lard's Memoirs of Learned Ladies.

* * * * *

NAT. LEE.

This eminent dramatic poet was the son of a clergyman of the church of
England, and was educated at Westminster school under Dr. Busby. After
he left this school, he was some time at Trinity College, Cambridge;
whence returning to London, he went upon the stage as an actor.

Very few particulars are preserved concerning Mr. Lee. He died before
he was 34 years of age, and wrote eleven tragedies, all of which
contain the divine enthusiasm of a poet, a noble fire and elevation,
and the tender breathings of love, beyond many of his cotemporaries.
He seems to have been born to write for the Ladies; none ever felt the
passion of love more intimately, none ever knew to describe it more
gracefully, and no poet ever moved the breasts of his audience with
stronger palpitations, than Lee. The excellent Mr. Addison, whose
opinion in a matter of this sort, is of the greatest weight, speaking
of the genius of Lee, thus proceeds[1]. "Among our modern English
poets, there is none who was better turned for tragedy than our
author; if instead of favouring the impetuosity of his genius, he had
restrained it, and kept it within proper bounds. His thoughts are
wonderfully suited for tragedy; but frequently lost in such a cloud of
words, that it is hard to see the beauty of them. There is an infinite
fire in his works, but so involved in smoke, that it does not appear
in half its lustre. He frequently succeeds in the passionate part of
the tragedy; but more particularly where he slackens his efforts, and
eases the stile of those epithets and metaphors in which he so much
abounds."

It is certain that our author for some time was deprived of his
senses, and was confined in Bedlam; and as Langbaine observes, it is
to be regretted, that his madness exceeded that divine fury which Ovid
mentions, and which usually accompany the best poets.

Est Deus in nobus agitante calescimus illo.

His condition in Bedlam was far worse; in a Satire on the Poets it is
thus described,

There in a den remov'd from human eyes,
Possest with muse, the brain-sick poet lies,
Too miserably wretched to be nam'd;
For plays, for heroes, and for passion fam'd:
Thoughtless he raves his sleepless hours away
In chains all night, in darkness all the day.
And if he gets some intervals from pain,