The indolent inactivity which had marked his school studies did not desert him at college. He seems, in fact, to have been disgusted with the system of education pursued at Cambridge, caring nothing for mathematics, which were there regarded as all in all, and finding among the other mental pursuits of the place nothing whatever to kindle the ardour of his ambitious mind. Still the desire of fame, without which man never performed any thing great, began gradually to manifest itself in his character both to himself and others. Exceedingly uncertain as to the mode, he yet determined to acquire in one way or another a reputation in literature; and while many of those around him were descanting complacently upon his failings, and the consequent backwardness of his acquirements, he silently felt the sting which was so soon to goad him on to a destiny more brilliant than his compassionate comrades ever dreamed of. His favourite studies, however, such as they were, he seems to have pursued with considerable eagerness; and by degrees his taste, after wavering for some time, settled definitively on literature. In the spring of 1790 Clarke obtained, through the recommendation of Dr. Beadon, then Bishop of Gloucester, the office of private tutor to the honourable Henry Tufton, nephew to the Duke of Dorset. The place selected for his residence with his pupil, says Mr. Otter, was a large house belonging to Lord Thanet, inhabited at that time only by one or two servants, situated in a wild and secluded part of the county of Kent, and cut off, as well by distance as bad roads, from all cheerful and improving society; a residence suitable enough to a nobleman with a large establishment and a wide circle of friends, but the last place, one would have thought, to improve and polish a young man of family just entering into active life. His pupil, moreover, had conceived a dislike for study and for tutors of every kind, which promised to enhance the tedium of a life spent in such a scene. But Clarke, who probably sympathized with the young man’s aversion from intellectual task-work, very quickly succeeded by his gay, lively, insinuating manners in winning his confidence, and, apparently, in convincing him that a certain degree of knowledge might be useful, even to a man of his rank. This agreeable result, which seems to have been somewhat unexpected, so raised our incipient traveller in the estimation of the Duke of Dorset, that the engagement, which appears to have been at first for nine months only, was prolonged another year, the latter part of which was occupied in making with his pupil the tour of Great Britain. Of these domestic travels he on his return published the history; but the performance appears to have been hastily and slovenly written, and, as has been the fate of many other youthful works, to have been severely judged by the mature author, jealous of his fame, and averse from exhibiting to the public the nakedness of his unformed mind.