Life and Works
Eugene Lee-Hamilton was born in London in January, 1845, and was educated mainly in France and Germany. In 1864 he was sent to the University of Oxford, and in 1869 entered the British diplomatic service. He was first attached to the Embassy at Paris. Owing to his early experiences of French life, and complete mastery of the French language, he was eminently fitted for this post. But when the Franco-German War broke out he was terribly overworked. He took part in the Alabama arbitration at Geneva. Subsequently he was appointed secretary in the British Legation at Lisbon. He had to renounce this second position in 1873, when, suddenly, he collapsed altogether, losing the use of his legs, and suffering agonies of pain. He expressed it in one of his sonnets,
"To keep through life the posture of the grave,
While others walk and run and dance and leap."
It was in order to while away the tedium arising out of this malady that he first took to composing verse. All of his poetry from this time was composed without his touching pen or paper, and subsequently dictated.
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