Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/697

Rh grenadiers.&rdquo; In his will he had expressed a wish that he might not be buried within a mile of any church or meeting-house, as since his arrival in America he had kept so much bad company in this world that he did not wish to continue it in the next. He was buried, however, in the cemetery of Christ church, and his funeral was attended by the president of congress and other eminent citizens. Gen. Lee was one of the numerous persons credited with the authorship of &ldquo;Junius.&rdquo; In a letter dated at Dover, Del., 1 Feb., 1803, published in the &ldquo;Wilmington Mirror&rdquo; and copied into the &ldquo;St. James Chronicle,&rdquo; London, Thomas Rodney gave the substance of a conversation between himself and Gen. Lee in 1773. Lee observed that not a man in the world but himself, not even the publisher, knew the secret of the authorship of &ldquo;Junius.&rdquo; Rodney naturally replied that no one but the author himself could make such a remark as that. &ldquo;I have unguardedly committed myself,&rdquo; said Lee, &ldquo;and it would be folly to deny to you that I am the author; but I must request you will not reveal it during my life, for it never was nor ever will be revealed by me to any other.&rdquo; Lee then went on to point out several circumstances corroborative of his claim. Such a statement, from a gentleman of so high a character as Mr. Rodney, at once attracted attention in Europe and America. Two intimate friends of Lee maintained opposite sides of the question. Ralph Wormeley, of Virginia, published a letter in which he argued that Lee was very far from possessing the knowledge of parliamentary history exhibited in the pages of &ldquo;Junius.&rdquo; Daniel Carthy, of North Carolina, published a series of articles in the &ldquo;Virginia Gazette&rdquo; in refutation of Wormeley. Dr. Thomas Girdlestone, of Yarmouth, England, followed on the same side in a small volume entitled &ldquo; Facts tending to prove that Gen. Lee was never Absent from this Country for any Length of Time during the Years 1767-'72, and that he was the Author of 'Junius'&rdquo; (London, 1813). The first part of Dr. Girdlestone's title points to the fatal obstacle to his hypothesis. The simple fact is, that Lee was absent in such remote countries as Poland and Turkey at the very dates when &ldquo;Junius&rdquo; was publishing letters exhibiting such minute and detailed acquaintance with affairs every day occurring in London as could only have been possessed by an eye-witness living on the spot. This fact makes it impossible that Lee should have written the &ldquo;Letters of Junius&rdquo;; and the statement of Mr. Rodney only goes to show that in other than military matters Lee was willing to claim what did not belong to him. The most interesting thing to-day in Girdlestone's volume is the portrait of Lee which stands as frontispiece. It was taken from a drawing by Barham Rushbrooke, which, though designed as a caricature, was &ldquo;allowed, by all who knew Gen. Lee, to be the only successful delineation either of his countenance or person.&rdquo; It was taken on his return from Poland, in his uniform as aide to King Stanislaus, and shows the inevitable dog. Lee was very fond of dogs, and was seldom seen without half a dozen at his heels. He was slovenly in dress, dirty in person, repulsive in feature, and rude in manner, always ready with disagreeable and sarcastic remarks. His eccentricities were so marked as perhaps to afford some ground for the plea of insanity whereby to palliate his misdemeanors. The biography of Charles Lee has not yet been properly written. His essays and miscellaneous papers were edited, with an interesting biographical sketch, by Edward Langworthy. under the title &ldquo;Memoirs of the late Charles Lee,

Esq.&rdquo; (London, 1792). The sketch by Jared Sparks (&ldquo;American Biography,&rdquo; 2d series, viii., Boston, 1846) is carefully written, but has little value to-day, because the author knew nothing of that treasonable correspondence with the Howes which modifies so profoundly our view of Lee's whole career in America. George H. Moore announced in 1860 a biography and collection of essays, with documents never before published; but this much-needed book has not yet made its appearance. Dr. Moore's monograph above cited contains much information not easily to be found elsewhere; the portrait which stands as its frontispiece is reduced from the folio print published in London during the Revolutionary war. No relationship is traceable between Charles Lee and the illustrious Lees of Virginia.

LEE, Charles Alfred, physician. b. in Salis- bury, Conn.. 3 March, 1801 ; d. in Peekskill, N. Y., 14 Feb., 1872. He was graduated at Williams in 1822, and at Berkshire medical college in 1825. In 1826 he settled in New York, and with Dr. James Stewart founded the Northern dispensary of that city, of which he was long the chief physician. Dr. Lee held professorships at various times, chiefly of materia medica and obstetrics, in the medical departments of the University of New York and elsewhere. He was one of the found- ers of the medical college of the University of New York, and of the Buffalo medical college, of which he was professor emeritus at the time of his death. His attention during his later years was devoted to the subject of the treatment of the insane, and his views on the colonization or out- door system, which he personally investigated while he was in Europe in 1865, were adopted after his return by some of the chief institutions for the in- sane in this country. For some years he conducted the " New York Journal of Medicine," and he edited the American edition of Copeland's " Dictionary of Practical Medicine" (New York, 1844-'58). Be- sides writing numerous medical articles, he was the author of several successful text-books, " Ele- ments of Geology for Popular Use " (New York), and " Human Physiology.

LEE, Chauncey, clergyman, b. in Coventry, Conn., 10 July, 1718 ; d. in Hartwick, N. Y.. 5 Nov., 1842. His father, Jonathan, was the first minister that settled in Salisbury, Conn. Chaun- cey was graduated at Yale in 1784, and, after practising law for a short time, studied theology, and was ordained pastor of the Congregational church at Sunderland, Vt., in 1790. He officiated successively there, at Colebrook, N. Y., and at Marlborough, Conn., till 1835, when he retired from active duty. He was skilled in music, com- posed verses, and was a classical scholar. Colum- bia gave him the degree of D. I), in 1823. His publications include an arithmetic (Boston, 1797); a "Poetical Version of the Book of Job" (1807); "Sermons for Revivals" (1824); and "Letters from Aristarchus to Philemon" (1833).

LEE, Day Kellogg, clergyman, b. in Sempronius, N. Y., 10 Sept., 1816; d. in New York city, 2 June, 1869. He entered the ministry in 1835, and was pastor of various Universalist churches until 1865, when he settled in New York city. Tufts college gave him the degree of M. A. in 1864. and the theological school of St. Lawrence university, Canton, N. Y., that of D. D. in 1868, His publications include three volumes on the labor question, entitled "Summerfield, or Life on a Farm" (Auburn, N. Y., 1852); "The Master Builder, or Life at a Trade" (New York, 1854); and "Merrimack, or Life at a Loom " (1854).