Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/1109

CLA CLARENDON,, fourth earl of, a distinguished diplomatist and statesman, was born in London on the 12th January, 1800. He was descended from Sir Edward Villiers, an elder brother of the famous duke of Buckingham; the Villierses, earls of Jersey, are an elder branch of the family to which the late earl of Clarendon belonged. The first Villiers, earl of Clarendon, was a younger son of a Villiers, earl of Jersey, and married a descendant of the celebrated Hyde, Lord Clarendon; he was successively joint postmaster-general, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and ambassador at the court of Berlin. He was created earl of Clarendon in 1776, and his third son was the father of the subject of this memoir. Lord Clarendon was educated at Cambridge, and, entering early the service of his country, was attached to the embassy at St. Petersburg during the years 1820-23. From 1823 to 1833 he was first commissioner of excise, two of his uncles being or having been favourite companions of George IV. From 1827 to 1829, Mr. Villiers was resident in Dublin, the capital which he was afterwards to visit as viceroy. His ostensible occupation was the arrangement of the union between the two excise boards; but if credence is to be given to a passage in the late Lord Cloncurry's memoirs—he played an important though an unseen part in the local negotiations which preceded the emancipation of the Roman catholics. To natural talents, conciliatory manners, and good family connections, Mr. Villiers added a singular aptitude for business; and after the formation of the first reform ministry, and the establishment of the monarchy of July, he was sent to negotiate a commercial treaty with France. In September, 1833, he was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at Madrid, an important and conspicuous post in the then state of the Iberian peninsula, and which he held until October, 1839. Succeeding, on the death of his uncle in 1838, to the earldom, he returned soon afterwards to England and delivered in his place in the house of lords a speech on Spanish affairs, which produced a considerable effect. In October, 1840, he was admitted into the Melbourne cabinet as lord privy seal, being also, on the death of Lord Holland, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster pro tem., and held both offices up to the accession of Sir Robert Peel as premier, in the autumn of 1841. On the formation of Lord John Russell's first ministry in 1846, Lord Clarendon was appointed president of the hoard of trade, from which he was elevated, on the death of Lord Bessborough the following year, to the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland. There he remained during a most critical period of Irish history, until the formation of Lord Derby's first ministry. On the accession of Lord Aberdeen's coalition ministry to power, Lord Clarendon became secretary for foreign affairs, after a brief occupancy of that department by Lord John Russell. The negotiations which issued in the Russian war were, of course, conducted by Lord Clarendon, and on its termination, he, along with Lord Cowley, represented Great Britain at the conferences held in the French metropolis, which led to the treaty of Paris. At the time of his death, 27th of June, 1870, he held the office of foreign secretary in Mr. Gladstone's ministry, in which capacity he displayed great firmness and zeal in his correspondence with the Greek government relating to the recent savage treatment of our countrymen by Greek brigands. In 1839 Lord Clarendon married Catharine, daughter of the first earl of Verulam, by whom he left a family.—F. E.  CLARI,, a musician, was born at Pisa in 1669; the time and place of his death are unknown. He studied his art under Giovanni Paolo Colonna, at Bologna, and held the office of maestro di capella in the cathedral of Pistoja. He gained considerable renown by the production in 1695 of an opera at Bologna entitled "Il Savio Delirante," which, however, like almost all his ecclesiastical music, was never printed. His vocal duets and trios, with a figured bass, obtained very extensive circulation in MS. before they were published in 1720. Their appearance in print was preceded by that of a similar collection by Stefani, who, not improbably, had modelled his compositions upon those of Clari; some of these are still occasionally heard in public performance, and the purity of their counterpoint, and the ingenuity of their fugal imitation, justify the very high esteem in which, as a composer in the severe style, their author is held. With his usual freedom of appropriation, Handel has employed several subjects from this work of Clari, in his oratorio of Theodora. An edition of the duets and trios, with a developed accompaniment for the pianoforte by Mirecki, a Polish musician, was published at Paris in 1823. A profound contrapuntal composition of Clari is printed by Padre Paolucci in his theoretical treatise.—G. A. M.  CLARICI,, an Italian botanist, was born at Ancona in 1664, and died at Padua on 22nd December, 1724. He resided at Padua, and devoted his time and attention to the cultivation of plants. Subsequently he entered the church, and became bishop of Padua. He wrote a work on the "Cultivation of Plants in Gardens," which was published by a nephew of the bishop at Venice in 1726.—J. H. B.  CLARIDGE,, an eminent quaker writer, born in Warwickshire in 1649; died in 1723.  CLARIUS or CLARIO,, an Italian prelate, born at Chiari in Brescia in 1495, was promoted to the see of Foligno in 1547. His reform of the Vulgate, with annotations upon the difficult passages, was the great work of his life. He was equally distinguished as an orator and as a critic, and played a conspicuous part at the Council of Trent. He died in 1555.  CLARK,, a member of congress from New Jersey, and one of the signers of the American declaration of independence, was born at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, 15th February, 1726. At the outbreak of the Revolution, he espoused the popular cause, became a member of the committee of safety, and was elected to congress, just in time to vote for the Declaration. Mr. Clark was a member of congress from 1776 to 1782, and again in 1787-88. He was elected to the convention which framed the federal constitution, but ill health prevented him from taking his seat. After the new government was put in operation, he was again sent to congress, and remained there from 1791 till his death in 1794.—F. B.  CLARKE,, LL.D., F.A.S., &c., Wesleyan minister, remarkable for his attainments in oriental and general literature, was born of highly respectable parents at Moybeg in the county of Londonderry, Ireland, in the year 1760 or 1762, the precise date being uncertain. His childhood gave no promise of his future literary eminence, as he acquired the rudiments of the English and Latin languages with great difficulty. Intended by his parents for the ministry of the church of England, his connection with the Wesleyan Society in 1778 led to his appointment by Mr. Wesley to the laborious duties of the Methodist itinerancy, which he commenced in 1782 in what was then called the Bradford (Wiltshire) circuit. From that period until his death, he laboured as a regular minister in the most important towns of England, and was at various times engaged in extensive journeys in Ireland, the Channel Islands, Scotland, and the Shetland Islands, in furtherance of the religious missions of the Wesleyan church. As an intelligent, interesting, and most powerful preacher, he was remarkably popular during the whole of his ministerial career, and was on three occasions, namely in 1806, in 1814, and in 1822, elected by his brethren president of the conference. As an instance of "the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties," the record of the early studies of Dr. Clarke, by his latest biographer, is most valuable, and furnishes matter of encouragement to all students similarly circumstanced. By diligent application, and by a scrupulous regard to the value of time, without neglecting the duties of his ministry, he acquired a respectable acquaintance, not only with the Latin and Greek, but also with the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Persic, Ethiopic, Coptic, and Arabic languages. These acquirements rendered him so serviceable to the committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society, that he was in 1808 continued by the Wesleyan conference in the London circuit, to meet the wishes of that valuable society, who at that time had special need of his literary assistance. He was about the same time elected librarian of the Surrey Institution, but after ten months resigned this position, as incompatible with his other more important engagements. Soon after this, he was engaged by the commissioners of the public records in the editing of Rymer's Fœdera and Supplement, but was compelled by his failing health in 1819 to relinquish this employment. To the Eclectic Review he was a regular contributor, from its establishment in 1804. His literary labours were not permitted to interfere with his duties to the church to which he belonged, and the various institutions of Wesleyan Methodism received from him no ordinary degree of attention and support. In the cause of the missions to the heathen he was specially zealous, and was for many years an active member of the committee. But he is best known to the world by his "Commentary on the Holy 