In the churchyard, among the tombs, is that of Dr. Halley, who succeeded Flamstead as Astronomer Royal at Greenwich, where he died in 1741-2: Halley published a treatise on Comets, when he was nineteen years old; and first applied the barometer to measure heights. Here also lie William Pate, whom Swift, in his Letters, calls the learned woollen-draper: Sir Samuel Fludyer, bart., the courtly lord mayor; Parsons, the comedian, with this quaint epitaph:—
Here Parsons lies, oft on life's busy stage
With nature, reader, hast thou seen him vie;
He science knew, knew manners, knew the age,
Respected knew to live, lamented die.
Bliss, the Astronomer Royal, who died in 1762, is also buried here; Charnock, the author of Biographia Navalis, a Life of Nelson, &c.; the amiable Lord Dacre, who died in 1794; and Mary, his relict, 1808.[5]
Harris says that Samuel Purchas resided at Lee, and there wrote a great part of his collection of travels, or "Celebrated Pilgrimages and Relations of the World."
Among the grateful recollection of Lee we must not omit the alms-house, chapel, and school-house founded by C. Boone, Esq. in 1638.