CLARKE, JAMES FREEMAN (1810-1888), American preacher and author, was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on the 4th of April 1810. He was prepared for college at the public Latin school of Boston, and graduated at Harvard College in 1829, and at the Harvard Divinity School in 1833. He was then ordained as minister of a Unitarian congregation at Louisville, Kentucky, which was then a slave state. Clarke soon threw himself heart and soul into the national movement for the abolition of slavery, though he was never what was then called in America a “radical abolitionist.” In 1839 he returned to Boston, where he and his friends established (1841) the “Church of the Disciples.” It brought together a body of men and women active and eager in applying the Christian religion to the social problems of the day, and he would have said that the feature which distinguished it from any other church was that they also were ministers of the highest religious life. Ordination could make no distinction between him and them. Of this church he was the minister from 1841 until 1850 and from 1854 until his death. He was also secretary of the Unitarian Association and, in 1867-1871 professor of natural religion and Christian doctrine at Harvard. From the beginning of his active life he wrote freely for the press. From 1836 until 1839 he was editor of the Western Messenger, a magazine intended to carry to readers in the Mississippi Valley simple statements of “liberal religion,” involving what were then the most radical appeals as to national duty, especially the abolition of slavery. The magazine is now of value to collectors because it contains the earliest printed poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was Clarke’s personal friend. Most of Clarke’s earlier published writings were addressed to the immediate need of establishing a larger theory of religion than that espoused by people who were still trying to be Calvinists, people who maintained what a good American phrase calls “hard-shelled churches.” But it would be wrong to call his work controversial. He was always declaring that the business of the Church is Eirenic and not Polemic. Such books as Orthodoxy: Its Truths and Errors (1866) have been read more largely by members of orthodox churches than by Unitarians. In the great moral questions of his time Clarke was a fearless and practical advocate of the broadest statement of human rights. Without caring much what company he served in, he could always be seen and heard, a leader of unflinching courage, in the front rank of the battle. He published but few verses, but at the bottom he was a poet. He was a diligent and accurate scholar, and among the books by which he is best known is one called Ten Great Religions (2 vols., 1871-1883). Few Americans have done more than Clarke to give breadth to the published discussion of the subjects of literature, ethics and religious philosophy. Among his later books are Every-Day Religion (1886) and Sermons on the Lord’s Prayer (1888). He died at Jamaica Plain, Mass., on the 8th of June 1888.
His Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, edited by Edward Everett Hale, was published in Boston in 1891.
(E. E. H.)
CLARKE, JOHN SLEEPER (1833-1899), American actor, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on the 3rd of September 1833, and was educated for the law. He made his first appearance in Boston as Frank Hardy in Paul Pry in 1851. In 1859 he married Asia Booth, daughter of Junius Brutus Booth, and he was associated with his brother-in-law Edwin Booth in the management of the Winter Garden theatre in New York, the Walnut Street theatre in Philadelphia and the Boston theatre. In 1867 he went to London, where he made his first appearance at the St James’s as Major Wellington de Boots in Stirling Coynes’s Everybody’s Friend, rewritten for him and called The Widow’s Hunt. His success was so great that he remained in England for the rest of his life, except for four visits to America. Among his favourite parts were Toodles, which ran for 200 nights at the Strand, Dr Pangloss in The Heir-at-law, and Dr Ollapod in The Poor Gentleman. He managed several London theatres, including the Haymarket, where he preceded the Bancrofts. He retired in 1889, and died on the 24th of September 1899. His two sons also were actors.
CLARKE, MARCUS ANDREW HISLOP (1846-1881), Australian author, was born in London on the 24th of April 1846. He was the only son of William Hislop Clarke, a barrister of the Middle Temple who died in 1863. He emigrated forthwith to Australia, where his uncle, James Langton Clarke, was a county court judge. He was at first a clerk in the bank of Australasia, but showed no business ability, and soon proceeded to learn farming at a station on the Wimmera river, Victoria. He was already writing stories for the Australian Magazine, when in 1867 he joined the staff of the Melbourne Argus through the introduction of Dr Robert Lewins. He also became secretary (1872) to the trustees of the Melbourne public library and later (1876) assistant librarian. He founded in 1868 the Yorick Club, which soon numbered among its members the chief Australian men of letters. The most famous of his books is For the Term of his Natural Life (Melbourne, 1874), a powerful tale of an Australian penal settlement, which originally appeared in serial form in a Melbourne paper. He also wrote The Peripatetic Philosopher (1869), a series of amusing papers reprinted from The Austral-asian; Long Odds (London, 1870), a novel; and numerous comedies and pantomimes, the best of which was Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star (Theatre Royal, Melbourne; Christmas, 1873). He married an actress, Marian Dunn. In spite of his popular success Clarke was constantly involved in pecuniary difficulties, which are said to have hastened his death at Melbourne on the 2nd of August 1881.
See The Marcus Clarke Memorial Volume (Melbourne, 1884), containing selections from his writings with a biography and list of works, edited by Hamilton Mackinnon.