Spence, JOSEPH, anecdotist, was born at Kingsclere in Hants, 25th April 1699. A sickly boy, he went to Eton, but in a short time left it for Winchester, thence passing to New College, Oxford, in 1720, of which he became a fellow in 1722. He took orders in 1724, three years later became professor of Poetry, and was presented to the rectory of Birchanger in Essex. He travelled on the Continent with the Earl of Middlesex, afterwards second Duke of Dorset (1730–33), again with Mr Trevor (1737), and Henry, Earl of Lincoln, afterwards Duke of Newcastle (1739–42). Before first going abroad he had published his Essay on Pope's Odyssey (1726), which procured him the lasting friendship of the poet. Almost from the beginning of their intimacy he began to record Pope's conversation and the incidents of his life, to which gradually many curious particulars were added gathered from the conversation of other eminent men. In 1736 he edited Gorboduc, and in 1737 became rector of Great Harwood in Bucks, and regius professor of Modern History. In 1747 he published his Polymetis, which is said to have brought him £1500, great part of which he spent on landscape-gardening at Byfleet in Surrey. In 1754 he became a prebendary of Durham. He was accidentally drowned at Byfleet, August 20, 1768. He was a constant friend to Pope, Horace Walpole, Shenstone, and Lowth, and was noted for his large charity, a devoted love to his aged mother that rivalled Pope's own, and his kind patronage of such men as Stephen Duck, thresher and poet; Robert Hill, the learned tailor; Thomas Blacklock, the blind poet; and Robert Dodsley, footman before publisher.
His MS. collection of Anecdotes was given by his executors to the Duke of Newcastle, who did not approve of their being published. Some, however, reached the public through Warburton, Warton, Johnson, and Malone—in the case of the first two from Spence himself. Malone's edition (1820) was quickly superseded by that of S. W. Singer (1820; 2d ed. 1858), printed from the original papers, with notes and a memoir.