Spence, to whom all Walpole's admirers owe a lasting debt of gratitude, was one of the fortunate men of a fortunate literary age. In 1726 he had published a 'genteel' critique of Pope's 'Odyssey,' conspicuous for its courteous mingling of praise and blame, and not the less grateful to the person criticised because--as Bennot Langton said, and as good luck would have it--ten out of the twelve objections fell, upon the labours of Pope's luckless coadjutors, Broome and Fenton. The book made Pope his friend, and himself Professor of Poetry, in which capacity he patronised Thomson, and protected Queen Caroline's thresher-laureate, Stephen Duck. During the continental tours which he undertook in 1730 and 1737, and in that above referred to, he collected the material for his 'Polymetis,' a tall _folio_ on classical mythology, the earlier editions of which are now chiefly sought after for their irreverent vignette of Dr. Cooke, propositor of Eton, in the disguise of 'an ass's nowl.' Spence continued to dally lightly with letters, editing Sackville's 'Gorboduc,' annotating Virgil, writing a life of the blind poet Blacklock, and comparing (after the manner of Plutarch), for Walpole's private press at Strawberry, Mr. Robert Hill, the 'learned tailor' of Buckingham, with that Florentine _helluo librorum_, Signor Antonio Magliabecchi. He lived the mildly studious life of a quiet, easy-going clergyman of the eighteenth century, nursing a widowed mother like Pope, and declining to disturb the placid ripple of his days by the 'violent delights' of matrimony. He is 'the completest scholar,' 'the sweetest tempered gentleman breathing,' cries his enthusiastic friend, Mr. Christopher Pitt, himself a virtuoso and a translator of Homer. He is 'extremely' polite, friendly, cheerful, and master of an infinite fund of subjects for agreeable conversation,' says Mr. Shenstone of the Leasowes. 'He was a good-natured, harmless little soul, but more like a silver penny than a genius,' says ungrateful Mr. Walpole. 'He was a poor creature, though a very worthy man,' says clever Mr. Cambridge of the 'World' and the 'Scribleriad.' To strike an average between these varying estimates is not a difficult task. It gives us a character amiable rather than strong, finical rather than earnest, well-informed and ingenious rather than positively learned. For the rest, 'Polymetis' has been supplanted by Lempriere, and is as dead as Stephen Duck; and its author now lives mainly by the 'priefs' which, like Sir Hugh Evans, he made in his notebook,--in other words, by the Anecdotes of the Literary Men of his age, which, when occasion offered, he jotted down from the conversation of Pope, Young, Dean Lockier, and other notabilities into whose company he came from time to time.