LEE, NATHANIEL (c. 1653-1692), English dramatist, son of Dr. Richard Lee, a Presbyterian divine, was born probably in 1653. Lee was educated at Westminster school, and at Trinity college, Cambridge, taking his B.A. degree in 1668. Coming to London under the patronage, it is said, of the duke of Bucking ham, he tried to earn his living as an actor, but his acute stage fright made acting impossible. His earliest play, Nero, Emperor of Rome, was acted in 1675 at Drury Lane. Lee made his repu tation in 1677 with a blank verse tragedy, The Rival Queens, or the Death of Alexander the Great, which remained a favourite on the English stage down to the days of Edmund Kean. Mithri dates, King of Pontus (acted 1678), Theodosius, or the Force of Love (acted 168o), Caesar Borgia (acted 168o)—an imitation of the worst blood and thunder Elizabethan tragedies—Lucius Junius Brutus, Father of His Country (acted 1681), and Constantine the Great (acted 1684) followed. The Princess of Cleve (1681)
is a gross adaptation of Madame de La Fayette's exquisite novel of that name. The Massacre of Paris (published I69o) was written about this time. Lee had given offence at court by his Lucius Junius Brutus; he sought rehabilitation by collaborating with Dryden in The Duke of Guise (1683), a play which directly advocated the Tory point of view. In it part of the Massacre of Paris was incorporated. In 1684 his mind became completely unhinged. He recovered his health but died in a drunken fit in 1692, and was buried in St. Clement Danes, Strand, on May 6.