Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/442

 was educated in the school at Wakefield, and in that at Kirkleatham in Cleveland, under Thomas Clark, successively master of both those schools. In 1723 he was admitted a sizar of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1726. He was elected a fellow of his college on 1 Oct. 1729 and commenced M.A. in 1730 (Cantabrigienses Graduati, ed. 1787, p. 85). On taking holy orders he was presented to the perpetual curacy of Nun Monkton. He became successively master of the grammar schools of Skipton, Beverley (1735), and Wakefield (1751), Yorkshire (, Beverlac, pp. 467–469). Clarke was an accomplished classical scholar, and the appellation of ‘Little Aristophanes,’ for he was small of stature, was given to him in consequence of the encomium with which Dr. Bentley honoured him, after a severe examination of his proficiency in the works of that poet. He died on 8 Feb. 1761, and was buried in the church of Kirby-Misperton, where a monument was erected to his memory by some of his former pupils, who also placed a marble tablet, with an elegant Latin inscription, in the three schools over which he had presided (, Loidis and Elmete, 291; Gent. Mag. lxiv. pt. ii. pp. 694, 695). Dr. Thomas Zouch, one of the eminent men whom he educated, published a life of him under the title of ‘The Good Schoolmaster,’ York, 1798, reprinted in vol. ii. of Zouch's Works, edited by Wrangham, York, 1820, 8vo.

[Life by Zouch; Eastmead's Hist. Rievallensis, p. 259.] 

CLARKE, JOHN, M.D. (1761–1815), physician, son of a surgeon of the same name, was born at Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, in 1761. He was educated at St. Paul's School, where he was admitted 6 Nov. 1772, aged 11, and afterwards at St. George's Hospital. After becoming a member of the Corporation of Surgeons, as the body then separated from the barbers, but not yet raised to the degree of a college, was called, he began practice in Chancery Lane, and at the same time lectured on midwifery in the private medical school founded by Dr. William Hunter. His lectures were popular, and Dr. Munk was told by his brother, Sir Charles Mansfield Clarke, that this was in part due to a custom of illustrating the points of midwifery by familiar analogies. Clarke received a license in midwifery from the College of Physicians in 1787, and took a Scotch degree. He was the chief midwifery practitioner of London for several years, but later in life gave up midwifery, and, moving to the west end of the town, was consulted on the diseases of women and children. He was also lecturer on midwifery at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He died in August 1815, and besides a paper on a tumour of the placenta, read before the Royal Society, published three books: ‘An Essay on the Epidemic Disease of Lying-in Women in 1787–8,’ 4to, London, 1788; ‘Practical Essays on Pregnancy and Labour, and the Diseases of Lying-in Women,’ 8vo, London, 1793; and ‘Commentaries on some of the most important Diseases of Children,’ 8vo, London, 1815. The last, of which his death prevented the publication of more than one part, is the work on which his fame rests, and it entitles him to rank as a medical discoverer; for it contains the first exact description of laryngismus stridulus. This disease, which consists in a sudden onset of difficult breathing, obviously originating in the windpipe, was confused by Boerhaave with asthma, and by later writers with true croup. Its anatomical cause is not yet known; but Clarke's exact clinical description (Commentaries, chap. iv.) was the first step to a precise study of the affection.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys. 1878, ii. 369; Gardiner's St. Paul's School, 154; Clarke's Works.] 

CLARKE, JOHN (1770–1836), Mus. Doc. [See .]

CLARKE, JOHN (d. 1879), comedian, is first heard of in London as a photographer in Farringdon Street. This employment he quitted to become general utility actor in various country theatres. A brief appearance at the Strand Theatre under Allcroft's management as Master Toby in ‘Civilisation,’ a play by Wilkins, was followed by a representation, 7 Oct. 1852, at Drury Lane of Fathom in the ‘Hunchback.’ A speculative season, to which he owed this engagement, soon came to an end, and Clarke returned to the country. He reappeared at the Strand as principal comedian, September 1853. His first distinct success was won in burlesque, a line in which his reputation dated from his performance, September 1856, of Ikey the Jew in Leicester Buckingham's travesty of ‘Belphegor.’ At Christmas 1857 Clarke was engaged for the pantomime at Drury Lane, then under the management of E. T. Smith. He returned, 1858, to the Strand, which had passed into the hands of Miss Swanborough, and played with success in a series of well-remembered burlesques by F. Talfourd, H. J. Byron, and other authors. His chief triumphs were in the ‘Bonnie Fishwife,’ as Isaac of York, and as Varney. Clarke then played with Webster at the Adelphi, at the Olympic, where his Quilp obtained much approval,