Joseph Spence

Joseph Spence (1699-1768). Engraving by George Vertue (1683-1756), after Isaac Wood (1688-1752). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Joseph Spence
Born	April 28 1699(1699-Template:MONTHNUMBER-28) Kingsclere, Hampshire
Died	August 20 1768(1768-Template:MONTHNUMBER-20) (aged 69) Byfleet, Surrey
Body discovered	in the ornamental waters of his garden at Byfleet
Resting place	St Mary's, Byfleet
Nationality	British
Education	Eton College, Winchester College
Alma mater	New College, Oxford
Occupation	Historian
Title	Oxford Professor of Poetry
Term	1728-1738

Rev. Joseph Spence (28 April 1699 - 20 August 1768) was an English poet and a literary critic, historian, and anecdotist, best known for his Anecdotes of Mr. Pope, an invaluable resource for historians of 18th-century English literature.

Life

Overview

Spence was born at Kingsclere, Hants, and educated at Winchester and Oxford. He entered the Church, and held various preferments, including a prebend at Durham, and was professor of poetry at Oxford. He wrote an Essay on Pope's Odyssey, which gained for him the friendship of the poet, of whose conversation he made notes, collecting likewise anecdotes of him and of other celebrities which were published in 1820 as Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men: Collected from the conversation of Mr. Pope and other eminent persons of his time, and are of great value, inasmuch as they preserve much matter illustrative of the literary history of the 18th century which would otherwise have been lost.

Youth and education

Spence was born at Kingsclere in Hampshire on 25 April 1699, the son of Joseph Spence, rector of Winnal in the same county.

At an early age "he was taken under the protection of Mr. Fawkener, an opulent relation." Fawkener provided for his education at Eton, where he did not continue long, and Winchester, where in 1715 he was elected, at the reputed age of 14, a scholar.

He matriculated from Magdalen Hall, Oxford, on 11 April 1717 (at the reputed age of 16), but did not go up until admitted as a scholar or probationary fellow at New College on 22 April 1720. On 30 April 1722, he received a full fellowship, and earned a B.A degree on 9 March 1724 and an M.A. on 2 November 1727. Spence was ordained in the Oxford diocese on 5 June 1726.

Career

Spence had in 1726 published dialogues on Alexander Pope's translation of The Odyssey (An Essay on Pope's Odyssey: In which some particular beauties and blemishes of that work are considered,’ London and Oxford, 1726, 8vo), which probably procured him the office of professor of poetry in the following year "on the first day he became capable of it." This was on 11 July 1728, when he succeeded Thomas Warton. He was elected in 1733, for a 2nd term of 5 years. Spence, so far as can be ascertained, did not deliver any lectures. In 1728 he had obtained the small rectory of Birchanger in Essex, "where he indulged his natural inclination for gardening."

His essay on the Odyssey had befriended him with Pope, and enabled him to begin making those notes of the conversation of Pope and his circle for which literary history stands deeply indebted to him. A favorable mention of James Thomson in his essay had been of great service to the author of the Seasons’ who became his intimate friend. His kindliness was also shown by the interest he took in Stephen Duck, the peasant poet, for whom he procured the living of Byfleet in Surrey.

Amiable and high-principled, Spence was in request as a companion for young men of rank on continental tours, and successively accompanied Charles Sackville, earl of Middlesex (afterwards 2nd Duke of Dorset), Mr. Trevor, and Henry Fiennes Clinton, 9th earl of Lincoln and afterwards 2nd duke of Newcastle-under-Lyme. In honor of his 1st pupil he reprinted, at Pope's suggestion, his ancestor's tragedy of Gorboduc, with an introductory ‘Memoir’ (1736). On his 3rd and last tour (1739–1742) he made the acquaintance of Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu and of Horace Walpole. On his return in 1742 he was presented by his college to the living of Great Horwood in Buckinghamshire, and appointed regius professor of modern history at Oxford, in all probability another academical sinecure.

Spence had been for some years engaged in preparing his Polymetis, a treatise on classical mythology, as illustrated by ancient works of art and Latin writers. His collections for the book were commenced in 1732 under the title of ‘Noctes Florentinæ.’ Polymetis; or, An enquiry concerning the agreement between the works of the Roman poets and the remains of the antient artists, was published in folio with numerous plates in 1747, and, although severely criticised for its total neglect of Greek authors, brought its author 1,500l. A 4th edition appeared in 1777, and an abridgment in 1802. Like the Essay on the Odyssey, it is in the form of dialogue. Although inadequate from the 1st, and long ago superseded, it remains an agreeable book, owing to the urbanity of its old-fashioned scholarship, the justice of some incidental observations, and its affluent stores of quotation; and, as an intellectual if heterogeneous banquet, may be compared with the Deipnosophists of Athenæus. Gibbon speaks of its "taste and learning."

In 1749 Spence was presented by his former pupil, Lord Lincoln, with a house at Byfleet in Surrey; a relative of another travelling companion, Bishop Richard Trevor, gave him a prebend at Durham in 1754; and he chiefly divided his time between these residences, making amends to his parishioners at Great Horwood for his long absences by the liberality of his benefactions. Gardening continued to be his favorite recreation; he also made several tours in England.

Polymetis remained Spence's only considerable contribution to classical scholarship; but in 1757 he communicated an "Account of some Antiquities at Herculaneum" to the Royal Society, and a year before his death he edited the Remarks and Dissertations on Virgil (1768) of his friend Edward Holdsworth.

His generosity towards all kinds of persons is warmly eulogised, and he continued to be a friend to struggling authors, especially to Dodsley before his prosperous bookselling days. An early friend, Christopher Pitt, and a later, William Shenstone, unite in their testimony to his gentleness and urbanity.

His health failed during the later years of his life, and when, on 20 August 1768, he was found dead in a canal in his garden, there were rumors of suicide, but the cause of death was more probably a fit (cf. Gentleman's Magazine, ii. 412). He was buried in Byfleet church.

Writing

Spence's character as a critic is fairly given by Samuel Johnson: ‘His learning was not very great, and his mind not very powerful; his criticism, however, was commonly just; what he thought, he thought rightly, and his remarks were recommended by coolness and candour."

Anecdotes

Spence left a collection of literary anecdotes which illustrates the benefit which a man of ordinary abilities may confer upon literature by a mere faithful record of what he has heard. Without his notes much of the literary history of the 18th century, and especially of that of Pope, his immediate circle, and his antagonists, would have been irretrievably lost. The conversational gleanings of his Italian tour are also interesting; and altogether the book presents an admirable view of the dominant literary and critical tendencies of the 18th century.

The literary history of Spence's Anecdotes is curious. During the writer's lifetime the manuscripts were lent to Warburton and to Warton, and were used to a slight extent in Owen Ruffhead's Life of Pope. Spence undoubtedly designed them for posthumous publication, and is, indeed, said to have disposed of the copyright by anticipation to Dodsley; but his executors hesitated, and finally deferred to the objections of Lord Lincoln (then Duke of Newcastle).

A copy made for the duke was, however, communicated to Dr. Johnson, who was indebted to it for many of the most important particulars in his Lives of Pope and Addison. It was subsequently transcribed for Malone, who used it in preparing his Life of Dryden. Malone's copy was to have served for an edition by William Beloe, but Beloe died in 1817 before publishing it, and the manuscript was sold to John Murray;. The latter kept it back until the announcement of another edition, by Samuel Weller Singer, when he hurried it through the press, and the rival editions appeared on the same day in 1820.

Singer's was the fuller and more authentic, being printed without omission of text or alteration of arrangement from Spence's own manuscript, which had remained in the hands of Spence's executor, Bishop Lowth, and been bequeathed or given by the bishop to a gentleman in his service named Forster, from whom it had passed to the bookseller, W.H. Carpenter. This edition also contained supplementary matter and a memoir of Spence by Singer. At Singer's death the manuscript (forming lot 21 of the Spence MSS.) was knocked down at Sotheby's for 10 shillings on 3 August 1858 (Notes and Queries, 2nd series vi. 120). A reprint, so exact as to preserve even mistakes and errata, was published in Russell Smith's Library of Old Authors (1858). A Selection was edited with an introduction by John Underhill in 1890.

Miscellaneous

Spence's miscellaneous writings include "An Account of Stephen Duck," 1731, subsequently prefixed to Duck's Poems on Several Occasions in 1736; "An Account of the Life and Poems of Mr. Blacklock," the blind poet, 1754, which was prefixed to the 1756 Poems of Thomas Blacklock; "A Parallel in the Manner of Plutarch" between Robert Hill, the learned tailor, and Magliabecchi, 1757, which was included in Dodsley's Fugitive Pieces in 1761 and several times reprinted. Besides other trifles, he also published Crito (1725) and Moralities (1753) under the pseudonym of "Sir Harry Beaumont."

At his death he left in manuscript a mock epic, The Charliad, which was "wisely suppressed" by Lowth (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 25897).

Recognition

Spence served as Oxford Professor of Poetry, 1728-1738.

A portrait of Spence, painted by Isaack Wood in 1739, was engraved for Polymetis by G. Vertue in 1746.

His "Epistle from a Swiss Officer, to his friend in Rome" was included in Dodsley's Collection of poems in six volumes; by several hands.

At Byfleet church there is a monument to Spence with an inscription by Bishop Lowth.

Publications

Non-fiction

• An Essay on Pope's Odyssey: In which some particular beauties and blemishes of that work are consider'd London: Printed for James & J. Knapton, 1727
  • also published as An Essay on Mr. Pope's Odyssey: In five dialogues. London: Printed for S. Wilmot, Oxford, 1737.
• A Full and Authentick Account of Stephen Duck: The Wiltshire poet. London: Printed for J.Roberts, 1731.
• Polymetis: or, An enquiry concerning the agreement between the works of the Roman poets, and the remains of the ancient artists: Being an attempt to illustrate them mutually from one another. London: Printed for R. Dodsley, 1747
  • A Guide to Classical Learning; or, Polymetis abridged (edited by N. Tindal). London: J. Dodsley, 1777.
• An Apology for the Late Mr. Pope. London: R. Griffiths, 1749.
• Crito; or, a dialogue on beauty. London: Printed for R. Dodsley, 1752.
• A particular Account of the Emperour of China's Gardens near Pekin. London: Printed for R. Dodsley, 1752.
• Moralities: or essays, letters, fables, and translations (as "Sir Harry Beaumont"). London: Printed for R. Dodsley, 1753.
• An Account of the Life, Character, and Poems of Mr. Blacklock: Student of philosophy, in the University of Edinburgh. London : Printed for R. & J. Dodsley, 1754.
• A Parallel, in the manner of Plutarch: Between a most celebrated man of Florence; and one, scarce ever heard of, in England. Twickenham, UK: Printed at Strawberry-Hill, by William Robinson, and sold by Messieurs Dodsley, 1758.
• Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men: Collected from the conversation of Mr. Pope and other eminent persons of his time (edited by Samuel Weller Singer). London: W.H. Carpenter, 1820.
  • Anecdotes, Observations and Characters of Books and Men: A selection (edited by John Undershill). London: Walter Scott, 1890.
  • Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men: Collected from conversation (edited by James Marshall Osborn). (2 volumes), Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1966.

Translated

• Virgil, Works: In Latin and English (contributor). London: R. Dodsley, 1753.

Edited

• Thomas Blacklock, Poems. London: privately published, printed by R. & J. Dodsley, 1756.
• Stephen Duck, Poems on Several Occasions. London: J. Rivington, et al, 1764.

Letters

• Letter to the Revd. Mr. G.R. [London?]: [1753?]
• Letters from the Grand Tour (edited by Slava Klima). Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1975.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of literary critics

Preceded by Thomas Warton

Oxford Professor of Poetry 1728-1738

Succeeded by John Whitfield

References

•  Garnett (1898) "Spence, Joseph" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 53 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 336-338  . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 3, 2018.
• Wright, Austin, Joseph Spence: A Critical Biography. Chicago, Illinois, University of Chicago. 1950.

External links

Poems

• Spence (1699-1768) at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive ("An Epistle from a Swiss Officer, to his friend in Rome")
• "The Three First Stanza's of the 24th Canto of Dante's Inferno made into a Song"

Books

• Joseph Spence at the Online Books Page
• Joseph Spence at Amazon.com

About

• Rev. Joseph Spence (1699-1768) at English Poetry, 1579-1830
• "'The Charliad: An unpublished mock-epic of Joseph Spence" at JStor
• Joseph Spence: Letters from the Grand Tour reviewed at Canadian Journal of History

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Spence, Joseph