Dear Etough, I cannot forbear any longer to acknowledge the many favours from you lately; your last was the 8th of this month.  His Majesty’s speedy arrival among his British subjects is very desirable and necessary, whatever may be the chief motive for his making haste.  As to Spain, I have from the beginning told my friends, when they asked, both in town and country, that I was at all apprehensive that Spain would join with France against us; for this plain reason, because it could not possibly be the interest of the Spaniards to do it for should the views of the French take place in making a line of forts from the Mississippi to Canada, and of being masters of the whole of that extent of country, Peru and Mexico, and Florida, would be in more danger from them than the British settlements in America.

Mr. Fowle has made me a visit for a few days, and communicated to me your two pieces relating to my brother and Lord Bolingbroke, and I think you do great justice to them both in their very different and opposite characters; but you will give me leave to add with respect to Lord Orford, there are several mistakes and misinformations, of which I am persuaded I could convince you by conversation, but my observations are not proper for a letter.  Of this more fully when I see you, but when that will be I can’t yet tell.  I am ever most affectionately yours, etc.

(606) The Rev. Henry Etough, of Pembroke-hall, Cambridge.  He received his education among the Dissenters, and Archbishop Secker and Dr.  ’Birch were among his schoolfellows.  Through the interest of Sir Robert Walpole, he was presented to the rectory of Therfield, in Hertfordshire; where he died, in his seventieth year, in August 1757.-E.

273 Letter 148 To Richard Bentley, Esq.  Strawberry Hill, September 18, 1755.

My dear sir, After an expectation of six weeks, I have received a letter from you, dated August 23d.  Indeed I did not impute any neglect to you; I knew it arose from the war; but Mr. S. * * * * tells me the packets will now be more regular.—­Mr. S * * * tells me!—­What, has he been in town, or at Strawberry?—­No; but I have been at Southampton:  I was at the Vine; and on the arrival of a few fine days, the first we have had this summer, after a deluge, Mr. Chute persuaded me to take a jaunt to Winchester and Netley Abbey, with the latter of which he is very justly enchanted.  I was disappointed in Winchester:  it is a paltry town, and small:  King Charles the Second’s house is the worst thing I ever saw of Sir Christopher Wren, a mixture of a town-hall and an hospital; not to mention the bad choice of the situation in such a country; it is all ups that should be downs.  I talk to you as supposing that you never have been at Winchester, though I suspect you have, for the entrance of the cathedral is the very idea of that of Mabland.  I like the smugness of the cathedral, and the profusion of the most beautiful Gothic tombs.