Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/457

 in the House of Lords or at the council-table. He was the butt of the satirists and caricaturists of the day. Sir C. H. Williams, in his 'New Ode to a Great Number of Great Men newly made' (Works, 1822, i. 139), thus describes him: See yon old, dull, important lord, Who at the long'd-for money-board Sits first, but does not lead; His younger brethren all things make; So that the Treasury's like a snake, And the tail moves the head. As speaker of the House of Commons Wilmington was much more successful, his solemn manner and sonorous voice helping him to secure the respect of the members. On ceremonial occasions he was especially effective, as his speech on returning the thanks of the house to the managers of the impeachment of the Earl of Macclesfield bears witness. His notions as to the duty of the speaker to maintain order in the house were, however, somewhat inadequate. According to Hatsell, it was 'reported of Sir Spencer Compton that when he was speaker he used to answer to a member who called upon him to make the house quiet, for that he had a right to be heard, "No, sir, you have a right to speak, but the house have a right to judge whether they will hear you"' (Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons, 1818, ii. 108). He was created a D.C.L. by the university of Oxford on 5 Aug. 1730. Thomson dedicated to him the poem of 'Winter,' which appeared alone in 1756, before the other parts of the 'Seasons.' It, however, attracted no regard from him until 'Aaron Hill awakened his attention by some verses addressed to Thomson and published in one of the newspapers, which censured the great for their neglect of ingenious men. Thomson then received a present of twenty guineas' (, Works, 1810, xi. 223). These verses of Hill's, ' addressed to Mr. James Thompson, on his asking my advice to what patron he should address his poem called "Winter,"' will be found in the 'Works of the late Aaron Hill' (1754), iii. 77-9. Young also dedicated his fourth satire to Compton when speaker of the House of Commons. Wilmington's one bon mot is still remembered, though the author's name is almost forgotten. It was he who said, in describing the Duke of Newcastle, that 'he always loses half an hour in the morning which he is running after the rest of the day without being able to overtake it.' Wilmington died unmarried on 2 July 1743, aged 70, and was buried at Compton Wynyates, Warwickshire. His titles became extinct on his death, and his estates passed by his will to his brother George, fourth earl of Northampton, whose great-granddaughter, Lady Elizabeth, in 1782 married Lord George Cavendish, afterwards Earl of Burlington. By this marriage the Wilmington estates passed into the possession of the Cavendish family. The barony of Wilmington was revived on 7 Sept. 1812, when the ninth earl of Northampton was raised to the rank of a marquis. Wilmington was a member of the Kit-Cat Club, and his portrait, painted by Kneller, was exhibited in the second loan collection of national portraits, 1867 (No. 122). It was engraved by Faber in 1734.  COMPTON, SPENCER JOSHUA ALWYNE, second (1790–1851), second son of Charles Compton, ninth earl and first marquis of Northampton, by Mary, only daughter of Joshua Smith, M.P. for Devizes, was born at Stoke Park, Wiltshire, one of the residences of his maternal grandfather, on 1 Jan. 1790. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. 1810, and was created LL.D. in 1835.

On 26 May 1812, soon after the assassination of Spencer Perceval, Compton was chosen to succeed him as the member for Northampton, and sat for that place until the dissolution of 29 Feb. 1820.

His immediate relatives were all of high tory politics, but he soon showed an honest independence, and was often called impracticable and crotchety. He was in favour of direct rather than of indirect taxation, and incurred the unpopularity of opposing the repeal of the property tax in 1816. He soon after associated himself with Wilberforce and the band of men who devoted themselves to the cause of Africa. He was also connected with Sir James Mackintosh as a criminal law reformer, and his conduct on the case of Parga, on the Alien Act, and on the amendments which he proposed in the Seditious Meetings Act in 1819 showed how far he 