the theory of epic lays and other theories on which Niebuhr’s reconstruction of that history had proceeded. In 1855 Lewis succeeded his father in the baronetcy. He was at once elected member for the Radnor boroughs, and Lord Palmerston made him chancellor of the exchequer. He had a war loan to contract and heavy additional taxation to impose, but his industry, method and clear vision carried him safely through. After the change of ministry in 1859 Sir George became home secretary under Lord Palmerston, and in 1861, much against his wish, he succeeded Sidney Herbert (Lord Herbert of Lea) at the War Office. The closing years of his life were marked by increasing intellectual vigour. In 1859 he published an able Essay on Foreign Jurisdiction and the Extradition of Criminals, a subject to which the attempt on Napoleon’s life, the discussions on the Conspiracy Bill, and the trial of Bernard, had drawn general attention. He advocated the extension of extradition treaties, and condemned the principal idea of Weltrechtsordnung which Mohl of Heidelberg had proposed. His two latest works were the Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, in which, without professing any knowledge of Oriental languages, he applied a sceptical analysis to the ambitious Egyptology of Bunsen; and the Dialogue on the Best Form of Government, in which, under the name of Crito, the author points out to the supporters of the various systems that there is no one abstract government which is the best possible for all times and places. An essay on the Characteristics of Federal, National, Provincial and Municipal Government does not seem to have been published. Sir George died in April 1863. A marble bust by Weekes stands in Westminster Abbey.
Lewis was a man of mild and affectionate disposition, much beloved by a large circle of friends, among whom were Sir E. Head, the Grotes, the Austins, Lord Stanhope, J. S. Mill, Dean Milman, the Duff Gordons. In public life he was distinguished, as Lord Aberdeen said, “for candour, moderation, love of truth.” He had a passion for the systematic acquirement of knowledge, and a keen and sound critical faculty. His name has gone down to history as that of a many-sided man, sound in judgment, unselfish in political life, and abounding in practical good sense.
A reprint from the Edinburgh Review of his long series of papers on the Administration of Great Britain appeared in 1864, and his Letters to various Friends (1870) were edited by his brother Gilbert, who succeeded him in the baronetcy.
LEWIS, HENRY CARVILL (1853–1888), American geologist, was born in Philadelphia on the 16th of November 1853. Educated in the university of Pennsylvania he took the degree of M.A. in 1876. He became attached to the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania in 1879, serving for three years as a volunteer member, and during this term he became greatly interested in the study of glacial phenomena. In 1880 he was chosen professor of mineralogy in the Philadelphia academy of natural sciences, and in 1883 he was appointed to the chair of geology in Haverford College, Pennsylvania. During the winters of 1885 to 1887 he studied petrology under H. F. Rosenbusch at Heidelberg, and during the summers he investigated the glacial geology of northern Europe and the British Islands. His observations in North America, where he had studied under Professor G. F. Wright, Professor T. C. Chamberlin and Warren Upham, had demonstrated the former extension of land-ice, and the existence of great terminal moraines. In 1884 his Report on the Terminal Moraine in Pennsylvania and New York was published: a work containing much information on the limits of the North American ice-sheet. In Britain he sought to trace in like manner the southern extent of the terminal moraines formed by British ice-sheets, but before his conclusions were matured he died at Manchester on the 21st of July 1888. The results of his observations were published in 1894 entitled Papers and Notes on the Glacial Geology of Great Britain and Ireland, edited by Dr H. W. Crosskey.
See “Prof. Henry Carvill Lewis and his Work in Glacial Geology,” by Warren Upham, Amer. Geol. vol. ii. (Dec. 1888) p. 371, with portrait.
LEWIS, JOHN FREDERICK (1805–1876), British painter, son of F. C. Lewis, engraver, was born in London. He was elected in 1827 associate of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, of which he became full member in 1829 and president in 1855; he resigned in 1858, and was made associate of the Royal Academy in 1859 and academician in 1865. Much of his earlier life was spent in Spain, Italy and the East, but he returned to England in 1851 and for the remainder of his career devoted himself almost exclusively to Eastern subjects, which he treated with extraordinary care and minuteness of finish, and with much beauty of technical method. He is represented by a picture, “Edfou: Upper Egypt,” in the National Gallery of British Art. He achieved equal eminence in both oil and water-colour painting.
LEWIS, MATTHEW GREGORY (1775–1818), English
romance-writer and dramatist, often referred to as “Monk”
Lewis, was born in London on the 9th of July 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 romance Ambrosio, or the Monk, which was
published in the summer of the following year. It immediately
achieved celebrity; but some passages it contained were of such
a nature that 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, but the work still
remains of such a character as almost to justify the severe
language in which Byron in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers
addresses—
“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.”
Whatever its demerits, ethical or aesthetic, may have been, The Monk did not interfere with the reception of Lewis into the best English society; he was favourably noticed at court, and almost as soon as he came of age he obtained a seat in the House of Commons as member for Hindon, Wilts. After some years, however, during which he never addressed the House, he finally withdrew from a parliamentary career. His tastes lay wholly in the direction of literature, and 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 operatic 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, which lasted four months, the Journal of a West Indian Proprietor, published posthumously in 1833, was written. A second visit to Jamaica was undertaken in 1817, in order that he might become further acquainted with, and able to ameliorate, the condition of the slave population; the fatigues to which he exposed himself in the tropical climate brought on a fever which terminated fatally on the homeward voyage on the 14th of May 1818.
The Life and Correspondence of M. G. Lewis, in two volumes, was published in 1839.
LEWIS, MERIWETHER (1774–1809), American explorer, was born near Charlottesville, Virginia, on the 18th of August 1774. In 1794 he volunteered with the Virginia troops called out to suppress the “Whisky Insurrection,” was commissioned as ensign in the regular United States army in 1795, served with distinction under General Anthony Wayne in the campaigns against the Indians, and attained the rank of captain in 1797. From 1801 to 1803 he was the private secretary of President Jefferson. On the 18th of January 1803 Jefferson sent a confidential message to Congress urging the development of trade with the Indians of the Missouri Valley and recommending that an exploring party be sent into this region, notwithstanding
