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Lately Published,

I.

MEMOIRS of the LIFE and WRITINGS of Sir PHILIP SIDNEY.

By THOMAS ZOUCH, D. D. F. L. S.

The second Edition. Handsomely printed in one Volume Quarto, with a fine Portrait of Sir Philip Sidney beautifully engraved by C. Warren, price 17. 58. in Boards.

II.

The LIVES of Dr. JOHN DONNE, Sir HENRY WOTTON, Mr. RICHARD HOOKER, Mr. GEORGE HERBERT, and Dr. ROBERT SANDERSON. The third Edition. To which is now first added, LOVE and TRUTH,

By ISAAC WALTON.

With NOTES, and the LIFE of the AUTHOR,

By THOMAS ZOUCH, D. D. F. L. S

AND

THE

GOOD SCHOOLMASTER,

EXEMPLIFIED IN THE CHARACTER OF

THE REVEREND JOHN CLARKE, M. A.

FORMERLY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
SUCCESSIVELY MASTER OF THE SCHOOLS OF SHIPTON,
BEVERLEY, AND WAKEFIELD, IN THE COUNTY OF YORK.

In peace ye shades of our great grandsires rest,
No heavy earth your sacred bones molest:
Eternal spring and rising flowers adorn
The relics of each venerable urn,

Who pious reverence to their tutor paid,
As parents honour'd, and as gods obey'd.

(Dryden's Juvenal.)

(First printed in 1798.)

VOL. II.

B

THE GOOD SCHOOLMASTER,

JOHN CLARKE, the subject of this Memoir,

derived no distinction from the splendor of hereditary descent. Born at Kirby-Misperton, otherwise called Kirby Over-Car, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, May 3, 1706, he discovered in his earliest years the strongest propensities to literature. He was the son of an honest and industrious mechanic, whose extreme anxiety to give him a liberal education deserves every encomium. The rector of his parish*, quick to discern and willing to encourage merit, placed him in the school of Thornton, a village in the neighbourhood, whence he subsequently obtained a small Exhibition to assist him at the University.

Having been thoroughly grounded in the elementary parts of learning, he was removed, first to the school of Wakefield in the West-Riding of Yorkshire, and next to that of Kirkleatham in

* Mr. Peter Dubordieu, a French refugee, educated in ClareHall, Cambridge, B. A. 1692; M. A. 1697. He published a Treatise on the Thebaan Legion.'

B 2

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Cleveland. The celebrity of Thomas Clark successively master of both those schools, is too well known to be here recorded. To his care the sons of the principal gentry in the county of York were entrusted. From the instructions of this eminent preceptor, young Clarke acquired the most solid advantages; an improved taste, a chastised judgement, and a regulated method of study. He was admitted, in 1723, a sizar of Trinity College, Cambridge; took his first degree in 1726, was elected Fellow of his College, October 1, 1729, and proceeded Master of Arts in 1730.

The annual stipend of a Fellowship was, in those days, much inferior to it's present high value. A young man, who had not to boast of the emoluments of an enlarged patrimony, was under the necessity of forming an immediate intercourse with the world, merely to insure to himself a comfortable subsistence. However grateful to a studious mind the life of an academician might be, he was frequently obliged to abandon the agreeable prospect before him, and adapting himself to the exigencies of society, to become the architect of his own fortune. John Clarke left the University with regret. During his residence

*Formerly of Jesus College, Cambridge, B. A. 1696; M. A. 1700. At his instance a room was built, contiguous to the school at Wakefield, for the reception of books.

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