631 



SPENCER, EAUL. 



SPENER, PHILIP JAKOB. 



632 



the matter of the first two volumes of the original work, which was 

 published in four. This work comprises all the matter of the previous 

 ones on the habits and economy of insects, and was published by Mr. 

 Spenco in a cheap form with the wish to make the science he has 

 cultivated so ardently through his life more popular. It also contains 

 an appendix from the pen of Mr. Speuce, giving an account of his 

 friendship with Mr. Kirby, and a detailed history of the production 

 of their great work on the Natural History of Insects. 



SPENCER, JOHN CHARLES SPENCER, THIRD EARL, will 

 be best remembered by the title of courtesy, VISCOUNT ALTHORP, which 

 he bore from his birth, through, it may be said, the whole of his public 

 life, and until within a few years of hia death. He was the eldest son 

 of George John, second Earl Spencer, and Lavinia, eldest daughter of 

 Charles Binghnm, first Earl of Lucan ; and was born on the 30th of 

 May 1782. Like his father, who was distinguished for Ms love of 

 literature and his munificent expenditure in the collecting of rare 

 books, he was educated at Harrow ; whence he was sent to Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, where he took the honorary degree of M.A. 

 in 1802. 



In April or May 1804, towards the close of the second session of 

 the second Imperial Parliament, Viscount Althorp entered the House 

 of Commons as one of the members for Oakhampton. A vacancy 

 appears to have been made for him by the resignation of James 

 Strange, Esq. On the llth of February 1806, on the formation of 

 the Whig ministry of Mr. Fox and Lord Grenville, in which his father 

 Earl Spencer took office as Secretary of State for the H ome Depart- 

 ment, Lord Althorp was appointed one of the Junior Lords of the 

 Treasury ; and this appointment having vacated his seat he offered 

 himself for the University of Cambridge, which had been represented 

 by the late premier, William Pitt ; the other candidates being Lord 

 Henry Petty (now Marquis of Lansdowne), who was the new Chancellor 

 of the Exchequer, and the present Lord Palmerston. The votes were, 

 for Lord Henry Petty 331, for Lord Althorp 135, for Lord Palmerston 

 128. To the next parliament, which met in December 1806, Lord 

 Althorp was returned at the head of the poll for the county of North- 

 ampton, after a severe contest. The numbers were, for his lordship, 

 2085; for the other member, William Ralph Cartwright, Esq. 1990; 

 for Sir William Langham, Bart, (the defeated candidate), 1381. After 

 this^his lordship continued to be returned for Northamptonshire to 

 every parliament down to the passing of the Reform Bill. In the first 

 Reformed Parliament, which met in January 1833, he sat as one of the 

 members for the southern division of that county. 



Lord Althorp, of course, lost his seat at the Treasury Board when 

 the Grenville administration was dissolved in March 1807; nor did 

 he again hold office till the accession of Lord Grey and his friends to 

 power in November 1830. During all this interval, although he did 

 not come forward in debate so frequently as some other members, he 

 was regarded as cue of the steadiest supporters of the Opposition in 

 the House of Commons; and, while he was making his way to the 

 highest place in the confidence of his party, there was no man on 

 either side of the House whom the public generally held in greater 

 respect for patriotism and freedom from the narrowness and rancour 

 of faction. Yet he was no half-and-half politician. On all the great 

 questions of the day he took a decided part; and on most of the 

 occasions on which his party made a stand against the government, he 

 went as far with them as any other. In 1817, for instance, we find 

 him supporting an address to the throne for a reduction of the number 

 of the Lords of the Admiralty, and opposing the suspension of the 

 Habeas Corpus Act, the maintenance of so large a standing army in 

 time of peace, the continuation of the Alien Act, and the additional 

 grant to the Royal Dukes ; in 1819 moving for an inquiry into the 

 State of the Nation; in 1823 moving for a repeal of the Foreign 

 Enlistment Bill, and opposing the renewal of the Irish Insurrection 

 Act; in 1824 moving for a Committee of Inquiry into the general 

 etate of Ireland; in 1825 opposing the Suppression of the Catholic 

 Association; in 1828 moving the first reading of the bill to repeal the 

 Test and Corporation Acts, and opposing the grant of 20001. per annum 

 to the family of the late Mr. Canning. 



Lord Althorp was also prominent for several years, about this period, 

 in a series of economical attacks upon the Tory administration, and 

 his house was the resort of a powerful section of the Whig party, who 

 considered him their leader in the House of Commons. There were 

 few questions of public importance, over and above those already 

 mentioned, in which he did not take a practical share ; and his sound 

 judgment, under all the vicissitudes and excitement of Parliamentary 

 affairs, amply justified the confidence and attachment with which he 

 was regarded by the party. There was about him, indeed, so much 

 reality of purpose, such unostentatious manners, a bearing and sim- 

 plicity so characteristic of the English nation, that a few sentences 

 from him were equivalent to eloquent orations from less consistent 

 statesmen ; and when he left politics, he was not less in charity with 

 all men than they were in charity with him ; ' Honest Lord Althorp ' 

 was the current phrase by which his lordship was recognised by the 

 House of Commons and the public for many years. 



In November 1827, the Whig section of the Goderich cabinet fixed 

 upon Lord Althorp to be Chairman of a Committee of the House of 

 Commons, which it was proposed to appoint to take into consideration 

 the general state of the national finances. But it was defeated, after 



a communication had been made to Lord Althorp, and hia lordship 

 had signified bis conditional acceptance of the intended nomination, 

 by the opposition of Mr. Berries, the chancellor of the Exchequer. 

 This affair led to the resignation of their offices both by Mr. Herries, 

 and Mr. Huskisson, secretary for the colonies, and to the breaking up 

 of the administration on the 8th of January 1828. 



On the accession to power of the Grey administration in November 

 1830, Lord Althorp was appointed chancellor of the Exchequer. His 

 position, and the sound ability which he evinced in the management 

 of economical questions, with the universal confidence in his integrity, 

 made him the ministerial leader in the House of Commons. No man 

 probably had ever filled the latter post who possessed less of the gift 

 of oratory ; but the clearheadedness and sound sense of Lord Althorp 

 were considered amply sufficient to make up for that deficiency. Nor 

 were the expectations of his friends disappointed. The task of carry- 

 ing through the House both the Reform Bill and the Poor Law 

 Amendment Bill devolved principally upon him ; and not only the 

 candour and patience and complete command of temper (often in very 

 trying circumstances) which he never failed to evince, but his mastery 

 of the details of both measures, the readiness and accuracy of his 

 recollection, and even the talent of exposition and- advocacy which he 

 displayed, produced a general conviction that the difficult work he had 

 undertaken could hardly, looking to all considerations, have been 

 placed in better hands. 



The appointment of Lord Althorp to a high ministerial office in the 

 House of Commons was attended with the serious drawback, that his 

 father, Earl Spencer, having already attained to the age of seventy-two, 

 Lord Althorp was very liable to bs soon and suddenly called away 

 both from the House of Commons and from his office, which could 

 only be held by a member of that House. The death of Lord Spc-ncer, 

 which took place on the 10th of November 1834, by occasioning ihia 

 change, broke up the ministry. [WILLIAM IV.] When the adminis- 

 tration of Sir Robert Peel and theOuke of Wellington, which succeeded, 

 was obliged to resign in April following, and the Whigs came again 

 into power under the premiership of Lord Melbourne, Lord Althorp, 

 now Earl Spencer, was, as well as Lord Broughauj, left out of the new 

 cabinet. It was understood that he declined to take office again ; and 

 indeed that he had been reluctantly induced to resume the chan- 

 cellorship of the exchequer after giving in his resignation when Lord 

 Grey finally retired in July of the preceding year. There can be no 

 doubt that in losing him, the remnant of the original Reform cabinet, 

 now deprived also of Lord Durham, Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham, 

 Lord Ripou, the Duke of Richmond, Lord Carlisle, Earl Grey, and 

 Lord Brougham, lost one of its chief stays, notwithstanding that Lord 

 Lansdowne, Lord Melbourne, Lord Palmerston, Mr. Grant, Lord 

 Auckland, Lord Holland, and Lord John Russell still remained. 



Earl Spencer had always been strongly attached to agricultural 

 pursuits ; and now that he was not only relieved from official occupa- 

 tion, but had nearly withdrawn altogether from politics and public 

 life, he devoted his greater leisure with more eagerness than ever to 

 practical farming, the rearing of cattle, the patronage of agricultural 

 associations, and whatever promised to advance his favourite science. 

 For many years president of the Smithfield Cattle Club, he in the 

 course of his address to its members in 1837, suggested the formation 

 of the Royal Agricultural Society ; and on its formation he was chosen 

 its president, 1838-39, and again in 1844. He was also foremost in the 

 formation and operations of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, of 

 which he was president in 1843. 



Lord Spencer was one of the original members of the Roxburghe 

 Club (for the reprinting of rare ai:d curious tracts), of which his father 

 was the first president. He was also vice-chairman of the council of 

 the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; and he was a 

 liberal contributor to the fund raised for the ' Biographical Dictionary ' 

 which the Society commenced. Lord Brougham dedicated to him his 

 'Discourse on Natural Theology,' published in 1835, in an address in 

 which he says, " I inscribe the fruits of those studies to you .... 

 because you have devoted much of your time to such inquiries are 

 beyond most men sensible of their importance .... and had even 

 formed the design of giving to the world your thoughts upon the 

 subject." Lord Brougham's ' Dialogues on Instinct,' first published 

 in his 'Supplement to Paley's Natural Theology,' in 1839, are also 

 supposed to be carried on with Lord Althorp, neither whose political 

 nor agricultural pursuits, he says, had " ever at any time prevented 

 him from cultivating a sound philosophy, in the study of which much 

 of his leisure is always consumed." 



Lord Spencer died at his seat of Wiseton Hall, in Nottinghamshire, 

 on the 1st of October 1845. He had married, on the 14th of April 

 1814, Esther, only daughter and heiress of Richard Ackloni, Esq., of 

 Wiseton; but she died on the llth of June 1S18 without issue; and 

 his lordship was succeeded in the peerage by his next surviving brother, 

 Frederick. 



SPENER, PHILIP JAKOB, one of the most active reformers of 

 the Protestant Church, and the founder of the sect of Pietists in 

 Germany, was born on the 13th of January 1635, at Rappoltstein in 

 Alsace (now in the department of Haut-Rhin in France), where his 

 father was counsellor and registrar to the last independent Count von 

 Rappoltstein. He received his early education from the chaplain of 

 the countess, who was his godmother, and took much interest in him. 



