Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/366

 and Rome, from the Christian fathers, the works of Josephus, or from the Bible itself. Spencer professed that his object was 'to clear the Deity from arbitrary and fantastic humour,' but it was inevitable that his orthodoxy should be questioned. Among his earliest adverse critics may be mentioned Hermann Witsius in his 'Aegyptiaca' in 1683, Joannes Wigersma, Ibertus Fennema, Andreas Kempfer, Joannes Meyer, John Edwards (1637-1716) [q. v.], and John Woodward [q. v.] Among later writers Spencer's chief antagonists were William Jones of Nayland (1726-1800) [q. v.], and Archbishop Magee,who rebuked Warburton for defending Spencer against Witsius. The latest works on comparative religion, such as J. Wellhausen's 'History of Israel' (1878) and C. P. Tiele's 'Histoire Compared des Anciennes Religions de l'Egypte et des Peuples Sémitiques,' develop and extend the lines traced by Spencer two centuries ago. A second edition of Spencer's work appeared at Cambridge in 1727, 4to (revised by Leonhard Chappelow), and another at Tübingen, 1732, 2 vols. 8vo.

Spencer also wrote 'A Discourse concerning Prodigies, wherein the vanety of Presages by them is reprehended, and their true and proper Ends asserted and vindicated,' London, 1663, 4to; 2nd edit., 'to which is added a short Treatise concerning Vulgar Prophecies,' London, 1665, 8vo.

A portrait of Spencer, engraved by Vertue, is prefixed to the treatise 'De Legibus Hebraeorum.' There is also a portrait in Masters's 'History of Corpus Christi College.'

[Addit. MSS. 5807 pp. 23, 24, 39, 40, 123, 5843 pp. 292, 294, 5880 f. 19; Baker's MS. 26, p. 281; Bentham's Ely, i. 237; Biogr. Brit.; Bowes's Cat. of Cambridge Books; Bromley's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, p. 183; Calamy's Abridgment of Baxter, 1713, ii. 118; Clay's Hist. of Landbeach, p. 115; Cooper's Memorials of Cambridge, i. 149; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits; Hasted's Kent, iii. 9; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy); Locke's Letters, 1708, p. 444; Masters's Hist. of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, p. 163 and index, and also edit, p. 193; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. iv. 281; Richardson's Athenae Cantabr.; Dawson Turner's Sale Cat. p. 42; Warton's Life of Bathurst, p. 105.]

 SPENCER, JOHN CHARLES, and third  (1782–1845), eldest son of George John, second earl Spencer [q. v.], by his wife Lavinia, eldest daughter of Charles Bingham, first earl of Lucan, was born on 30 May 1782 at Spencer House, St. James's. Sir Robert Cavendish Spencer [q. v.] was his brother. He inherited none of his mother's brilliance and attractiveness. Owing to his father's political and his mother's social engagements, he was in his early years left much to the care of servants. It was a Swiss footman of his mother who taught him to read, and when, at the age of eight, he was first sent to school at Harrow, he was a shy, awkward, and ill-grounded boy, though fairly intelligent, and a lover of animal and country life. He was placed in Dr. Bromley's house, and passed through the different forms, popular but undistinguished. His schoolfellows included Frederick John Robinson (afterwards Lord Ripon), Byron, Viscount Duncannon (afterwards Lord Bessborough), William Ponsonby (afterwards Lord de Mauley), and Charles Pepys (afterwards Lord Cottenham). In 1798, in spite of his own desire to enter the navy, it was decided that he should go to Cambridge, and, having wasted some two years with a private tutor, he went up to Trinity College in January 1800. A great deal of time and still more money he spent in hunting and racing, but, thanks to his mother's entreaty and the teaching of his tutor, Allen (afterwards bishop of Ely), he managed to figure more than creditably in his college examinations—he was first in June 1801—and gained a self-confidence, a habit of industry and exactness, and a command over figures which afterwards proved of the utmost value to him. None the less, he always lamented his early removal from the university and his imperfect literary education. He went down in June 1802, graduating M.A. in the same year (Grad. Cantabr. 1800–84, p. 9). His debts embarrassed his father, and his own clumsy manners and want of accomplishments made him feel himself out of place at Spencer House. The opportunity of the peace of Amiens was taken to send him to Italy and France; but he refused to go into foreign society, was bored by works of art, and came home no more polished than he went, and unable even to speak French.

Thus equipped he entered public life, coming into parliament for Okehampton in April 1804 as one of the supporters of Pitt. For some time he rarely voted and never spoke. On Pitt's death in 1806, urged on by his father, he stood for the vacant seat for the university of Cambridge against Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, third marquis of Lansdowne [q. v.], chancellor of the exchequer, and Lord Palmerston. He was second at the poll. Thereupon he was elected for St. Albans, and sat for that place till the general election of November 1806, when he contested Northamptonshire. Returned at the head of the poll, he held the seat