NATHANIEL, a dramatic poet, was the son of a clergyman, and born about the end of the seventeenth century. He was educated at Westminster School, and afterwards at Trinity College, Cambridge. After quitting the university, and remaining for some time an unsuccessful dangler about court, he began to write for the stage, and between 1675 and 1681 produced a new play every year. Poverty and a wild imagination, however, overthrew his reason, and he was confined in Bedlam for four years. In 1688 he resumed his pen, and, though subject to recurring fits of insanity, he completed two plays between that period and his death, which happened in 1690, as Cibber says, during a night frolic in the street. In the latter part of his life he was dependent upon charity. Of his eleven tragedies, Theodosius, Alexander the Great, and Lucius Junius Brutus have alone taken a respectable position on the stage. His genius for tragedy, commended highly by Addison and other contemporary writers, is completely overcome by the wildness of his imagination, which often leads him into extravagant metaphor and turgid bombast. These faults, however, are partially redeemed by a graceful eloquence and true tenderness in describing the softer feelings of nature. Lee was an imitator of Dryden, whom he assisted in writing Edipus and the Duke of Guise.

Rev. Samuel, D.D., Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge, was born at Longnor, in Shropshire, 14th May 1783, and was educated at a charity school in that village. Apprenticed to a carpenter at the age of twelve, he began early to display that power of application which characterized him all through life, and at the age of seventeen, he commenced to study Latin, purchasing books with his scanty savings. To an intimate acquaintance with this language, the knowledge of Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Syriac, was soon afterwards added. In 1810 Archdeacon Corbett, hearing of his wonderful acquirements, obtained for him the mastership of Bowdler's foundation school in Shrewsbury. He entered Queen's College, Cambridge, in 1813, and took the degree of B.A. in 1817. In 1819 he became Professor of Arabic at Cambridge, and in 1825, Rector of Bilton with Harrowgate. He received the degree of B.D. in 1827, and became Regius Professor of Hebrew in 1831. Two years afterwards the degree of D.D., which he had obtained in 1822 from the University of Halle, was again conferred upon him by his alma mater. He died in 1822.

His principal works are the following:—Events and Times of Visions of Daniel and St John, 8vo, London, 1851; Hebrew Grammar, 1830; Hebrew, Chaldee, and English Lexicon, 1840; An Inquiry into the Nature, Progress, and End of Prophecy, 8vo, Cambridge, 1849; The Book of Job, translated from the original Hebrew, 1837.