Page:Cousins's Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.djvu/364

 352 Dictionary of English Literature

brought out an abridged Life and Times of Francis Bacon. He strongly combated the theory that B. was the author of Shake speare's plays. His death was caused by his being run over by a cab. He enjoyed the friendship of many of his greatest contem poraries, including Carlyle, Tennyson, and Fitzgerald.

SPEED, JOHN (1552 ?-i62g). Historian, b. at Farington, Cheshire, and brought up to the trade of a tailor, had a strong taste for history and antiquities, and wrote a History of Great Britain (1611), which was long the best in existence, in collecting material for which he had assistance from Cotton, Spelman, and other in vestigators. He also pub. useful maps of Great Britain and Ireland, and of various counties, etc. In 1616 appeared his Cloud of Wit-, nesses confirming. . . the truth of God's most holie Word. His maps were coll. and with descriptions pub. in 1611 as Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain.

SPEKE, J. H. (See under GRANT, J. A.)

SPELMAN, SIR HENRY (i564?-i64i). Historian and

antiquary, b. at Congham, Norfolk, studied at Camb., and entered Lincoln's Inn. He wrote valuable works on legal and ecclesiastical antiquities, including History of Sacrilege (pub. 1698), Glossarium Archceologicum (1626 and 1664), a glossary of obsolete law-terms, A History of the English Councils (1639), and Tenures by Knight-service (1641). His writings have furnished valuable material for subse quent historians. He sat in Parliament and on various commis sions, and in recompense of his labours was voted a grant of ^300.

SPENCE, JOSEPH (1699-1768). Anecdotist, b. at Kings- clere, Hants, and ed. at Winchester and Oxf., he entered the Church, and held various preferments, including a prebend at Durham, and was Prof, of Poetry at Oxf. He wrote an Essay on Pope's Odyssey, which gained for him the friendship of the poet, of whose conversa tion he made notes, collecting likewise anecdotes of him and of other celebrities which were pub. in 1820, and are of great value, inasmuch as they preserve much matter illustrative of the literary history of the 1 8th century which would otherwise have been lost.

SPENCER, HERBERT (1820-1903). Philosopher, b. at

Derby, the s. of a teacher, from whom, and from his uncle, mentioned below, he received most of his education. His immediate family circle was strongly Dissenting in its theological atmosphere, his /., originally a Methodist, having become a Quaker, while his mother remained a Wesleyan. At 13 he was sent to the care of his uncle, Thomas S., a clergyman, near Bath, but a Radical and anti-corn-law agitator. Declining a Univ. career he became a school assistant, but shortly after accepted a situation under the engineer of the London and Birmingham railway, in which he remained until the great railway crisis of 1846 threw him out of employment. Pre vious to this he had begun to write political articles in the Noncon formist ; he now resolved to devote himself to journalism, and in 1848 was appointed sub-ed. of the Economist. Thereafter he became more and more absorbed in the consideration of the problems of sociology and the development of the doctrine of evolution as ap-