LEWIS, MATTHEW GREGORY, a writer of novels, poems, and dramatic pieces, was born at London on the 9th of July 1775. His father was deputy secretary-at-war, and was connected with many families of rank and wealth ; his mother was a daughter of Sir Thomas Sewell, master of the mile. Lewis studied at Christchurch, Oxford, and afterwards lived for some time in Germany ; there he became acquainted with Goths and his followers, and imbibed the mysterious and tragic spirit of which his writings are full. Previous to his reaidenco in Germany, when only sixteen years old, he wrote a successful comedy, called ' The East Indian.' The novel by which he is chiefly known, ' The Monk,' was published in 1794, when he was in his twentieth year. In the skilful employment of supernatural and mysterious agencies, and the display of horrors, it is perhaps unrivalled in the English language. A considerable portion of its details are devoted to the operations of the lustful passions on the character of a man violent and unscrupulous in his nature, bat under the restraint of monastic vows. The young novelist drew the character broadly and offensively ; and the singular lubricity of a performance, calcu lated by its genius and adaptation to the taste of novel readers to be extensively circulated, excited much indignation. It is understood that the Society for the Suppression of Vice applied to the attorney general to take legal steps against Lewis. These attacks only swelled the author's fame. At that time it was rather favourable to the success of a work of genius that its morality was not perfectly pure, and Lewis had the satisfaction of being a much courted and slightly abhorred man. His character, as represented in his published letters, is singularly at variance with that which might bo derived from the study of his works. He appears to have been good-hearted, simple,
affectionate, and not addicted to any vice. He had a very difficult part to maintain in his intercourse with his parents, his mother having, on account of her levities, long been separated from her husband. Although be could not vindicate her conduct, he gave her his kindest sympathies. It is a singular circumstance in his life, that, after having lived for some time on bad terms with his father, the latter dying in a temper which precluded the son from any hope of succession, yet left him, with slight exceptions, his whole fortune. This event made Lewis a rich West India proprietor. He was very kind to his slaves, and his occasional visits to his estates in Jamaica were welcomed as occasions of public rejoicing both among his own slaves and those in the neighbourhood of his estates. His poetical pieces, including 'Alonzo the Brave," Bill Jones,' &c., are well known ; they are distin guished by the fluency of their versification, and the distinctness and power with which they narrate horrible and tragical incidents. There is however in all his writings a tone of barbarous and exaggerated taste. In 1812 ho idtrodnced to the stage the drama of ' Timour the Tartar,' which is said to have had much influence in creating the taste for gorgeous pageants, from which the British stage has not yet relieved itself. Lewis died at sea, on the 14th of May 1818, when on the way home from a visit to his Jamaica estates. His 'Residence in the West Indies' has been reprinted in Murray's 'Home and Colonial Library.' (Life and Correspondence of Matthew Gregory Lewis, 8vo, London, 1839.)