(1754 - 1805), antiquarian, s. of William Clarke (d. 1797) of Everton, Lancs; m. 1798 Ann Pedder of Kendal.
1786 - 90 Rome (by 21 Nov. 1786); Sicily (spring 1787), Calabria, Salerno, Paestum, Naples (by 15 Apr.), Rome (by 10 May 1787), Turin [Geneva, summer - autumn 1788] Venice (by 27 Mar. - Apr. 1789), Leghorn (by 6 Aug.), Fiesole (Sep. 1789 - Feb. 1790), Florence (Mar.), Bologna, Modena, Cremona, Mantua, Milan (by 14 May) [England Aug.]
Clarke's erudite letters to the Liverpool antiquarian William Roscoe recount his travels in Italy.1 He had reached Rome by 21 November 1786 and after rambling over it 'in a most unfashionable Stile on foot', he had come to the 'general conclusion ... that the productions of modern times from the revival of the fine arts under Leo the 10th to the present day, must shrink upon a comparison with those of Greek & even of Roman fame'. The Pantheon, 'chaste & unaffectedly majestic', moved him more than St Peter's, 'which can hardly escape the epithet of meretricious'. The Campagna he found 'a dreary unjoyous tract of country'. He made a tour of Sicily in early spring 1787 and bought an edition of Theocritus at Palermo; having crossed to Calabria, he sailed up the coast to Salerno, visited Paestum and was in Naples by 15 April (825). He had returned to Rome by 10 May, having made a special expedition to Tivoli and Horace's farm at Licenza (825A).
Travelling via Turin, Clarke spent the summer and autumn 1788 in Geneva, with the intention of wintering in Venice (826 - 8) where he was by April 1789 (829). By 6 August 1789 he was in Leghorn (830) and from September to February 1790 he lived in a rented villa at Fiesole. Learning of Roscoe's plan to write his Lorenzo de' Medici (831 - 3), Clarke travelled to Florence (March 1790) to collect information for him in the city libraries (834 - 5).2 From Florence he went north through Mantua, where he 'remained a day out of reverence to the memory of Virgil', to Milan, where he examined manuscripts of Pindar in the Ambrosian library for his friend Richard Chandler (836). He had returned to England by August 1790.
1. Clarke letters MSS; Liverpool RO, mss.824 - 835; nos. in brackets. 2. See Farington Diary (2 Aug. 1796).