head of the hoard of Treasury. The party which Sunderland had done
so much to serve now held a new pledge for his fidelity. His only
son, Charles Lord Spencer, was just entering on public life. The
precocious maturity of the young man's intellectual and moral
character had excited hopes which were not destined to be
realized. His knowledge of ancient literature, and his skill in
imitating the styles of the masters of Roman eloquence, were
applauded by veteran scholars. The sedateness of his deportment
and the apparent regularity of his life delighted austere
moralists. He was known indeed to have one expensive taste; but it
was a taste of the most respectable kind. He loved books, and was
bent or forming the most magnificent private library in England.
While other heirs of noble houses were inspecting patterns of
steinkirks and sword knots, dangling after actresses, or betting
on fighting cocks, he was in pursuit of the Mentz editions of
Tully's Offices, of the Parmesan Statius, and of the inestimable
Virgin of Zarottus.1 It was natural that high expectations should
be formed of the virtue and wisdom of a youth whose very luxury
and prodigality had a grave and erudite air, and that even
discerning men should be unable to detect the vices which were
hidden under that show of premature sobriety.

Spencer was a Whig, unhappily for the Whig party, which, before
the unhonoured and unlamented close of his life, was more than
once brought to the verge of ruin by his violent temper and his
crooked politics. His Whiggism differed widely from that of his
father. It was not a languid, speculative, preference of one
theory of government to another, but a fierce and dominant
passion. Unfortunately, though an ardent, it was at the same time
a corrupt and degenerate, Whiggism; a Whiggism so narrow and