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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    various and extensive were his acquirements! In the university ove which he so ably presided there was no branch of study to which h was a stranger, and scarcely was there a chair, whether in literature c in science, which he could not have filled with credit to himself an with advantage to the interests of philosophy and learning. In ac quaintance with the literary and ecclesiastical history of our countr) . with the men, the books, and manuscripts of former times, he was with out a rival, being thoroughly conversant, not merely with the mor^ prominent characters and events, but with the secret history of faction- and with the minutest details affecting the public institutions and socit.i economy of any particular period. It might seem as though he ha .i lived among the great men, whom others know only by name, am had made himself personally acquainted with their opinions and pecu; liarities, and with their habits and manners, even in the privacy ( domestic intercourse. He delighted in the heroic times when me. were in earnest contending for principle—more anxious to assert an .i establish truth than to tolerate error; and. Instead of yielding with wh£.j some might have termed a wise expediency to the ruling spirit of th’i age, manfully, through faith in God’s Word, resisted unto blood an- sacrificed their lives that they might secure the triumph of pure religio - and civil liberty and further the great cause of social improvement. ] I their faults did not escape his intelligent and candid criticism, he dr. not forget their trying circumstances under the most frightful persecm tion and tyranny that ever afflicted a church and nation ; but, while n; gretting their occasional excesses, admired their dauntless courage, the: noble constancy, their love of learning, and their glowing piety. HI saw the happy result of their arduous and successful contendings in tK) many long years of advancing civilisation and prosperity which hav.. changed our barren land into a garden and its rude inhabitants into people distinguished at home and abroad for their intelligence, prudenc . : and industry. It will ever be regretted that, through causes ovc, which he probably had little control, he has departed without accon: plishing the original design of his historical researches and permanentj'l recording, as he could so well have done, in his beautiful style the va stores of information which he had accumulated, had ever fully at con = mand, and was most generous in communicating to others. Habits (' severe and protracted study in the earlier period of his life enfeebled h i future health, occasioning perhaps much of the variableness and irr-- solution which made him shrink from a task of severe and continue labour, and prevented him from employing his genius to full advantag and from occupying at times the influential position assumed by othe.. of far inferior powers, but of stronger neiwe. His finest pieces—h i pastoral letters, his academic addresses, and most of his lectures an. sermons—were thrown off with the utmost ease and rapidity, showin how ready were his gifts, how exuberant his resources, and what 1 might have done had he only been possessed of sustained and perseve ing energy. Distinguished he would have been in the greatest ages i