CLAYTON, ROBERT, Bishop of Clogher, Was born at Dublin in 1595, and educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Dublin. lie was successively appointed to the sees of Killala, Cork, and Clogher (bolding the two latter together), although his orthodoxy eeems to have been very doubtful from his first entrance into the Church. His preferment was owing to a lady who was connected with his family by marriage—Mrs. Clayton, afterwards Lady Sunder', who was one of Queen Caroline's chamber-wornen : his shameless eagerness for pre ferment, the intensely selfish worldly character of the man, and the degrading condition of ecclesiastical affairs at that period, are made painfully evident in the correspondence published in the so-called Memoirs of Viscountess Sundou,' 2 vols., 1847. Clayton's first I published work was ' An Introduction to the History of the Jews.' Thu was followed by 'The Chronology of the Hebrew Bible vindi cated: published in 1747; 'A Dissertation on Prophecy,' in 1749; and 'An Emay on Spirit,' 1751 : this essay, which was full of the notions contained in what is called the Arian heresy, gave great offence to the Church, and prevented his being promoted to the archbishoprie of Tura. There is some doubt whether Clayton was really the author of it, but he soon avowed all the sentiments which it contained, and even more, in his ' Vindication of the Old and New Testament, in answer to the Objections of the late Lord Bolingbroke, in Two Letters to a Young Nobleman,' which was published at different periods in three parts.
On the 2nd of February 1756, he made a motion in the Irish House of Lords for the expunging of both the Athanasian and Nieman creeds from the Liturgy. The motion, which did not find a single supporter in the House, created a violent storm at court and out of doors; and when he renewed his attack in the following year, in the third part of his ' Viedicatlen of the Old and New Testament,' &c., it burnt upon his head. The king instructed the lord-lieutenant to bring on a legal prosecution of the bishop, but before the day fixed for the opening of the proceedings be was carried off by a nervous fever. He died February 26, 1758. Besides the works already mentioned, Bishop Clayton ; ubliahed ' A Journey to Mount Sinai and back again,' from A manuscript written by the Prefect of Egypt, in company with the missionaries of the Propaganda ; to Which are added some 'Remarks on the Origin of Hieroglyphics, and the Mythology of the Ancient Heathens.: Hie writings are poor in substance, weak in thought, clumsy in structure, and if they ever had any value it has long since ser.1 away. Clayton bore the character of being a generous and benevolent man, and his charities were frequently well directed.