Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 32.djvu/361

Lee Hales, bart., he had three sons and five daughters.

The heir, George Henry, was born on 21 May 1718, matriculated at St. John's College, Oxford, 1736, and was created M.A. 1787. He was elected M.P. for the county of Oxford in 1740, was re-elected in 1741, and sat till 1743, when he succeeded his father as third Earl of Lichfield and custos brevium. In 1759 he stood for the chancellorship of Oxford University in the tory interest, against John Fane, seventh earl of Westmorland [q. v.], and Trevor, bishop of Durham; but he was not considered to have come up to the promise of his youth, and though popular as a jovial companion and a Jacobite, he was defeated by Westmorland, whom, however, he succeeded as high steward. He was made lord of the bed-chamber in 1760, and a privy councillor in 1762. In the same year Westmorland died, and Lichfield was at length elected chancellor of the university in his place, and was created D.C.L. by diploma, 27 Sept. 1762 (Cat. of Oxford Graduates, p. 401 ). He filled the office with 'graceful dignity and polite condescension' (Gent. Mag. xxxiii. 349). He was also a vice-president of the Society of Arts. He died on 19 Sept. 1772, and was buried at Spelsbury, where there is a monument to his memory, with a laudatory epitaph, perhaps by Thomas Warton (, Engraved Illustrations of the Principal Antiquities of Oxfordshire).

Lichfield married Diana, daughter of Sir Thomas Frankland, bart., of Thirkleby, Yorkshire, and it was remarked that the husband and wife were fourth in descent from Charles II and Cromwell respectively. There was no issue of the marriage, and the title and estates reverted to Lee's surviving uncle, Robert Henry Lee, M.P. for Oxfordshire, at whose death in 1776 the honours became extinct, and the estates passed to a sister of the third earl, Charlotte, the wife of Henry, eleventh viscount Dillon, whose descendants, the present Dillon-Lees, still own Ditchley Park.

The Lichfield clinical professorship at Oxford was founded by a bequest from the third earl, which took effect in 1780, when the trustees (the chancellor, the Bishop of Oxford, and the president of St. John's) became possessed of 7,000l. in consols. John Parsons was the first professor. The conditions of tenure were altered in 1883.

There is a full-length portrait of Lichfield, painted by George Huddesford [q. v.] in 1777, in the Bodleian Gallery.

 LEE, HARRIET (1757–1851), novelist and dramatist, was born in London in 1757. After the death of her father, [q. v.] the actor, in 1781, she aided her sister Sophia [see ] in keeping a private school at Belvidere House, Bath. In 1786 she published 'The Errors of Innocence,' a novel in five volumes, written in epistolary form. A comedy, 'The New Peerage, or our Eyes may deceive us,' was performed at Drury Lane on 10 Nov. 1787, and, although acted nine times, was not successful enough to encourage her to continue writing for the stage. Genest calls it 'on the whole a poor play' (Hist. of Stage, vi. 471-2). It was published with a dedication to Thomas King the actor, who had taken the chief part. The younger Bannister, Suett, and Miss Farren were also in the cast. Richard Cumberland wrote the prologue. 'Clara Lennox,' a novel in two volumes, was published in 1797 and translated into French in the following year. The first two volumes of Miss Lee's chief work, 'The Canterbury Tales,' in which she was assisted by her sister Sophia, appeared in 1797-8, and a second edition appeared in 1799. The remaining three volumes came out in 1805. In 1798 she published a play in three acts, 'The Mysterious Marriage, or the Heirship of Rosalva.' It was never acted.

Before 1798 William Godwin [q. v.] made Miss Lee's acquaintance during a ten days' sojourn at Bath, and was so greatly struck with her conversation—he made elaborate analyses of it—that he determined to offer her marriage. From April to August 1798 they carried on a curious correspondence. But Godwin's egotism displeased Harriet, and she frankly rebuked his vanity. Godwin again visited Bath at the end of 1798 and paid her formal addresses, but Miss Lee, who seems to have had a regard for her eccentric lover, finally decided that his religious opinions made a happy union impossible. Her last letter, 7 Aug. 1798, expressed a hope that friendly intercourse might be maintained; and Godwin sent letters to her at a later date criticising some of her literary productions. Among other of her friends were Jane and Anna Maria Porter, the novelists, who lived at Bristol, and Thomas (afterwards Sir Thomas) Lawrence [q. v.] It is said that Sophia and Harriet Lee were the first to predict the future eminence of Sir Thomas Lawrence, who presented to them portraits by himself of Mrs. Siddons, John Kemble, and General Paoli. Samuel Rogers mentions meeting Harriet Lee in 1792 (, Early Life of Samuel Rogers, p. 241). She lived to the great age of ninety-four, and was remarkable to the last for her lively conversational 