Our Sexagenarian, as appears from his notes, was very frequently in his society, and though he expresses himself as greatly pleased and amused with his vivacity, his inexhaustible fund of anecdotes, his knowledge of the world, and it must be said of books also, indeed he knew something of every thing, yet he evidently felt no strong disposition to give him his esteem.
There was a man in the time of Gray, and of the same college with the Bard, whose name was Etough, or Etoph. He had been brought up among the most rigid Dissenters, but seeing better prospects before him in our Church establishment, he took orders. This man, by some means or other, had made himself acquainted with the secret history, connections, and particularities, of all the great families in the kingdom.
On account of this knowledge, though exceedingly disliked, and indeed despised, he was very much courted and invited to entertainments. Our friend Louis greatly resembled him. He was for some years resident abroad, in a situation which commanded respect, and in a place which all our young nobility, who make the tour of Europe, never fail to visit. He was necessarily introduced to their acquaintance, and thus in succession became informed of the more important circumstances involved in the history of their respective families.
This he turned to very good account, so good indeed, that his domestic expences were always on a very limited scale. The invitations he received to dinner, in the full season, were perpetual, and there were many considerable houses, at which a place was always left for him, without the formality of previous notice.
To the very last period of life, he retained his vivacity of intellect, and great activity of body. When turned of seventy, he played billiards with great spirit, and practised all the finesse of the Queue with considerable success.
It was whimsical enough, that never having acquired a sufficient knowledge of the English language, to read or converse in it without an offensive intermixture of his foreign idiom, he should have valuable preferment in the Church bestowed upon him. He had the good sense not to attempt any professional duties, and some ludicrous stories are told of the surprize and astonishment excited among his northern auditors, when he first appeared among them to take possession of his living.
He died rich, which indeed might be expected, for he saved much and spent little; independent of what he received from one noble family, his pension, and his living, he did not inherit less than twenty-four thousand pounds from two other personages of rank, to whom, for a continued series of years, he had paid assiduous and obsequious attention.
In his account of himself, he slurs over the circumstance of his being most affectionately received, and most generously entertained, by his relations in this country; but the fact is, on his arrival he went to the house of his uncle, who had retired from the business of a jeweller with a handsome fortune, and for many years resided in Leicester-square. When the subject of this article died, he left a niece, who had kept his house, but whether she was a daughter of this uncle above-mentioned, or not, was not known to the writer. Whoever she might be, he left her but a scanty provision.
Though frivolity and levity would better characterize him, than to call him a lover of science and philosophy, yet the book he wrote on the discoveries of the ancients, attributed to the moderns, and his edition of the works of Leibnitz, demonstrate him capable of profounder thinking, and evidently prove that he was well acquainted with books.