LEE, SOPHIA AND HARRIET, were the daughters of John Lee, a performer at Covent Garden Theatre in the last century. Harriet was born in 1756; Sophia was a few years her senior. Soon after their father's death they opened a school at Bath. In this under taking they acquired a moderate competence, upon which they retired to Clifton, where both died, Sophia on March 13, 1824, and Harriet on August 1, 1851, aged ninety-five. Sophia first appeared in 1780 as author of a comedy, The Chapter of Accidents,' which was performed at the Haymarket with considerable success. Her next work was ' The Recess,' which appeared in 1785 in three volumes, one of the first so-called historical novels, a somewhat lachrymose tale of the adventures and calamities of a supposed daughter of Mary of Scotland, by a marriage with the Earl of Leicester, which contains as little of history either in the facto of the tale or in the depicting of the manners of the are, as in any resemblance to the characters of the personages introduced, but which obtained a considerable share of popularity from the attempts at pathos and sentiment with which it is full. In 1787 she published ' The Hermit's Tale,' a poem ; in 1796 Almeyda, Queen of Granada,' a tragedy, which was successfully per formed, Mrs. Siddons sustaining the principal character. In 1804 was published in six volumes, a novel entitled ' The Life of a Lover,' which is said to have been her earliest production, the effort of her girlish years, and is certainly one of her weakest writings. Her last work was a comedy, performed at Drury Lane Theatre iu 1804, called 'Assigna tion,' which was condemned on the first night, and was never published.
Her chief claim to notice, like that of her sister, rests on the ' Canter bury Tales,' of which she furnished two, ' The Young Lady's Tale,' and The Clergyman's Tale,' which occupy a volume and a half of the five volumes to which the series extended ; and the introduction to the whole. These tales are certainly superior to her novels, but they are not equal on the whole to those of her sister.
Harriet's first appearance as an author was in 1786, when The Errore of Innocence,' a novel in five volumes, was published ; this was followed in 1787 by a comedy, ' Tho New Peerage ; or, Our Eyes may deceive us," Clara Lennox,' a novel in two volumes, in 1797, and ' The Mysterious Marriage, or the Heirship of Rosalyn,' a play, in 1798 : all have been forgotten. The Canterbury Tales' were pub lished in snecessive volumes, the first in 1797, the fifth and last in 1305 ; they were so immediately popular that second editions of the first two volumes were published in 1799. They consist of twelve tale", of which one, ' The German'. Tale—Kruitzner,' furnished Lord Byron with the idea and some of the materials for his tragedy of Werner,' and ho says of the tale that lie had formed a "high esti mate of the singular power of mind and conception which it developes." It is undoubtedly the most powerfully interesting of the whole, con tains the most definitely drawn characters, and a well-developed plot. Several of the other tales however show a considerable knowledge of the human mind, are unexceptionably moral, generally pleasing, and are narrated in a simple and unaffected style.