of his
father in 1783, Lord Althorp (who had married in 1781 Lavinia, eldest
daughter of Charles, first Lord Lucan) succeeded to the title, and in
1784 was sent with Mr. Thomas Grenville on a special mission to the
Court of Vienna. During his absence from England, on the 19th of July in
that year, he was made Lord Privy Seal in Mr. Pitt's Ministry, which
office he resigned in the following December for that of First Lord of
the Admiralty, a post which he held with great credit for upwards of six
years. After his retirement from the Admiralty in February 1801, Lord
Spencer remained out of office until February 1806, when he accepted the
Secretaryship of State for the Home Department in the Grenville-Fox
Ministry. On the dissolution of that ministry in March 1807, he finally
retired from office, but continued to take part in the debates in the
House of Lords. He died on the 10th of November 1834, and was succeeded
by his eldest son John Charles.

Lord Spencer was a most energetic and enlightened collector of books,
and the magnificent library which, until the year 1892, was one of the
glories of Althorp, testifies to the skill and liberality with which he
collected them. A taste for literature and a love of books were
developed in Lord Spencer at an early age, and he was but thirty-two
when he acquired the choice collection of Count Reviczky, a Hungarian
nobleman, which at once placed his library among the more important
private collections of the time. He also bought largely at the Mason,
Herbert, Roxburghe, Alchorne, and other sales, and after the dispersion
of the famous library at White Knights in 1819 he was able to acquire,
at a cost of seven hundred and fifty pounds, the copy of the Valdarfer
Boccaccio for which he had vainly bid two thousand two hundred and fifty
pounds seven years before at the Roxburghe sale. In the years 1819 and
1820 he made a bibliographical tour on the Continent, during which,
among other purchases, he acquired the library of the Duke of
Cassano-Serra, which contained some very rare fifteenth century books.

Lord Spencer was considerably assisted in the formation of his famous
collection by his librarian, the well-known Dr. Thomas Frognall Dibdin,
the author of _Bibliomania, The Bibliographical Decameron_, and other
pleasant and gossiping, but somewhat verbose and not particularly
accurate, works on books, their printers and owners. Dibdin's services
were liberally rewarded; and Edwards, i