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Life
1695-1758; b. Dublin; ed. Westminster and TCD; fellow, 1714; LLD, 1722; DD, 1730; travelled, inherited an estate in Lancashire, 1728; Bishop of Killala, 1730; translated to the Cork and Ross, 1735; to Clogher, 1745; issued sermons and theological works, 1738-57; anonymously published An Essay on Spirit (1750) which expounds his Arian account and contains a plea for religious toleration of Catholics, Jews, and Quakers;
he is regarded as the source of the metaphysical idea upon which Charles Johnstone [q.v.] based Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea (1760-65); he was denied the see of Tuam in 1752; issued A Defence of An Essay on Spirit (1752), followed by Some Thoughts on Self-Love, Innate Ideas, Free Will, Occasioned by Reading Mr. Hume’s Works (1753) and Vindication of the Old and New Testaments (3 vols., 1752-57), containing an unorthodox third part.
Clayton made speech in the Irish House of Lords made in 1757 calling for deletion of the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds from the Book of Common Prayer which resulted in widespread calls for his resignation and threats of prosecution for heresy; there is a portrait of Clayton and his wife by James Lantham in the NGI and this became the subject of a poem by Paul Durcan in a NGI-commissioned collection (Crazy About Women, 1990); his home on St. Stephen’s Green became Iveagh House. ODNB FDA OCIL
Works
An Essay on the Spirit (Dublin 1750); A Defence of An Essay on the Spirit (London 1752); A Vindication &c., 3 vols. (1752, 1754, 1757); Some Thoughts on Self-Love, Innate Ideas, Free Will, Occasioned by Reading Mr Hume’s Works (London 1753). There is a bibliography by M. Halpin (TCD thesis 1985).
Criticism
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| Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica: Irish Worthies, Vol. I [of 2] (London & Dublin 1819), 471-78. |
| [...] The zeal with which his lordship had entered into the Arian controversy, by fathering a work not his own, did not cease to influence his mind; and he attempted to further the propagation of the same tenets in his legislative capacity, by a speech in the house of lords, at Dublin, 2nd of February, 1756, when he moved that the Nicene and Athanasian creeds should for the future be omitted in the Liturgy of the church of Ireland. The speech he delivered on that occasion was taken down in short-hand; and, being published, went through several editions. This so avowed and declared an attack on the articles of the church, made his lordship be viewed in a very unfavourable light by his brethren, and this feeling towards him was aggravated still more by his posterior conduct. In 1757 he published the third part of his “Vindication of the Histories of the Old and New Testament,” in which he wandered so far into heterodoxy, that it was considered by the governors of the church as highly improper that such conduct should be allowed in one whose situation required him to appear in her defence. Accordingly orders were sent by his Majesty to the Duke of Bedford, then lord lieutenant, to take the proper steps towards a legal prosecution. A day was appointed for a general meeting of. the Irish prelates at the primate; to which Bishop Clayton was summoned, that he might receive from them the notification of their intentions. A censure was certain; {477} and it was apprehended he would be deprived of his benefice. His lordship however, and the other bishops and ministers, were relieved from all further trouble in so unpleasant, an affair by the hand of death, Feb. 26, 1758. The disease was nervous fever, and the agitation of mind under which he was thrown when a prosecution commenced against him, proved the cause of his death. When informed of the prosecution, he consulted an eminent lawyer on the subject, and asked him if he supposed he should lose his bishopric. The answer was, “My lord, I believe you will.” “Sir,” he replied, “you have given me a stroke I shall never get the better of.” It has been asserted, that, after the bishop had delivered his speech in the house of lords, he said “That his mind was eased of a load which had long been upon it, and that he now enjoyed a heartfelt pleasure, to which he had been a stranger for above twenty years before.” This story, if true, and his lordship’s future conduct, are decidedly inconsistent; and, indeed, it is, impossible to view in a favourable light the behaviour of the bishop and his precedent conduct. If he had been truly conscientious in the zeal he had shewn for the tenets which he had embraced, it ill became him to shrink from the consequences of.avowing them.. The pecuniary loss of the revenues of his bishopric for the few remaining years in which he hadany probability of living, ought not to have weighed much in any circumstances; and surely none at all with one who was possessed of so ample a private fortune. And to suffer for conscience sake, t oa man thoroughly sincere in the principles he professes, ought to be viewed as his glory and his crown. Without, therefore, entering at all into the merits of the doctrines he advanced, we shall only remark, that the man who launches out into the storms of religious controversy, ought to be prepared to meet the buffettings, of the waves; he must expect the warm attacks of his opponents, and particularly so, if the tenets he advances be in opposition to those to which he has sworn his belief; and miserable must. be his feelings if he is not {478} prepared to withstand such hostility, and to derive: consolation from the approbation of his friends, and the still more important judgment of his own conscience. pp.(476-78.) |
| See full copy in RICORSO > Library > Criticism > History > Legacy - via index, or as attached. |
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, selects A Vindication of the Histories of the Old and New Testament, Pt. III [797-98]; also includes remarks, leaning towards free-thinking and deism [760]; his rebellious An Essay on Spirit (1750) caused an uproar and calls for his resignation [764]; fury unleashed against him [765]. BIOG. [806], closely associated with Berkeley’s Bermuda scheme, introduced Berkeley into House of Lords, near prosecution and precipitate death. [WORKS & CRIT, as supra.]
R. E. & C. Ward, eds., Letters of Charles O’Conor of Belan[a]gare (1988) cites Some Thoughts [ … &c.] as 1751 in Notes.
Notes
Crazy about Clayton: Clayton is the subject of a portrait featured in Durcan’s Crazy About Women collection (Nat. Gallery, 1990); the portrait of Clayton and his Wife is by James Latham (1696-1747), on loan to the National Gallery of Ireland from the Representative Church Body [see Brian de Breffny, ed., Ireland: A Cultural Encyclopaedia, 1982 p.131].
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