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as Frank Hardy in "Paul Pry," at the Howard Athenseum in Boston in 1851, and- began his first regular engagement at the Chestnut street thea- tre, Philadelphia, in the part of Soto in " She Would and She Would Not," 28 Aug., 1852. In the following Jamiary he was the leading come- dian at that theatre, and, after playing in the Front street theatre during 1854, became first comedian, and in 1858 joint lessee of the Arch street theatre. In 1863 he was joint lessee of Win- ter Garden, New York city, in 1865 he purchased with his brother-in-law, Edwin Booth, the Walnut street theatre, Philadelphia, and in 1866 acquired an interest in the Boston theatre. In the autumn of 1866 he appeared in Boston, and a year later, after the burning of Winter Garden theatre, in January, 1867, appeared in London at the St. James theatre, and at once achieved a success as Wellington de Boots, a part that he had played more than a thousand nights in the United States. He played also Bob Tyke in " The School of Re- form," Caleb Seudder in " The Octoroon," and, after a tour in the provinces, revived old comedies, and was very successful in the role of Dr. Pangloss in " The Heir-at-Law." He again appeared in New York on 17 April, 1870, performed in other cities, returned to London, appearing at the Strand tlieatre. 29 July, 1871, played in the United States the following winter, and in March returned to Lon- don, where he was proprietor of the Charing Cross theatre, and aftei'ward managed the Haymarket theatre, London, with E. A. Sothern. He has made several professional visits to the United States.

CLARKE, John Thomas, b. in Putnam county, Ga.. 12 Jan., 1834; d. in Smithville, Ga., 22 July, 1889. He was graduated at Mercer university, and began to practise law, but abandoned it, and was ordained a minister of the Baptist church. Failing health forced him to retire, and in 1863 he was appointed judge of the superior courts of the Pataula circuit. His administration was con- spicuous for energy and ability. After the war he was removed from office by Gen. George G. Meade for refusing to enforce certain military orders. His course in this matter made him very popular in his state, and in 1882 he was re-elected to the judgeship. He was an elector on the Seymour and Blair presidential ticket in 1868, and state senator in 1878. He has contributed to current literature both in prose and poetry.

CLARKE, McDonald, poet, b. in Bath, Me., 18 June, 1798; d. in New York city, 5 March, 1842. Little is known of his early life beyond the fact that he and the poet Brainard were play- mates, till he appeared in New York city in 1819, married an actress, and was a familiar and strik- ing figure on Broadway, and well known as an eccentric character. He celebrated in verses the belles of the town and the topics of the day, and was familiarly known as the " mad poet." He had no vices, but always preserved a gentility of deportment, and was a regular attendant at the fashionable Episcopal Grace church on Broad- way. His oddities, as his faithful friend Halleck stated to the writer, were all amiable. He was celebrated in an amusing poem called " The Dis- carded," written by Halleck. He met with a tragic death, being drowned in a cell of the city prison by water from an open faucet. A po- liceman had found him in a destitute and ap- parently demented condition on the street and taken him to the jail for safety. Clarke's most celebrated couplet is often used as a quotation :

"Now twilight lets her curtain down,
And pins it with a star."

It is also frequently quoted in the following form : " Night dropped her sable curtain down, and pinned it with a star." A fragment of autobiography in his own hand- writing, penned two months before his death, is still preserved. It reads : " Begotten among the orange-groves, on the wild mountains of Jamaica, West Indies. Born in Bath, on the Kennebec River, State of Maine, 18th June, 1798. 1st Love, Mary H. of New London ; last love, Mary T. of New York ; intermediate sweethearts without num- ber. No great compliment to the greatest Poet in America — shoiild like the change tho' ; had to pawn my Diamond Ring (the gift of a lady), and go tick at Delmonicos for Dinner. So much for be- ing ihe great- est Poet in America. The greatest Poet of the Coun- try ought to have the freedom of the City, the girls of the gentry gratis, grab all along shore, the magnifi- cent Mary, and snueks with all

the sweet Sisters of Song."

Clarke's poems, Inimorous, sentimental, and satirical, have a vein of tenderness pervading their grotesqueness and irregularity. They are now rare, though several times republished. Some of the titles to the volumes are " A Review of the Eve of Eternity, and other Poems" (New York, 1820); " The Elixir of Moonshine, bv the Mad Poet " (1822); "The Gossip" (1825); "Poetic Sketches" (1826) ; " The Belles of Broadway " (1838) ; " Death in Disguise," a temperance poem (1833) ; " Poems " (1836). His last effusion, "A Cross and a Coro- net," was published in 1841,

CLARKE, Mary Bayard, author, b. in Raleigh, N. C, about 1830. She is the daughter of Thomas P. Devereux, a lawyer and planter, and married Col. William J. Clarke, who distinguished himself in the Mexican war, and commanded a North Carolina regiment during the civil war. After marriage she went to Cuba for her health, being afflicted with pulmonary disease, and afterward resided in Texas until the beginning of the war, when she returned to North Carolina with her husband and children. She wrote both prose and poetry, and at the close of the war resorted to her pen as a means of livelihood. In 1854 she published a collection of North Carolina verse under the title " Wood-Notes." On her return from Havana, in 1855, she wrote " Reminiscences of Cuba " for the " Southern Literary Messenger." While residing in Cuba and afterward, she published in periodicals many graceful poems, at first under the pen-name of " Tenella," and later under her own name, some of which were collected in a volume called " Mosses from a Rolling Stone, or Idle Moments of a Busy Woman," which was sold for the benefit of the fund for a Stonewall cemetery in Winchester, Va,