Sketch of John Lee, D.D., M.D., etc., etc., the Very Reverend the Principal of the University of Edinburgh : (born, 1779, died, 1859) / by Sir John Rose Cormack.

  • Cormack, John Rose, Sir, (1815-1882)
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sketch of John Lee, D.D., M.D., etc., etc., the Very Reverend the Principal of the University of Edinburgh : (born, 1779, died, 1859) / by Sir John Rose Cormack. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    among learned men and as a minister of the Establishment . This diversity of opinion caused no estrangement. Di Lee’s devotion to his parents during their declining year was a beautiful trait in his character. Principal Lee’s mother (Helen Paterson) was to the eno of her career a very remarkable woman. At the age o. eighty-nine, when she died, her intellect and memory rei mained nearly as clear and as good as they had ever been In her day books were costly and rare. For this reason they were all the more carefully chosen, esteemed, and read’ Mrs. Lee had not read many books ; but she had thorough!:] studied some notable works in theology, history, philosophjv and poetry. Her knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and o > the writings of Milton was minute and discriminating: Their sublimities were keenly relished by her true though untutored taste. When conversing with persons of educa.; tion, she frequently indicated this by remarks which asto.' nished the listener by their force and freshness. A few days before her death her increasing infirmities were talkee( over between her and her frequent visitor, the parish minister. It was admitted by both that her bodily strength was rapidly failing. She said, with a cheerful smile, tha.i although her living or dying could not, so far as she coulc. see, be a matter of the least importance to any one excep. herself, she was not weary of life with all its infirmities, a.; she felt that there must be truth in Milton’s remark, tha . God is served by those “ who only stand and wait.” Inci dents and anecdotes of this kind, though they refer not to : person of celebrity, are not the less instructive. Suck histories deserve attention, because they show the existenc of veins of native gold deep down in the social strata. I is from these fresh, exhaustless mines that a nation such a ours draws its elements of perennial greatness. When w read of heroes, philosophers, and poets rising from obscurit] to high renown, how often do we forget that their greatnes was born and nurtured in their own humble homes. Mr. Charles Reade says, in the opening sentences of “ A Gooc Fight ”—that charming domestic history now so deeply