Matthew Gregory 1775-1818 Lewis

LEWIS, MATTHEW GREGORY (1775-1818), English romance-writer and dramatist, often referred to as "Monk" Lewis, was born in London on July 9, 1775. He was educated for a diplomatic career at Westminster school and at Christ Church, Oxford, spending most of his vacations abroad in the study of modern languages; and in 1794 he proceeded to The Hague as attaché to the British embassy. His stay there lasted only a few months, but was marked by the composition, in ten weeks, of his famous romance Ambrosio, or the Monk (1795). About a year after its appearance an injunction to restrain its sale was moved for and a rule nisi obtained. Lewis published a second edition from which he had expunged, as he thought, all the objectionable passages. The work is described by Byron in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers: Wonder-working Lewis, Monk or Bard, Who fain would'st make Parnassus a churchyard; Even Satan's self with thee might dread to dwell, And in thy skull discern a deeper hell.

The Castle Spectre

(1796, a musical drama of no great literary merit, but which enjoyed a long popularity on the stage), The Minister (a translation from Schiller's Kabale u. Liebe), Rolla (1797, a translation from Kotzebue), with numerous other op eratic and tragic pieces, appeared in rapid succession. The Bravo of Venice, a romance translated from the German, was published in 1804; next to The Monk it is the best known work of Lewis. By the death of his father he succeeded to a large fortune, and in 1815 embarked for the West Indies to visit his estates; in the course of this tour, the Journal of a West Indian Proprietor, pub lished posthumously in 1833, was written. A second visit to Jamaica was undertaken in 1817, in the hope of ameliorating the condition of the slave population; he died of fever on the home ward voyage on May 14, 1818.

See

The Life and Correspondence of M. G. Lewis (2 vols., 1839).