Walpole, of 'romances with supernatural machinery' and mysterious feudal castles. Whether Lewis was influenced by her or only by his new German models I will not presume to say. Anyhow, he wrote The Monk, which was published in his twentieth year (1795), and became a famous author at a bound. He had the grace to remove certain indecencies of which a respectable public loudly complained, and, though much abused, was accepted as a literary luminary in the eyes of Scott when, a little later, he came to see his aristocratic friends in Scotland. Lewis, indeed, was a quaint contrast to the sturdy borderer. He was diminutive in size, with eyes projecting 'like an insect's,' full of transparent vanity, intolerable loquacity, and, it would seem, not a little of a snob. His father had given him a seat in Parliament; he furnished a cottage in the best taste of the day; he was admitted to fashionable circles, was welcomed by the Duchess of York at Oatlands, and was familiar in later years with Byron and the questionable dandies of the Regency. With all his foibles, Lewis had some excellent qualities. Though he was not an Abolitionist, he felt it to be a duty to look into the position of his slaves for himself; went twice to his estates in the West Indies, and
