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University for ten years, having studied both medicine and theology. 
He took the degree of M.D. in 1801, when his Graduation Thesis 
was much admired for its Ciceronian Latinity. He was licensed as a 
probationer of the Church in 1804. 
During his attendance at college, he assisted Professor Robison in 
editing Dr Black’s “ Lectures on Chemistry.” In 1802, before his 
college career closed, he was offered and he accepted the chair of 
Moral Philosophy in the University of Wilna, in West Russia, in which 
also, I believe, two other distinguished men were invited to become 
Professors — -Thomas Campbell, the author of <£ The Pleasures of 
Hope,” and Sir David Brewster, who has now succeeded Dr Lee in 
the office of Principal in our own University. It is but fair to say 
that these invitations were made through the medium of the late 
David Earl of Buchan, who, with some peculiarities of character, 
was a man of talent and taste, and inspired by a sincere zeal for the 
advancement of literature and science. Dr Lee prepared himself 
for fulfilling the duties of this appointment by writing out in Latin 
a portion of the lectures which he proposed to deliver at Wilna, but 
the arrangement was broken off by political events which interfered 
with its completion. 
For some time previous to the end of 1805, Dr Lee had been on 
intimate terms with Dr Carlyle, well known as an eminent clergy- 
man of the Church of Scotland, and then minister of Inveresk, near 
Edinburgh. He lived a good deal with Dr Carlyle, both at Inver- 
esk Manse and in the Doctor’s town residence ; and as Dr Carlyle 
was then about eighty years of age, and still intimate with those of 
his own contemporaries, who were alive, such as John Home and 
Adam Fergusson, who belonged, like himself, to a by-gone age, and 
who had witnessed many remarkable events and social changes, it 
cannot be doubted that Dr Lee must have derived from this ac- 
quaintance a great deal of traditional knowledge as to the civil and 
ecclesiastical history of Scotland in the eighteenth century, and his 
natural bias may have been confirmed towards that historical re- 
search, and that interest in personal character and anecdote, by 
which he was afterwards distinguished. Dr Carlyle, at his death in 
1805, appointed Dr Lee one of his trustees, and committed specially 
to his care an autobiographical memoir, which cannot fail to be full 
of interest, and as to which, I may be permitted to express a hope, 
that it will ere long be communicated to the public. 
