Note 178 — JOURNAL OF ELIZABETH LADY HOLLAND (continued 3)

Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775–1818), eldest son of Matthew Lewis, Esq., and Frances Maria, daughter of Sir Thomas Sewell. He was educated at Westminster, and passed some time in Germany, near Weimar, where he learnt the language and imbibed that taste for German literature which clung to him for the remainder of his life. When only twenty he wrote the novel which gave him the nickname by which he is best known. In addition to novels, he wrote numerous poems and verses, and also plays, several of which were produced in London. He sat in the House of Commons as a Whig from 1796 to 1802. His father, who was a large landed proprietor in the West Indies, died in 1812, and after his death Lewis took up very enthusiastically the question of the welfare of the slaves working on the property. He twice visited Jamaica, and died on the return journey in 1818 from yellow fever.