10. John Dodd, Fellow Commoner of King's College. 1735.

"He was my fellow collegian and schoolfellow at Eton; a man universally beloved; lively, generous, and sensible. I think his father kept an inn at Chester; but a Judge Dodd, of that county, related to him, left him his large fortune. He had a wretched tutor at College, John Whaley, who would have ruined most other people; but Mr. Dodd's natural good sense got the better of his vile example. Mr. Walpole and Mr. Dodd, while at College, were united in the strictest friendship. On February 14, 1782, I received a letter from the former, the postscript of which was as follows: he had been telling me of his regimen for the gout, one material part of which was, cold water inwardly and outwardly.

"P. S. My old friend and acquaintance, Mr. Dodd, died last Sunday, (Feb. 10, 1782) not of cold water. He and I were born on the very same day, but took to different elements. I doubt he had hurt his fortune, as well as health."

11. Sir Francis Blake Delaval, Knight of the Bath, Pembroke Hall.

"Sir Francis Blake Delaval, who died of an apoplectic fit at Lord Mexborough's on Wednesday se'nnight, acquired his Ribband in the noblest way: it was given him on his return from the coast of France, where he had served as a volunteer, and distinguished himself bravely. In private life he was open, tender, generous, and sincere: an enemy but to one man on earth, and a friend to every human creature: a patron to all ingenious devices, and the very soul of frolic and amusement: he overbalanced a few foibles by a thousand amiable qualities: so friendly to mankind, there was scarce any thing he would not undertake, even to serve a stranger. He who writes this knew him from his birth, and has known very few so amiable."

12. Disney, Fellow of Trinity Coll. 1773. S. T. B. Hebrew Professor.

"He is my very worthy friend, son to Mr. Disney, Rector of Cranbrook in Kent, who is son to my predecessor Mr. Disney, Rector of Blecheley in Bucks. The Professor was long Curate at Adderbury in Oxfordshire, where he was in the acquaintance of the Hon. Charles Townshend, whose death was a great loss to him, and who had recommended him to his brother, the Viceroy of Ireland; who, thinking it had been his brother's friend, gave a good living in that kingdom to a Mr. Disney, for whom some one else also had applied. However, he got a living in Lincolnshire, 1772. He is a very modest, decent, well-behaved man.”

13. Henry Etough, Rector of Therfield, Herts.

“ 1 put this person here, not as a Cambridge man; for he was bred among the Dissenters, the Lord knows where; but because he used to be frequently backwards and forwards at Cambridge, among the Masters of several Colleges, and other University people that would receive him, while I was a member there. He was a North country man, and ordained a Preacher among the Dissenters, as I suppose; for he used to exercise that faculty among them in a barn at Depden in Essex, as I have heard many of that parish say, where my cousin, Dr. Cock, is now Rector: but being a man of parts and genius, he early conceived the ill state he was in, while he was snivelling in a tub to a parcel of low mechanics and labourers, and thought it more to the purpose to come over to the established Church, where better company and better preferment were to be met with. As he was a person of insatiable curiosity, his acquaintance was numerous; for his whole delight was, first, to inquire into and find out the state and private history of every one who was worth inquiring after, with all their foibles and miscarriages, and then to whisper them to every person

* He was afterwards Rector of Pluckley in Kent.

he met with. With these talents he was recommended to the protection of Sir Robert Walpole, who often employed him to find out the characters for politics of such as he wanted to know more of; and, by his acquaintance with the Ministers, an easy access was opened to him every where else. Such was his thirst for news and politics, that all other passions gave way to it: and it is a well-known and certain truth, for I heard him own it himself, on being asked whether it was fact, That on his being pitched upon to marry Sir Robert Walpole to his second lady, after the ceremony, on the Minister's asking him how he could gratify him for the favour he had just then conferred on him, Etough's disinterestedness and great curiosity were equally conspicuous, for he only asked Sir Robert to ascertain him of the truth of a certain fact, which he could resolve, and no one else: it regarded the late Lord Bolingbroke, whom he had heard had near made his peace with King George Ist. Sir Robert told him it was real fact; for that Lord had made a friend of the King's mistress, and she could do any thing with his Majesty. But however the father might like him, I know his son Mr. Horace Walpole had an invincible dislike to him and his character, which he clearly saw into while he was at Cambridge; where his tale-bearings and whisperings among the Heads, such as Dr. Whaley, Bishop Keen, Dr. Newcome of St. John's, Rooke of Christ's, &c. made him thoroughly contemptible: insomuch that he and Mr. Gray, while they were at College, about 1740, made the following verses upon his taking orders in our Church, and put under a caricature picture of him by Mr. Wm. Mason of Pembroke Hall.

Such Tophet was-so grinn'd the bawling fiend,
While frighten'd Prelates bow'd, and call'd him friend:
Our Mother Church, with half-averted sight,

Blush'd, as she blest her grisly proselyte.
Hosannas rung thro' Hell's tremendous borders,

And Satan's self had thoughts of taking Orders.

"In 1769 Mr. Gray of Pembroke having the sketch in his possession, gave it to Mr. Tyson of Bene't College, who in Nov. of that year engraved it, and gave me several copies. It is very

like him the feet and legs are too small. It would have been more like his figure, had it been drawn in a loose great coat, which he always wore, of a brown colour. I used often to meet him at Dr. Middleton's. In July 1769 I was mentioning him to Mr. Walpole, and he tried to recollect the above six verses, but could not recover them all: but Mr. Gray remembered them, and gave them to Mr. Tyson. Mr. Etough was violent and vehement to a great degree: bore an hostile hatred to any thing bordering on a Tory; and a Jacobite would fling him into an agony: he was remarkably abstemious, and I have heard very charitable. I met with a nephew of his at Lady Betty Germain's at Drayton in Northamptonshire about 1764, when I was there with Mr. Walpole, whose name was Etough, and who had married an upperservant, as I understood, or farmer's daughter, in that parish. He told me he was educated at Cambridge.

"Mr. Horace Walpole dining with me at Milton, Sunday, April 27, 1777, whither he came on purpose from Barton Mills, where he had been attending on his nephew, George Earl of Or ford, for above a week, as guardian and nearest relation, he being then seized with a frenzy for the second time, and had attempted to throw himself out of the window more than once: I say Mr. Walpole told me, that Mr. Etough's papers were in the hands of Archdeacon Plumptre, but that he had got one of them, viz. a character and account of Frederick Prince of Wales, having copied it from one in the possession of the late Earl of Leicester, who had purchased the original after Mr. Etough's death."

14. Thomas Ashton, Fellow of King's and Eton.

"Of Lancashire, had a brother of Trinity or St. John's: a great friend of Mr. Hor. Walpole till a rupture separated them : his picture however is still in the elegant Gothic gallery at Strawberry Hill. Mr. Walpole's interest procured him the Fellowship of Eton; and on a Living, viz. Hitcham, next to my parish of Burnham, being vaeant, the Bishop of London's son, Gibson, being then Rector of Bishopgate, a valuable one, but not suiting

his taste, and rather wanting an agreeable retirement, he proposed an exchange, in Bishop Sherlock's time, which was agreed to: but Gibson vacating it before the formalities of his possession were fully concluded, the Bishop was uneasy that Eton College took the advantage of his living.

"I am rather doubtful whether I have represented this fact as it ought to be. Dr. Ashton kept his London living to his death, where I have occasionally visited him. He was calculated for a large city parish, had a monstrous assurance, was a great scholar, an admirable preacher, and cheerful companion, but too much addicted to sneering and sarcasm: poor man, he suffered many years a tedious illness before his death, being helpless and confined by a stroke of palsy: he was a large, raw-boned man, and to all appearance equal to any attack. His mezzotinto print is extremely like him, prefixed to a volume of his sermons. I know not what family he left behind him, or whom he was married to.

"In Mr. Walpole's Fugitive Pieces, printed at Strawberry Hill, 1758, is at p. 6 an Epistle to him, then not in orders, dated at Florence, 1740.

"In Mr. Walpole's Edes Walpolianæ, printed at London, 1747, 4to. at p. 87 is a Sermon by him, preached at Houghton before the Earl of Orford, 1742, ON PAINTING, from Psalms, cxv. v. 5. They have mouths, but they speak not, &c. It is as fulsome a piece of flattery as Whaley's Poem on the same subject, printed in the same volume.”

15. Tho. Archer, Trin. Coll. 1608.

"Born at Bury St. Edmunds, 12 Aug. 1554, Fellow of Trinity College, inducted Rector of Houghton-Conquest and HoughtonGildable in Bedfordshire, 21 May, 1589, to which parishes he was a great benefactor. Admitted Chaplain to his near kinsman, Dr. John May, Bishop of Carlisle, Nov. 14, 1584, and on his death was admitted Chaplain, May 12, 1599, to Bishop Whitgift. On the 19th June, 1588, he was admitted Public Preacher of the University, being then Master of Arts of six years standing, * Qu? Editor.