CLOVER, JOSEPH (1725–1811), farrier, son of a blacksmith at Norwich, was born in that city on 12 Aug. 1725, and followed for many years his father's calling. About 1750 he attracted the notice of Dr. Kervin Wright, a fellow-townsman, by whom he was encouraged to apply himself to the investigation and treatment of the diseases of horses. By dint of extraordinary application he so far mastered Latin and French as to be able to read in the original the best authors on farriery and medicine, particularly Vegetius and La Fosse. He also became a good mathematician. In 1765 his reputation had increased so much that he left off working at the forge to devote himself entirely to veterinary practice. In this he was assisted by many well-known medical men of that day, especially by Mr. Benjamin Gooch, the surgeon, who inserted in his 'Cases and Practical Remarks in Surgery' a letter from Clover, giving a description and a drawing of a machine invented by him for the cure of ruptured tendons and fractured legs in horses. As early as 1753 he had discovered the manner in which the larvae of the bots are conveyed from the coat of the horse into the stomach. Ill-health obliged him to decline business in 1781. He died at Norwich on 19 Feb. 1811.
[Gent. Mag. vol. lxxxi. pt. ii. pp. 191-2.]
CLOWES, BUTLER (d. 1782), mezzotint-engraver and printseller, lived in Gutter Lane, Cheapside, where he kept a print-shop, his address appearing on engravings by James Watson and others. He scraped several portraits in mezzotint, usually from the life, some of which he sent to the exhibitions of the Free Society of Artists from 1768 to 1773. Among these portraits, which show some artistic ability, were those of himself, his wife, John Augustus Clowes, John Glas (founder of the Glassite, or Sandemanian, sect), Nathan Potts, Mrs. Luke Sullivan, after Tilly Kettle, and Charles Dibdin as Mungo in the opera of the 'Padlock.' He also engraved in mezzotint, after Philip Dawe, 'The Hen-pecked Husband' and 'The Dying Usurer,' both exhibited in 1768; after John Collet, 'A Rescue, or the Tars Triumphant,' 'Grown Gentlemen taught to dance,' and 'The Female Bruisers,' exhibited in 1771; after Heemskerk, and Stubbs, and a print entitled 'Domestic Employment Starching,' probably after Henry Morland. He died in 1782. An etched portrait of Clowes, published by S. Harding, Pall Mall, in 1802, shows a man past the prime of life, with a round, jovial, and doubtless rubicund countenance. The general tone of his prints and the character of his associates tend to support the idea that he was of a free and lively disposition. He does not appear to have been a painter himself.
[Redgrave's Dictionary of English Artists; Graves's Dictionary of Artists, 1760-1880; Catalogues of the Free Society of Artists; J. Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotint Portraits; Bromley's Catalogue of British Portraits; Nagler's Künstler-Lexikon; Collectanea Biographica (Anderdon) in the Print Room, British Museum.]
CLOWES, JOHN (1743–1831), Swedenborgian, whom De Quincey called the 'holiest of men whom it had been his lot to meet,' was born at Manchester on 31 Oct. 1743. He was the fourth son of Joseph Clowes, barrister-at-law, and his wife Catherine, daughter of the Rev. Edward Edwards, rector of Llanbedr, near Ruthin. Clowes was only seven years old when his mother died, but she laid the foundation of his religious education, which was continued by his father and strengthened by the Rev. John Clayton, to whose academy in Salford he was sent at an early age. At the age of eighteen, in 1761, he was admitted a pensioner of Trinity College, Cambridge. In January 1766 he graduated B. A. and was eighth wrangler. During the next three years, while engaged in the work of a private tutor, he took two prizes for Latin essays, and was elected fellow of Trinity. Abandoning his original idea of entering his father's profession, he prepared himself for holy orders, and was ordained in 1767 by Bishop Terrick. He proceeded to his degree of M. A. in 1769, in which year he became the first incumbent of St. John's Church, Manchester, then recently built by his kinsman Mr. Edward Byrom. He was at that time in delicate health, and in other ways felt himself unprepared for his vocation. In this diffident state of mind he one day, while engaged in arranging his father's library, met with a copy of William Law's 'Christian Perfection.' The perusal of this work had a marked effect on his mind, and led to the study of Law's other books, as well as the writings of sundry English, French, and German mystics. In 1773 he was introduced to the writings of Emanuel Swedenborgby Mr. Richard Houghton of Liverpool, through whom he became acquainted with the Rev. T. Hartley, rector of Winwick, Northamptonshire, and the earliest translator into English of any of Swedenborg'a works. Once entered upon
