on, wrote several works on
the Greek and Latin Classics, as well as one or two of a theological
nature. He died of apoplexy at Deptford on the 28th of December 1817,
and a monument to his memory was erected in Westminster Abbey by a
number of his old scholars.

Dr. Burney realised a considerable fortune by his scholastic work, and
the money which he thus acquired enabled him to form a library of nearly
thirteen thousand five hundred volumes of printed books, and five
hundred and twenty manuscripts. Among the latter was the Towneley Homer,
believed to be of the thirteenth century, and valued at six hundred
guineas. The library was particularly rich in the Greek Classics,
especially the dramatists; comprising as many as one hundred and
sixty-six editions of Euripides, one hundred and two of Sophocles, and
forty-seven of AEschylus, the margins of a large proportion of the
classical books being covered with notes in Burney's hand, in addition
to those by the Stephens, Bentley, Markland, and others. Another very
interesting feature of the library was the large number of English
newspapers it contained. These papers, which reached from the reign of
James I. until nearly the end of that of George III., were bound in
about seven hundred volumes, and now form the basis of the splendid
collection in the British Museum. Dr. Burney also amassed from three to
four hundred volumes containing materials for a history of the British
Stage, and several thousand portraits of literary and theatrical
personages. On the death of the Doctor his library was purchased for the
British Museum for the sum of thirteen thousand five hundred pounds.

GEORGE JOHN, SECOND EARL SPENCER, 1758-1834

George John, second Earl Spencer, was born on the 1st of September 1758.
He was the only son of John Spencer, who was created Viscount Spencer of
Althorp in 1761, and Earl Spencer in 1765, and grandson of John, the
youngest son of Charles Spencer, third Earl of Sunderland. At seven
years of age he was placed under the tutorship of William Jones, the
famous Orientalist, who was afterwards knighted, with whom he made two
Continental tours. Jones resigned his charge in 1770, when Lord Althorp
was sent to Harrow, and, on leaving school, to Trinity College,
Cambridge. In 1780 he entered Parliament as member for Northampton, and
on the formation of the second Rockingham Ministry in March 1782 he
became a Commissioner of the new Treasury Board. On the death