HISTORICAL NOTICES OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THE REV. DAVID CLARKSON, B.D. THERE have been but few men amongst the English Nonconformists more eminent for religion and learning than David Clarkson; and yet there is less known of his personal history and public course than perhaps of any of his distinguished associates. The following notices of his life and writings, though collected at considerable pains, from various sources, afford but an imperfect account of him, and indeed do not comprise more facts than might be recited in his epitaph. He was a son of Robert Clarkson, and born in the town of Bradford, Yorkshire, in the month of February, 1621-22, where he was baptized on the 3rd of March the same year. His father was a respectable yeoman in that important town, and possessed of that moral worth and social influence which caused him to be ranked amongst its leading inhabitants." The names of three children of his have been recovered: William, who died, rector of Addle, Yorkshire, in 1660; Mary, who was married to Mr. John Sharp, of Little Horton Hall, near Bradford;" There is decisive evidence of this in the fact that the Corporation of London conveyed, in 1629, the manor of Bradford to John Okell, vicar of Bradford, William Lister, of Manningham, gentleman, Robert Clarkson, and Joshua Cooke, of Bradford, yeomen. The Sharp family belonged to the straitest section of the Puritans. Two sons by this marriage became eminent: Thomas Sharp, educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge, who succeeded, on the death of his maternal uncle, William Clarkson, to the rectory of Addle, from which he was removed at the Restoration by the challenge of Dr. Hitch, rector of Guisley, who claimed it as his right, having been excluded by the Act of the Long Parliament against pluralities. After his ejectment, he succeeded Mr. Stretton, at Leeds, where he died, August 27th, 1693, aged 59. Ralph Thoresby and David, the subject of this notice. Nothing is known of his early training; but as he went to the University of Cambridge young, so it is not unlikely that he received his grammar learning in the school founded in his native place by the munificence of Edward VI. He entered Clare Hall, Cambridge, probably about 1640, where he distinguished himself as a scholar and a Christian, and secured the friendship and confidence of his associates in college. In January, 1642, the town of Bradford, then occupied for the Parliament by Sir Thomas Fairfax and his soldiers, suffered an assault from the royalist forces, commanded by Sir William Saville, who were compelled to retreat to Leeds. Young Clarkson probably returned home to visit his family after this alarm, for we find that he was shut in his native town, when the Earl of Newcastle invested it a second time in June following, and took it by storm. A curious piece of contemporaneous biography, written by Joseph Lister, an apprentice to Mr. John Sharp, the brother-in-law of Mr. David Clarkson, describes the straitness of the siege, and "the desperate adventure" of Sir T. Fairfax and his men to break through the enemy's army sword in hand. In this attempt they were joined by Mr. Sharp and his brother-in-law David; but with what success the autobiographer recites in the following passage: "My master being gone, I sought for my mother, and having found her, she, and I, and my sister, walked in the street, not knowing what had the highest regard for him, and has preserved in his diary a very affecting account of his death. The following impassioned exclamations from Thoresby's diary, witness to the intenseness of his attachment: "O Lord! O Lord! what a bitter and a heavy burden is sin, that has deprived us of the choicest mercy under heaven; such a minister of Jesus Christ as very few have equalled in this, or former centuries-an irreparable loss. Oh, black and dismal day!" &c. The Rev. Oliver Heywood says that he was "a profound scholar and of excellent refined gifts, and a holy and incomparable man." [Vide Calamy's Account, ii. p. 813. Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, p. 277. Thoresby's Diary, vol. i. pp. 236, 244. Thoresby's Letters, vol. i. pp. 229, 230.] The other was Abraham Sharp, the celebrated mathematician, the friend and associate of Flamsteed, and the correspondent of Newton, Halley, Wallis, and Hodgson. He died at Little Horton, where his observatory still stands, on the 18th of July, 1742, in the 91st year of his age. (Encyclop. Brit. seventh edition. Article Sharp, and private information.) Immediately related to John Sharp, the father of Thomas and Abraham, was Thomas Sharp, an oilman at Bradford, who was also of the old puritanical school, the host of Lord Fairfax during the siege of Bradford, and father of John Sharp, who was born in that town, in 1644, and consecrated Archbishop of York, in 1691. British Biography, vol. vi. p. 394. to do, or which way to take. And as we walked up the street, we met a young gentleman, called David Clarkson, leading a horse. My mother asked him where he had been with that horse. Says he, 'I made an essay to go with my brother Sharp, and the army, who broke through the enemy's leaguer; but the charge was so hot I came back again, and now I know not what to do.' Then I answered, and said, 'Pray, mother, give me leave to go with David, for I think I can lead him a safe way;' for being born in that town, I knew all the by-ways about it. "David also desired her to let me go with him, so she begged a blessing on me, and sent me away, not knowing where we could be safe. So away we went, and I led him to a place called the Sill-bridge, where a foot company was standing; yet I think they did not see us, so we ran on the right hand of them, and then waded over the water, and hearing a party of horse come down the lane towards the town, we laid us down in the side of the corn, and they perceived us not. It being about daybreak, we stayed here as long as we durst for being discovered, it beginning to be light. Well, we got up, and went in the shade of the hedge, and then looking about us, and hoping to be past the danger of the leaguer, we took to the highway, intending to go to a little town called Clayton; and having waded over the water, we met with two men that were troopers, and who had left their horses in the town, and hoped to get away on foot, and now they and we walked together, and hoped we had escaped all danger, and all on a sudden a man on horseback from towards the beacon had espied us and came riding towards us, and we, like poor affrighted sheep, seeing him come fast towards us, with a drawn sword in his hand, we foolishly kept together, and thought to save ourselves by running. Had we scattered from one another, he had but got one of us. We all got into a field; he crossed the field and came to us, and as it pleased God, being running by the hedge-side, I espied a thick holly-tree, and thought perhaps I might hide myself in this tree and escape, so I crept into it, and pulled the boughs about me, and presently I heard them cry out for quarter. He wounded one of them, and took them all prisoners, and said, 'There were four of you; where is the other?' but they knew not, for I, being the last and least of them, was not missed; so he never looked after me more: but I have often thought since how easily we might have knocked him down, had we but had courage; but alas! we had none." a He gives no further information respecting young Clarkson, but it is most probable that he was taken to Leeds, and exchanged ■ “ An Historical Narrative of the Life of Joseph Lister, sometime belonging to the religious society at Kipping, in Bradford-dale, in Yorkshire, &c." pp.18-20. for some royalist prisoner, as he returned to Cambridge, and there, in another scene of that great struggle, was exalted to competency and honour. Soon after the civil wars began, the heads of that university resolved to send their plate to the king to be coined into money for his military chest. This brought Cromwell, who was the member for the borough in parliament, to the town, and having raised a troop of horse in that neighbourhood, he employed his authority on this occasion in no way to the satisfaction of the royalist members of the colleges. Their activity attracted the attention of the Parliament to the state of the university in general, and the Earl of Manchester, serjeant-major-general to the associated counties, was appointed to visit it. He, with a committee, was authorised "to call before them all provosts, masters, fellows, and students of the university, to hear complaints against such as were scandalous in their lives, ill-affected to the Parliament, fomentors of the present unnatural war, or who had deserted the ordinary places of their residence." The Earl repaired in person to Cambridge, on the 24th of February, 1643-44, and commenced his work of reformation, which ended, according to Walker, in the expulsion of "near two hundred masters and fellows, besides scholars, &c., which probably might be as many more."a The inmates of Clare Hall were subjected to the common inquisition, and Dr. Paske was removed from the mastership, and seven others were ejected from their fellowships. Among these was the celebrated Mr. Peter Gunning, who, after the Restoration, was elevated to the bishopric of Chichester, and then translated to that of Ely. "On the first of May," says he, "I was expelled the University of Cambridge, for preaching a sermon at St. Mary's against the Covenant, as well as refusing to take the Covenant." It was to this fellowship that Mr. Clarkson was appointed; and the circumstances connected with it, appear to have been honourable to all the parties concerned. The Earl of Manchester, as described by Clarendon himself, "was of a genteel and generous nature: his natural civility and good manners flowed to all men, so that he was never guilty of any rudeness eve even to those whom he was obliged to oppress." c " Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, &c., part i. p. 114. |