William Robert Spencer (1770 - 1834)

William Robert Spencer (9 January 1769 – 22/23 October 1834), English poet and wit. He did not desire a public life, being content as a writer of "occasional" verse and vers de société. In 1796 he published an English version of Bürger's Leonore, and in 1802 he burlesqued German romance in his Urania, which was produced on the stage at Drury Lane. Among his best-known pieces, which were published in a collection of his poems in 1811, were his well known ballad "Beth Gelert" and "Too Late I Stayed." His writings were greatly appreciated by his contemporaries, being warmly praised by such figures as Sir Walter Scott, John Wilson, and Lord Byron.