"I've seen an unscrewed spider spin a thought,
And walk away upon the wings of angels!"
"What say you to that, doctor?" "Ah, marry, Mr. Lee, that's superfine indeed. The thought of a winged spider may catch sublime readers of poetry sooner than his web, but it will need a commentary in prose to render it intelligible to the vulgar."[131]
Lee's madness does not appear to have been melancholy, otherwise these anecdotes would not bear repeating. There are various stories of the origin of it; but, most probably, he had an over-sanguine constitution, which he exasperated by intemperance. Though he died so young, the author of A Satyr on the Poets gives us to understand that he was corpulent.
"Pembroke loved tragedy, and did provide
For the butchers' dogs, and for the whole Bank-side:
The bear was fed; but dedicating Lee
Was thought to have a greater paunch than he."[132]
This Pembroke, who loved a bear-garden, was the seventh earl of that title. His daughter married the son of Jefferies. Lee, on a visit to the earl at Wilton, is said to have drunk so hard, that "the butler feared he would empty the cellar." The madness of Lee is almost visible in his swelling and overladen dramas; in which, however, there is a good deal of true poetic fire, and a vein of tenderness that makes us heartily pity the author.
The social Boswell, in speaking of Johnson's eating-house in Butcher Row, does not approve of establishments of that sort. We shall see, by and by, that he was wrong.