Spencer, William Robert

(1770-1834)

   The younger son of Lord Charles Spencer, second son of the third Duke of Marlborough, he was educated at Harrow School and Christ Church, Oxford, but took no degree, and his occupation was that of wit and poet. In 1796 he published a translation of Bürger's Leonore; in 1802 Urania, a burlesque of German ghost literature, successfully performed at Drury Lane; in 1804 The Year of Sorrow, in memory of his mother-in-law and other ladies; and in 1811 a volume of Poems (a new edition with corrections and additions, London, James Cochrane and Co., was issued in 1835). Byron was probably being polite when he said he thought Spencer's verses, just like his conversation, were aristocratic. Spencer died in ill health and poverty in Paris and was buried at Harrow. Some of his poems: "A Deux Amies," "Beth Gelert," "Parting Song," "The Nursing of True Love," "The Visionary," "To the Hon. Miss Crewe," "Too Late I Stayed," "Wife, Children, and Friends."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Folk Songs. John Williamson Palmer, ed. Charles Scribner and Company, 1867. Good Dog Poems. William Cole, ed. Scribner's, 1981. Poems of William R. Spencer. James Cochrane and Co., 1835. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers. org). The Poetical Registry and Repository of Fugitive Poetry for 1802. F. and C. Rivington, 1803.