Clark, WILLIAM GEORGE

Clark, WILLIAM GEORGE, an eminent scholar and man of letters, was born in March 1821, and educated at Sedbergh and Shrewsbury under Kennedy. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1840, and, graduating second classic in 1844, was elected fellow of his college, where he resided till his retirement in 1873. He had been ordained in 1853, but wrote to his bishop resigning his orders in 1869, and published his reasons in a remarkable pamphlet, The Present Dangers of the Church of England. He acted long as tutor in his college, and was public orator in the university from 1857 to 1869. He died at York, 6th November 1878, bequeathing to Trinity College property to endow a lectureship on English literature, to which Mr Gosse was appointed in 1883. Clark travelled in Spain, Greece, Italy, and Poland, during the long vacations, and published lively accounts of his experiences. In 1850 he helped to edit the Sabrinæ Corolla, himself contributing some of the most finished versions therein. He also edited the first series of Cambridge Essays (1855), and long acted as one of the editors of the Journal of Philology. Other works were his edition of George Brimley's Essays (1858), and Lec- tures on the Middle Ages and the Revival of Learning (1872). His greatest work was the famous Cambridge Shakespeare (9 vols. 1863–66), planned by Clark, and prepared in collaboration with Mr Glover and afterwards Mr Aldis Wright. Its text was reprinted in the popular 'Globe Edition' (1864). Clark's projected edition of Aristophanes was unhappily left unfinished.