LEWIS, •Rifzlit Hon. Sir GEORGE CORNEWALL, Bart.. English statesman and author. was b. in London, 180(1. He was eldest son of sir Thomas Frankland Lewis. first baronet of Harpton Court, Radnorshire, who, after a long official career, was chairman of the poor-law board from 1831 to 1839. Lewis was educated at Eton and Christ' church, Oxford, where in 1828 he was first-class in classics and second-class in mathe.
matics. He was called to the bar of the middle temple in 1831, and after acting on various commissions of inquiry, succeeded his father as poor-law commissioner in 1839, and remained at the poor-law board until it was broken up and reconstituted in 1847. He had meanwhile married lady Maria Theresa, sister to the fourth earl of Clarendon, and a connection by marriage of earl Russell. Having determined to adopt a political career, and being thus incorporated into the number of whiz official families, his pro motion was certain and rapid. lie sat for Herefordshire from 1847 to 1852, and became successively seer.-tary to the Indian board of control, under-secretary for the home department, imancial secretary to the treasury. In 1859 he lost his seat in the house of commons, and subsequently accepted the editorship of the Edinburgh Retielc, which he continued to conduct until 1855, when he was elected for the Radnor district of boroughs. He had scarcely taken his seat when lord Palmerston offered him the chan cellorship of the exchequer in his first administration, which lie held from Mar., 1835, to the dissolution of the government in Feb., 1858. On the return of lord Palmerston to power, in June, 1859, Lewis accepted the post of secretary of state for the home department, which, to the surprise of the nation, he exchanged, in 1861, on the death of lord Herbert, for the office of secretary of state for war. In the same year, he published
a work of much research, entitled the Astronomy of the Ancients. This unremitting labor weakened his frame, and a cold caught while he was enjoying the Easter holi days at his family seat, was followed by congestion of the lungs, which proved fatal, April 13, 1863. Lewis was an able, earnest, and sincere politician. As an orator, lie could scarcely be said to express himself with eloquence or vivacity; yet his sound sense, varied knowledge, and moral and intellectual qualities, made him one of the chief orna ments of public and political life in England. His Inquiry into the Credibility of Roman History is conducted on the critical principles of Niebuhr, but is more rigorous and skeptical in spirit than the work of the great German historian. The treasures of varied knowledge and wisdom which lie had collected during his comparatively short life may be gathered from a list of his works, which include a treatise on the Origin and Formation of the Romance Language; The .Fables of Babrius; The Use and Abuse of Political Terms; The Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion; The Method of Obserra tion and Reasoning in Politics; Local Disturbances and the _Irish Church Question; The Government of Dependencies; A Glossary of Provincial Words used in HerefoAlshire; and the Astronomy of the Ancients. His latest work was a Dialogue on the Best Form of Govern ment, which was published a few days before his death.