Sidney Lee

“ Some of Lee's schoolfellows, like the late Dr. Beeching, Dean of Norwich, and the late Arthur Bullen, of Stratford-on-Avon, went, in a sense, farther afield; but Lee fastened, so to speak, on Shakespeare, and will be best remembered, by scholars at all events, for the Shakespearean studies to which be was first led by Abbott, and in which he achieved signal eminence. Indeed, it is not too much to say that Shakespeare was the passion of his life, and a few days ago he arranged that his ashes should be laid at Stratford-on-Avon. ”

“ With few graces as a "popular" lecturer, he attracted increasingly large classes of eager students from all quarters, and gave them of his best and ripest learning. Almost equal in burdensomeness was his chairmanship of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust which, involving endless details of business and administration, with frequent travelling undoubtedly helped to shorten his life. At Stratford, as in most places, Lee was almost always among the first to be called upon to lend a hand where "representative" English men of letters were wanted. ”

“ Of his own biographical work the most notable were his lives of Shakespeare and of Queen Victoria and King Edward VII. The Shakespeare, in its enlarged and book form, will always remain, after making all allowances a "standard" book. It collects all available materials, whatever the inferences to be made from them; and it must be said that Lee is a better guide in biography and bibliography than in æsthetics. ”