at Oxford. Her
father, whose name was Thompson, seems to have been a tradesman in
rather humble circumstances. She married before she was eighteen, but Mr
Clarke, the proprietor of a stonemasonry business, became bankrupt, and
she left him. After other _liaisons_, she became in 1803 the mistress of
the duke of York, then commander-in-chief, maintaining a large and
expensive establishment in a fashionable district. The duke's promised
allowance was not regularly paid, and to escape her financial
difficulties Mrs Clarke trafficked in her protector's position,
receiving money from various promotion-seekers, military, civil and even
clerical, in return for her promise to secure them the good services of
the duke. Her procedure became a public scandal, and in 1809 Colonel
Wardle, M.P., brought eight charges of abuse of military patronage
against the duke in the House of Commons, and a committee of inquiry was
appointed, before which Mrs Clarke herself gave evidence. The result of
the inquiry clearly established the charges as far as she was concerned,
and the duke of York was shown to have been aware of what was being
done, but to have derived no pecuniary benefit himself. He resigned his
appointment as commander-in-chief, and terminated his connexion with Mrs
Clarke, who subsequently obtained from him a considerable sum in cash
and a pension, as the price for withholding the publication of his
numerous letters to her. Mrs Clarke died at Boulogne on the 21st of June
1852.

See Taylor, _Authentic Memoirs of Mrs Clarke_; Clarke (? pseud.),
_Life of Mrs M.A. Clarkek_; _Annual Register_, vol. li.

CLARKE, SAMUEL (1675-1729), English philosopher and divine, son of
Edward Clarke, an alderman, who for several years was parliamentary
representative of the city of Norwich, was born on the 11th of October
1675, and educated at the free school of Norwich and at Caius College,
Cambridge. The philosophy of Descartes was the reigning system at the
university; Clarke, however, mastered the new system of Newton, and
contributed greatly to its extension by publishing an excellent Latin
version of the _Traite de physique_ of Jacques Rohault (1620-1675) with
valuable notes, which he finished before he was twenty-two years of age.
The system of Rohault was founded entirely upon Cartesian principles,
and was previously known only through the medium of a rude Latin
version. Clarke's translation (1697) continued to be used as a text-bo