soon afterwards resumed his 

 argument in reply to the 'Philosophical Inquiry concerning Liberty,' 

 by the friend of Locke, Anthony Collins. 



In 1718 Dr. Robinson, bishop of London, put forth a pastoral letter, 

 in which he strictly prohibited his clergy from adopting the Arian 

 modifications of the primitive doxologies which had been supported 

 by Dr. Clarke, a prohibition which called forth many pamphlets. In 

 1724 Clarke obtained the mastership of Wigstou Hospital, and pub- 

 lished a volume of seventeen sermons. On the death of Newton he 

 declined the offer of the mastership of the Mint. At this time he 

 published in the 'Philosophical Transactions' (401) a paper on the 

 velocity and force of bodies in motion. In 1729 appeared his edition 

 of Homer, with Latin version and notes, which is still used in schools. 

 The last nine books were not prepared by Dr. Clarke. He died rather 

 suddenly in May, 1729. Hia 'Exposition of the Church Catechism,' 

 and ten volumes of sermons, were published after hia death. The 

 mural character of Clarke is praised by all his biographers : his temper 

 was remarkably mild, and his manners modest and unassuming. As 

 a writer he is plain and unaffected ; very accurate, but monotonous, 

 tame, and jejune. Voltaire, not inaptly calls him a 'moulin a raisonne- 

 ineut.' He was a wary and very skilful disputant, well disciplined in 

 the scholastic logic. Inferior to Locke in comprehensiveness and origi- 

 nality, he wus greatly superior to him in acquirements, being eminent 

 as a divine, a mathematician, a metaphysician, and a philologist. 



(Life by Bishop Hoadley ; Whiston, Historical Memoirs; D. Stewart 

 and Mackintosh, Dissertations in Ency. Brit.) 



CLAKKSON, THOMAS, was born March 26, 1760, at Wisbeach, 

 Cambridgeshire, where his father, who was a clergyman, was master 

 of the free grammar school. He was at first educated under his father, 

 and after that was sent to St. Paul's School, London, and thence to St. 

 John's College, Cambridge, where he gained the first prize for a Latin 

 dissertation proposed for the middle bachelors. In the following year, 

 1735, the Vice-Chancellor of the University announced as the subject 

 of a Latin dissertation for the senior bachelors, ' Anne liceat invitos in 

 rervitutem dare ." ('la it right to make slaves of others against their 

 will?'). The prize was awarded to Clarkson for his essay, which was 

 read with great applause in the Senate House, in June, 1786. He had 

 used much industry in collecting materials for this dissertation, and 

 had become greatly excited by what he hud read of the miseries to 

 which the slaves were subjected in tho carrying on of the trade. Ho 

 resolved to use all his efforts to get it suppressed, and in order to do 

 so relinquished hia chances of advancement in the church, for which 

 he had been intended, and in which he had taken deacon's order?. 



BIOS. DIV. VOL. U. 



He translated his essay into English, and its publication brought him 

 into connection with a small body of Quakers who had for several 

 years formed an association for the suppression of the slave-trade, and 

 he was afterwards introduced to Mr. Wilberforce, and other persons of 

 influence. William Penn in 1668 had denounced the trade as cruel, 

 impolitic, and unchristian ; in 1727, at a general yearly meeting of the 

 Quakers in London, it was declared " that the importing of negroes is 

 cruel and unjuat, and is severely censured by the meeting ;" and in 

 1760 a similar meeting passed a resolution to exclude from their society 

 all who " participated in any way in that guilty traffic." While Mr. 

 Wilberforce, seconded by a party which gradually increased, repeatedly 

 brought the question before the House of Commons, Mr. Clarkson was 

 labouring without the walls of parliament, was collecting evidence, 

 writing letters and pamphlets, and attending meetings at Liverpool 

 and Bristol, then the chief centres of the trade, and at Plymouth, 

 Bridgewater, and other places. He even went to Paris, and remained 

 there six months in the greatest heat of the French revolution, fur- 

 nishing Mirabeau with materials for speeches against the trade, which 

 were delivered before the French Convention, but without producing 

 the desired effect. In England however, after more than twenty years 

 of incessant exertion, the cause was won : a law for the entire abolition 

 of the trade in slaves was passed March 25, 1807, Mr. Wilberforce 

 having first brought the subject before parliament in 17S7. 



But the exertions of Clarkson and hU supporters, who had now 

 become numerous, did not terminate with the suppression of the trade 

 in slaves. The struggle was afterwards continued during another 

 twenty years for the total abolition of slavery in the British West India 

 ! Islands. In 1833 their efforts were again crowned with success, by 

 the passing of the Emancipation Act, which liberated nearly a million 

 i of slaves, and awarded twenty millions of pounds sterling as compen- 

 sation to their late owners. Declining health had prevented Clarkson 

 from appearing in public during the latter years of the movement. 

 Cataract had formed in both his eyes, and for a short time he was 

 quite blind. He underwent an operation which completely restored 

 his sight, and in 1340 he made his last public appearance at a meeting 

 of the Anti-Slavery Convention at Exeter Hall, over which the Duke of 

 Sussex presided. His talents and untiring energy were unanimously 

 acknowledged, and ho was enthusiastically greeted as the patriarch of 

 the cause. He died at his residence, Playford Hall, Sussex, Septem- 

 ber 26, 1846, at the age of eight-six. 



Besides several pamphlets and other small works, all bearing more 

 or less directly on the one great object to which he had devoted his 

 life, Mr. Clarkson published, in 1806, ' A Portraiture of Quakerism,' 

 3 vola. 8vo; in 1808, 'The History of the Abolition of the Slave 

 Trade,' 2 vols. 8vo; in 1813, 'Memoirs of the Public and Private Life 

 of William Penn,' 2 vols. 8vo ; and in 1836, ' Researches, Antediluvian, 

 Patriarchal, and Historical,' 8vo. 



(Thomas Taylor, Biographical Sketch of Thomas Clarkson ; Gentle- 

 man's Magazine.) 



CLAUDE. Claude Gelled, called Claude Lorraine, was born at 

 Champagne in Lorraine in 1600. His parents were very poor, and it 

 is said by Saudrart, who was later ill life the intimate associate of 

 Claude, and his instructor in the practice of painting from nature, 

 that he was originally apprenticed to a pastrycook. At tho age of 

 twelve, being left an orphan, he sought a home at the house of his 

 elder brother, who was in business as a carver of wood at Friburg. A 

 relation, who was a travelling dealer, observing some indications of a 

 love for the fine arts, persuaded his brother to allow the lad to accom- 

 pany him to Rome. Here he was somewhat unceremoniously 

 deserted by his relative, but received pecuniary assistance from his 

 brother. Seeing some paintings by Godfrey Waals which pleased him, 

 he determined to go to Naples, where that painter then resided, to 

 obtain the benefit of his instruction. At the expiration of two years 

 he returned to Rome, where he engaged himself at first as house- 

 servant to Agostino Tassi, then in considerable repute as a landscape- 

 painter, and under him he studied with unwearied diligence to master 

 the principles of art. Having acquired some repute, he made the 

 tour of Italy and France, and part of Germany, staying occasionally 

 for some time at different places to replenish his purse, and paying a 

 visit to his native place. He appears to have frequently suffered 

 through various misadventures, both in health and fortune, during his 

 protracted tour. 



On his return to Rome he was received with a general welcome, and 

 a wide and increasing demand for his. pictures. Commissions came to 

 him from numerous places, and from many illustrious persona of the 

 principal countries of Europe. He died in 1682. 



Claude is an instance of what may be done by a constant and 

 diligent study of nature, and by unwearied manual practice. It was 

 liis custom to spend great part of his time, often whole days, from 

 dawn till night, in watching the changes of the appearance in earth 

 and sky. He has left proofs of the painstaking labour with which he 

 studied tho details of a picture in finished studies of leaves and hits 

 of ground. By these means, although it is said very slowly, he 

 eventually acquired such mastery of hand and eye as produced him 

 fame, wealth, and the rank of the first among landscape-painters. He 

 painted for his study a landscape, compounded of many views, taken 

 in the Villa Madama, with an infinite variety of trees, which he kept 

 as a store of natural objects. He refuse;! to sell it, even when 



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