Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lewis, Mark

by Gordon Goodwin ‎

LEWIS, MARK (fl. 1678), financial and miscellaneous writer, was apparently in 1670 a master in a school conducted on improved principles by A. Bret at Tottenham High Cross, Middlesex. His method of teaching so pleased the Earl of Anglesey, then lord privy seal, that he placed his grandsons at the school, and secured Lewis's rights to the invention by letters patent. About 1676 Lewis devoted himself to the concoction of various quackish schemes for the reduction of taxation, the increase of trade, and the establishment of banks. In 1677 he affixed the letters ‘D.D.’ to his name.

His writings are:

1. ‘An Essay to facilitate the Education of Youth by bringing down the Rudiments of Grammar to the Sense of Seeing,’ 8vo (London, 1670?).
2. ‘[Rudimenta?] Grammaticæ Puerilis, or the Rudiments of the Latin and Greek Tongues, &c. (an Apologie for a Grammar printed about twenty years since, … and reprinted for the use of a private school, &c.),’ 8vo, London [1671].
3. ‘Plain and Short Rules for pointing Periods and reading Sentences grammatically,’ 8vo (London, 1675?).
4. ‘Vestibulum Technicum, or an Artificial Vestibulum. Wherein the sense of Janua Linguarum is contained and most of the leading Words are compiled into Plain and Short Sentences,’ &c., 8vo, London, 1675.
5. ‘A Model for a School for the better Education of Youth,’ 8vo, London [1675?].
6. ‘Proposals to increase Trade and to advance his Majesties Revenue, without any hazard, … and with apparent Profit to Everybody,’ 8vo, London, 1677.
7. ‘Proposals to the King and Parliament how this Tax of one hundred sixty thousand pounds per moneth may be raised by a monethly Tax for one year … by setting up Banks here like the Bank at Venice,’ 4to, London, 1677.
8. ‘A Short Model of a Bank, … which … will be able to give out bills of credit to a vast extent, that all persons will accept of rather than mony,’ 8vo [London, 1677].
9. ‘Proposals to the King and Parliament, or a large Model of a Bank,’ 4to, London, 1678.

[Lewis's Works.]

G. G.