Comments
VENN
Adm. pens. at QUEENS', Jan. 25, 1814. [B. May 14, 1783, at Longnor, Shropshire. Educated at a Shropshire village school.] Son of poor parents; at the age of 12 apprenticed to a carpenter by whom he was on one occasion sent to the house of a gentleman who had a good library, where he was discovered reading the books in his dinner-hour. Taught himself Greek and Hebrew, and before he was 25 had made progress in Chaldee, Syriac, Samaritan, Persian, and Hindustani. Brought to Cambridge under the auspices of the C.M.S. and Isaac Milner. ' Matric. Lent, 1814; B.A. 1818; M.A. (per Lit. Reg.) 1819 (in a shorter time than usual in order to be Professor of Arabic); B.D. 1827. Migrated to Trinity, 1831; D.D. 1833. D.D. (Halle) 1822. Sir Thomas Adams Professor of Arabic, 1819-31. Regius Professor of Hebrew, 1831-48. Ord. priest (Gloucester) June 21, 1818. Chaplain of Cambridge gaol, 1823. R. of Bilton, Yorks., 1825-31. Canon of Bristol Cathedral, 1831-52. V. of Banwell, Somerset, 1831-8. Charles Darwin, in 1838, wrote that Lee had just then returned to civilised society and Oriental manuscripts at Cambridge, having had a living or curacy for seven years in Somersetshire. R. of Barley, Herts., 1838-52. One of the greatest linguists of the 19th century. Author, A Grammar of the Hebrew Language; A Lexicon, Hebrew, Chaldee, and English; Dissent, unscriptural and unjustifiable; The doctrine of the Keys, etc. Died Dec. 16, 1852. Buried at Barley. (D.N.B.; Boase, II. 558; Foster, Index Eccles.; Cambridge Review, Dec. 21, 1852; C.M. Intelligencer, Mar. 1853; C.U. Hist. Reg., 77; De Morgan, Budget of Paradoxes; Charles Darwin, Life and Letters, I. 189.)