258 SPENCER resumed practice at Albany. He was for some years mayor of that city, and also represented the Albany district in congress. In 1839 he retired to Lyons. II. John Canfield, an Ameri- can jurist, son of the preceding, born in Hud- son, N. Y., Jan. 8, 1788, died in Albany, May 18, 1855. He graduated at Union college in 1806, and in 1807 became private secretary of Gov. Tompkins. He was admitted to the bar in Canandaigua in 1809, was master in chan- cery and district attorney, a member of con- gress 181 7-' 19, and several times of the state assembly and senate. In 1827 he was appoint- ed one of the revisers of the statutes of the state, and in 1839 secretary of the state of New York. President Tyler in 1841 appointed him secretary of war, and in 1843 transferred him to the treasury department. He resigned in 1844, from opposition to the annexation of Texas. He served on many state commissions, and aided in the organization of the asylum for idiots and the improvement of the common school system. He edited De Tocqueville's " Democracy in America," with an original preface and notes (New York, 1838). SPENCER. I. George John, second Earl Spen- cer, an English bibliophile, born Sept. 1, 1758, died Nov. 10, 1834. Under the courtesy title of Viscount Althorp, he was first lord of the admiralty from 1794 to 1801, and subse- quently home secretary. On the death of his father in 1821 he took his seat in the house of lords. He possessed one of the largest and most remarkable private libraries in Europe, the nucleus of which he acquired in 1789 from the Hungarian baron Reviczky. See Dibdin's Bibliotheca Spenceriana (4 vols^ 8vo, 1814- '15), and ^fides Althorpiancs (2 vols., 1822). II. John Charles, third Earl Spencer, an English statesman, son of the preceding, born May 30, 1782, died at TViseton hall, Nottinghamshire, Oct. 1, 1845. He served in the house of com- mons as Viscount Althorp, during the whig administration of 1806-'7 was junior lord of the treasury, and afterward a leader of the whig opposition until the return of the whigs to power in 1830, when he was appointed chan- cellor of the exchequer, and became ministe- rial leader in the house of commons, through which he was instrumental in carrying the re- form bill and the poor-law amendment bill. He resigned with his colleagues in November, 1834. About the same time he succeeded his father as Earl Spencer, and devoted himself to farming. He was the first president of the royal agricultural society. SPENCER, George (Father Ignatius of St. Paul), an English clergyman, youngest son of John George, second Earl Spencer, born in Lon- don, Dec. 21, 1799, died at Carstairs, Scotland, Oct. 1, 1864. He graduated at Cambridge in 1819, took orders, and became rector of the family living of Brington in 1825. He joined the Roman Catholic church at Leicester in J30, was ordained priest in 1832, and took charge of the missions of West Bromwich and Dudley. In 1839 he was appointed to an office in Oscott college, became soon afterward its rector, entered the order of Passionists in 1846, and contributed very much toward the exten- sion of his order in Great Britain and Ireland, filling high offices therein till his death. He was chiefly distinguished for his extraordi- nary zeal in ministering to the spiritual wants of the laboring population, and for his efforts in establishing an association of prayers for the return of England to communion with the church of Rome. For this purpose, from 1838 till 1857, he repeatedly visited Ireland and the Roman Catholic countries on the continent, preaching and lecturing everywhere on this subject. He wrote "Account of my Conver- sion " (1831), an autobiography and journal em- bodied by Father Pius in his "Life of Father Ignatius of St. Paul, Passionist" (Dublin and London, 1866), and a " Life of St. Paul of the Cross" (London, 1875). SPENCER, Herbert, an English philosopher, born in Derby, April 27, 1820. His father was a teacher. Herbert was fond of keeping in- sects and watching their transformations, and for years the finding and rearing of caterpil- lars, the catching and preserving of winged in- sects and making drawings of them, were his regular occupations. He also assisted his father in philosophical experiments. At the age of 13 he was sent to study with his uncle, the Rev. Thomas Spencer, rector of the parish of Hinton. Here he remained three years, and made special progress in mathematics. Re- turning home, he studied perspective with his father, on the principle of independent dis- covery, the successive problems being put in such order that he was enabled to find out the solutions himself. This was a favorite mode of teaching with his father, who is the author of a valuable little work entitled " Invention- al Geometry," on this plan. At 16 Herbert devised a new and ingenious theorem in de- scriptive geometry, which was published with the demonstration in the " Civil Engineers' and Architects' Journal." At 17 he accepted an engagement under Charles (afterward Sir Charles) Fox as a civil engineer, and began work on the London and Birmingham railway. In 1841 he declined a further appointment, returned home, and spent two years in mathe- matical and miscellaneous studies. He made a botanical press and a herbarium, and practised drawing and modelling. All the time he had in progress some scheme of invention, improve- ments in watchmaking, machinery for the man- ufacture of type by compression of the metal instead of casting, anew form of printing press, and the application of electrotype to engraving, afterward known as the glyptograph. In the spring of 1843 he went to London in quest of literary occupation, but did not succeed, and resumed engineering. His earliest literary con- tributions were made to the " Civil Engineers' nnd Architects' Journal," the "Philosophical Magazine," the "Zoist," and the " Noncon-
