629 



SPEED, JOHN. 



SPENCE, WILLIAM. 



630 



children as well as students of art. His best known works perhaps 

 are his ' Zwblf Radirungen zutn gestiefelten Kater ' (' Twelve etchings 

 to Puss in Boots'), 4to, 1843 a work of which there is an English 

 edition ; and his ' Fabeln fur Kinder ' (' Fables for Children '), 2 vols. 

 12mo, each containing 50 plates. But he has also published numerous 

 other designs, either etchings or drawings on stone ; and though he is 

 most successful in his original sketches of animals, many of his litho- 

 graphic prints consist of landscapes and arabesques, or of copies 

 from the works of other artists. 



SPEED, JOHN, an English historical writer of the reigns of 

 Elizabeth and James I., was born at Farrington in Cheshire, in 1542, 

 but came early in life to London, where the rest of his days were 

 spent. He was brought up to the business of a tailor, and seems to 

 have supported himself by it during the greater part of his life, for he 

 does not appear as an author before the year 1608, when he was in the 

 sixty-sixth year of his age. He was however, during that time, 

 amassing treasures of curious historical knowledge, the possession of 

 which brought him into the acquaintance of Sir Fulk Qrevile, who 

 drew him forth from his obscurity, and, it is supposed, afforded him 

 the means of publishing the large works of which he is the author or 

 editor. The first of these is a collection of maps of the English and 

 Welsh counties, with plans of cities, and engravings of various 

 antiquities, said to have been first published in 1608; but when 

 formed into the work entitled ' The Theatre of the Empire of Great 

 Britain, printing an exact geography of the Kingdoms of England, 

 Scotland, and Ireland, and the isles adjoining. With the shires, 

 hundreds, cities, and shire-towns, within the Kingdom of England, 

 divided and described by John Speed,' folio, bearing the date of 1611. 

 In this work he owed much to the labours of Camden, Christopher 

 Saxton, and John Norden. There have been several editions of it 

 The other work of Speed's is a history or chronicle of England, 

 entitled, ' The History of Great Britain under the Conquests of the 

 Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans,' originally published in 1611. 

 In this work are engravings of coins, and also of the great seals of 

 England, then for the first time published ; but on the whole it is a 

 compilation of no great merit. He was also the compiler of a set of 

 Tables of Scripture Genealogy, comprising much of the genealogical 

 information contained in the sacred books, exhibited in the form of 

 pedigrees ; and several theological works, as ' The Cloud of Witnesses,' 

 &c., of small value are ascribed to him. He died July 28, 1629, and 

 was buried in the church of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, where a monu- 

 ment was raised to his memory. By his wife Susannah, to whom he 

 was married for fifty-seven years, he had twelve sons and six 

 daughters. 



SPELMAN, SIR HENRY, died 1641, one of the most distinguished 

 of the band of English antiquaries who lived in the reigns of James I. 

 and his successor ; the friend of Camden, Cotton, Selden, Dodsworth, 

 Dewes, Dugdale, and others. He was born in 1562, and was the son 

 of a gentleman of ancient family at Congham in Norfolk. He was 

 educated at Walsingham in that county; whence he removed to 

 Trinity College, Cambridge, and at the age of eighteen was entered of 

 Lincoln's Inn, with the design of studying the law. Instead however 

 of proceeding to the practice of the law as a profession, he determined 

 early in life to devote himself to historical and antiquarian research, 

 the study of ancient manuscripts and records, with a particular view 

 to two objects, the elucidation of the history and antiquities of the 

 county of Norfolk, and the investigation of the origin of the laws and 

 institutions of the country. He did not keep himself wholly uncon- 

 nected with public affairs, serving the office of sheriff of his county, 

 and acting as a commissioner for determining disputed claims to lands 

 and manors in Ireland. For his various services he received the 

 honour of knighthood from James I., who is said to have held him in 

 great esteem. But in 1612 he withdrew from all public employment, 

 and'settled in London as the most favourable field in which to pursue 

 his researches ; and it was not till this time, when he was fifty years 

 of age, that he began to bring before the public any of those works, 

 the result of his long studies, which are the secure basis of his fame. 

 The earliest of them is his treatise 'De non Temerandis Ecclesiis,' the 

 object of which is to inculcate respect for the property belonging to 

 the church. This involved him in controversies, in which he appears 

 as the author of two tracts in defence of the principles of his work. 

 In 1626 appeared the first part, which is all that he himself published, 

 of a most valuable glossary of terms which occur in records and 

 other ancient historical writings. This work he entitled ' Glossarium 

 Archaiologicum ; ' but it contains only as far as the letter L. The 

 work was however completed from his manuscript after his death, 

 partly by bis son, but principally by Sir William Dugdale, under 

 whose superintendence it was published. His other great work he 

 lefc in like manner incomplete. This is his ' Concilia, Decreta, Leges, 

 Constitutiones in Re Ecclesiastica Orbis Britannici,' of which the first 

 volume was printed in 1639, and the second in 1664. Another post- 

 humous work is his ' Villare Anglicauum,' 1656, a work of no great 

 value. In 1698 there was printed at Oxford a folio volume entitled 

 ' Reliquiae Spelmannianse/ or his posthumous work relating to the 

 laws and antiquities of England. Among his manuscripts ha left one 

 which he entitled ' Archaismus Graphicus,' being a collection of the 

 contrasts which he had observed in the old writings, with the expla- 

 nation of them. This manuscript has been often transcribed, and is 



useful to those who have occasion to read early writings. He died in 

 1641, at the house of his son-in-law Sir Ralph Wbitfield, in the 

 Barbican ; and his body was interred, by the special order of 

 Charles I., in Westminster Abbey, near the monument of Camden. 



His son, Sir John Spelman, inherited the taste and a portion of the 

 learning of his father. He is the author of a ' Critical Life of King 

 Alfred/ fol, Oxford, 1678. Sir Henry's youngest son, Clement Spel- 

 man, practised the law, and on the restoration of Charles II. was made 

 a baron of the Exchequer. He wrote some pieces on government, and 

 a long preface to his father's ' De Non Temerandis Ecclesiis.' He died 

 in 1679. 



SPENCE, JOSEPH, was born at Kingsclere, Hampshire, April 25, 

 1699. His father was rector of Winnal, near Winchester, at which 

 school Spence was educated, and became fellow of New College, 

 Oxford, in the year 1722. In 1728, having entered into orders, he 

 was chosen professor of poetry, and was presented to the rectory of 

 Birchanger, in Essex. At the close of the year 1730, he accompanied 

 Charles, Earl of Middlesex, afterwards Duke of Dorset, on a tour 

 through France and Italy, and returned in July 1733, having been in 

 his absence re-elected professor of poetry. His essay on Pope's trans- 

 lation of the ' Odyssey,' published some years before, had introduced 

 him to the notice of that poet, with whom he became very intimate, 

 and published, at his request, in 1736, Sackville's tragedy of ' Gor- 

 boduc,' with a prefatory account of the author. In 1739 he made 

 another tour to the Continent, with Henry, earl of Lincoln, afterwards 

 Duke of Newcastle, and returned to England in 1742. In the same 

 year he was presented by his college to the rectory of Great Horwood, 

 Bucks, and succeeded to the vacant professorship of modern history. 

 In 1747 he published his 'Polymetis; or an Enquiry concerning the 

 Agreement between the Works of the Roman Poets and the Remains 

 of the Antient Artists, being an attempt to illustrate them mutually 

 from each other :' the sale of which work was very profitable to him. 

 In 1754 he was made a prebendary of Durham cathedral. 



The latter years of Spence were passed in retirement in the country, 

 where he indulged his favourite taste for gardening. He was drowned 

 it is believed accidentally August 20, 1768. Johnson (' Life of Pope ') 

 has observed of him with truth, that he was "a man whose learning was 

 not very great, and whose mind was not very powerful. His criticism 

 however was commonly just; what he thought he thought rightly; 

 and his remarks were recommended by his coolness and candour." The 

 ' Polymetis' has been considered worthy of some discussion by Lessing 

 in his 'Laocoon,' who shows that the author has not distinguished with 

 sufficient accuracy the boundaries of the several provinces of art, and 

 has consequently attempted to make the range and power of the sculptor 

 exactly commensurate with that of the poet in treatment and choice 

 of subject. The design however of such a work is valuable, and, with 

 the more exact knowledge and extensive views of modern archaeology, 

 might be successfully carried out. 



Spence also callected a volume of ' Anecdotes of Books and Men,' to 

 which the biographies of Pope are much indebted for records of his 

 conversations. It was published by Malone, and also by Singer in 

 1820, with a Life of the author, and many letters from distinguished 

 contemporaries and friends. This correspondence exhibits Spence's 

 private character in a favourable light, and shows him to have been of 

 an affectionate and benevolent disposition, and of simple manners. A 

 few smaller publications are noticed in the above-mentioned biography. 

 See also Nichols's ' Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century,' ii. 

 373-7. 



* SPENCE, WILLIAM, a celebrated living entomologist, whose name 

 is inseparably connected with that of Kirby in the production of one 

 of the most classical works on natural historyin the English language, 

 entitled, ' An Introduction to Entomology, or Elements of the Natural 

 History of Insects.' [KiRBY, REV. WILLIAM.] In the early part of 

 his life Mr. Spence was engaged in business at Hull, and here it was 

 that he first acquired a taste for the pursuit of natural history which 

 led to his acquaintance with the Rev. Mr. Kirby. This took place in 

 1805 by the mutual exchange of entomological specimens. The 

 acquaintance thus begun ripened into the warmest friendship, and no 

 two men perhaps ever pursued the same field of inquiry together so long, 

 remaining so firmly attached as Kirby and Spence. Previous to the pub- 

 lication of the Entomology, Mr. Spence published several papers on 

 entomology, and also since, amongst others, the following: 'A 

 Monograph of the British Species of the genus Choleva,' Linnsean 

 Trans., vol. xi. ; ' On the Disease in Turnips, termed in Holdernesse 

 Fingers and Toes/ Hull, 1812 ; ' Observations relative to Dr. Carus'a 

 discovery of the Circulation of Blood in Insects/ Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. 

 iii. ; ' On some Peculiarities in the Construction of the Nets of the 

 Epeira diadema,' Ibid., vol. v. 



During the latter part of his life Mr. Spence has lived in London, 

 and has taken an active part in the proceedings of the societies 

 devoted to the cultivation of natural history. He is a Fellow of the 

 Royal, Linnaean, aud Entomological societies ; of the latter society he 

 was formerly president. During the war at the beginning of this 

 century he sat in parliament, and was distinguished for maintaining 

 that Britain might become independent of foreign produce. He also 

 wrote a pamphlet on the same subject, which gained much attention 

 at the time of its publication. Mr. Spence has recently edited a 

 seventh edition of the ' Introduction to Entomology," which embraces 



