XLbc JBnvls Spencer 375 



him.' The secret of that influence lay in the fact that, 

 as even his political opponents admitted, he was ' the 

 very model and type of the English gentleman, ardently 

 desiring the good of his country, without the slightest 

 personal ambition, large-minded, unaffected, sensible.' 



His end was worthy of him. In the winter of 1845, 

 when he was acting with Lord George Bentinck as one 

 of the stewards of Doncaster Races, he had a serious 

 seizure of gout in the stomach. He knew that he was 

 doomed, and awaited death quite calmly. He asked his 

 brother Frederick to read over to him his last will and 

 testament, and observing that ' Fred ' was affected, he 

 said cheerfully : ' Don't fret for me, my good fellow, 

 I'm perfectly happy ; and the happiness I have enjoyed 

 in this life makes me hope that it will be granted to me 

 in the next.' Brave old Pagan ! Was there ever a more 

 delightfully unorthodox or more illogically optimistic 

 view of man's claim to felicity in a future state ! 



His brother. Admiral Frederick, the fourth Earl, was 

 a bluff sailor, with not much taste for sport or politics, 

 but with all the old family instinct of hospitality, and 

 that keen interest in his estates which has made the 

 Spencers for generations such excellent landlords. 



John Poyntz Spencer, the fifth and present Earl, was 

 born on the 27th of October 1835, and there are one or 

 two octogenarian veterans still living who remember 

 a certain day in Harleston Park, when a little 

 frightened, shrinking four-year-old boy, on a pony led 

 by a groom, was introduced to the field as Master Jack 

 Spencer, and was formally ' blooded ' by Charles Payne, 

 the then huntsman of the Pytchley. Who would ever 

 have dreamed that the timid, nervous child, who clung 

 to the hand of his governess, was destined to develop 



