ow a keen and loving appreciation of nature, and his love-songs and
ballads charm by their genuine feeling; but his vogue was no doubt
largely due to the interest aroused by his humble position in life.

See the _Life of John Clare_, by Frederick Martin (1865); and _Life
and Remains of John Clare_, by J.L. Cherry (1873), which, though not
so complete, contains some of the poet's asylum verses and prose
fragments.

CLARE, JOHN FITZGIBBON, 1ST EARL OF (1749-1802), lord chancellor of
Ireland, was the second son of John Fitzgibbon, who had abandoned the
Roman Catholic faith in order to pursue a legal career. He was educated
at Trinity College, Dublin, where he was highly distinguished as a
classical scholar, and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in
1770. In 1772 he was called to the Irish bar, and quickly acquired a
very lucrative practice; he also inherited his father's large fortune on
the death of his elder brother. In 1778 he entered the Irish House of
Commons as member for Dublin University, and at first gave a general
support to the popular party led by Henry Grattan (q.v.). He was,
however, from the first hostile to that part of Grattan's policy which
aimed at removing the disabilities of the Roman Catholics; he
endeavoured to impede the Relief Bill of 1778 by raising difficulties
about its effect on the Act of Settlement. He especially distrusted the
priests, and many years later explained that his life-long resistance to
all concession to the Catholics was based on his "unalterable opinion"
that "a conscientious Popish ecclesiastic never will become a
well-attached subject to a Protestant state, and that the Popish clergy
must always have a commanding influence on every member of that
communion." As early as 1780 Fitzgibbon began to separate himself from
the popular or national party, by opposing Grattan's declaration of the
Irish parliament's right to independence. There is no reason to suppose
that in this change of view he was influenced by corrupt or personal
motives. His cast of mind naturally inclined to authority rather than to
democratic liberty; his hostility to the Catholic claims, and his
distrust of parliamentary reform as likely to endanger the connexion of
Ireland with Great Britain, made him a sincere opponent of the aims
which Grattan had in view. In reply, however, to a remonstrance from his
constituents Fitzgibbon promised to support Grattan's policy in the
future, and de