for Scott's help in collecting the ‘Tales of Wonder.’ The book, which included contributions from Scott, Leyden, and various translations and imitations, was published with little success in 1801. Lewis also procured the publication in 1799 of Scott's translation of ‘Goetz von Berlichingen.’
In the winter of 1804–5 Lewis had a quarrel with his father, who had formed a connection with a woman in a good social position and desired his son to treat her with the respect due to a stepmother. Lewis resented the insult to his mother, and appears from his letters to have behaved with much feeling and sense. The father broke with him, and for a time reduced his allowance, though it seems to have been restored before long to the original amount (ib. i. 286, 307, 309, ii. 84). A reconciliation was not effected till shortly before the father's death on 17 May 1812. The whole property was left to the son. Lewis now became a rich man. He enabled his mother to settle in comfort at the ‘White Cottage,’ near Leatherhead. The house was furnished with such taste as to call forth the highest eloquence of the son's biographer.
Lewis wrote no more plays. He wished to inquire into the condition of the negroes upon his West Indian property. He sailed from England on 10 Nov. 1815, and landed at Jamaica on 1 Jan. 1816. He made careful arrangements for the welfare of his slaves, and left a code of rules to secure them against cruelty. He sailed for England on 31 March, and soon after landing went to visit Byron and Shelley at Geneva. While at the Maison Diodati (20 Aug. 1816) he drew up a codicil to his will, witnessed by Byron, Shelley, and Polidori, which provided that any future holder of the property should be obliged to spend three months in Jamaica every third year, in order to see that the negroes were properly treated; and he directed that none of them should be sold. He visited Florence, Rome, and Naples in the winter, and in July 1817 was again with Byron in Venice. At the end of the year he sailed again for Jamaica. After a long and stormy voyage of twelve weeks he reached it early in 1818. He sailed again for England on 4 May. He was almost immediately attacked by yellow fever, and died on 14 May 1818. He was buried at sea the same day. He left 1,000l. a year to his mother, and the rest of his estates equally between his sisters (will, dated 5 June 1812, in ‘Life,’ ii. 373–81).
Lewis, says Scott, was a man of very diminutive though well-made figure, with singular eyes, projecting like those of some insect (a portrait is prefixed to the ‘Life’). He looked like a schoolboy all his life, and retained many of the qualities of a precocious and ill-educated schoolboy. His intellectual vivacity enabled him to catch the literary fashion of the day, and his books secured a temporary success, partly due to the dash of indecency. His writings are chiefly memorable as illustrations of a temporary phase of taste, and from their influence upon Scott's first poetical efforts. Both Scott and Byron pronounce him to have been an intolerable bore, apparently from his boundless loquacity; and Byron of all people oddly complains that though a ‘jewel of a man,’ he had been spoilt by living in a bad set. His biographers have been rather needlessly surprised that with such qualities he had also many solid virtues. Benevolence and good sense often underlie much foppishness and some laxity of morals. Besides his good conduct to his parents under great difficulties, his biographer tells of many acts of generosity. Though not in favour of emancipation, Lewis was a friend of Wilberforce, and did his best for his slaves. He was accused, and apparently with some justice, of injudicious indulgence to them, and he introduced some fanciful regulations, such as an annual festival in honour of the Duchess of York. But his real goodwill is unmistakable, and Coleridge (Table Talk, 20 March 1834) says truly that his Jamaica journal is ‘delightful,’ and shows ‘the man himself’ and a much finer mind than appeared in his writings. It is an interesting document as to the state of Jamaica after the abolition of the slave-trade and before the emancipation of the negro. Lewis's works are:
- ‘Ambrosio, or the Monk,’ 1795.
- ‘Village Virtues,’ a dramatic satire, 1796.
- ‘The Minister,’ 1797 (from Schiller's ‘Kabale und Liebe,’ produced as ‘The Harper's Daughter’ at Covent Garden on 4 May 1803).
- ‘The Castle Spectre,’ 1798; first acted at Drury Lane, 14 Dec. 1797.
- ‘Rolla,’ a tragedy, 1799 (from Kotzebue; not acted, and superseded by Sheridan's ‘Pizarro’ from the same play).
- ‘Tales of Terror,’ Kelso, 1799; London, 1801(?) (republished with the ‘Tales of Wonder’ by Professor Morley in 1887. The 1799 edition, mentioned by Lowndes, is not forthcoming; that of 1801 (published at Weybridge) is very rare, and not in the British Museum. According to a writer in ‘Notes and Queries,’ 3rd ser. x. 508, the 1801 edition was the first; an introductory dialogue is dated 1 March 1801; and the last poem ridicules Lewis himself. It may therefore be intended as a parody of the ‘Tales of Wonder.’ A second edition ap-
