Lee, Nathaniel

Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature by John W. Cousin

(1653?-1692)


Dramatist, s. of a clergyman at Hatfield, was ed. at Westminster School and Camb. After leaving the Univ. he went to London, and joined the stage both as actor and author. He was taken up by Rochester and others of the same dissolute set, led a loose life, and drank himself into Bedlam, where he spent four years. After his recovery he lived mainly upon charity, and met his death from a fall under the effects of a carouse. His tragedies, which, with much bombast and frequent untrained flights of imagination, have occasional fire and tenderness, are generally based on classical subjects. The principal are The Rival Queens, Theodosius, and Mithridates. He also wrote a few comedies, and collaborated with Dryden in an adaptation of Oedipus, and in The Duke of Guise.

Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature by John W. Cousin

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