Matthew Gregory Lewis, commonly called Monk Lewis, from his once popular romance of that name, was a good-hearted man, and, like too many of that fraternity, a disagreeable one—verbose, disputatious and paradoxical. His Monk and Castle Spectre elevated him into fame; and he continued to write ghost-stories till, following as he did in the wake of Mrs. Radcliffe, he quite overstocked the market. Lewis visited his estates in Jamaica, and came back perfectly negro-bitten. He promulgated a new code of laws in the island, for the government of his sable subjects: one may serve for a specimen: “Any slave who commits murder shall have his heed shaved, and be confined three days and nights in a dark room.” Upon occasion of printing these parodies, Monk Lewis said to Lady H[olland], “Many of them are very fair, but mine is not at all like; they have made me write burlesque, which I never do” “You don’t know your own talent,” answered the lady.
Lewis aptly described himself, as to externals, in the verses affixed to his Monk, as having
“A graceless form and dwarfish stature”
He had, moreover, large grey eyes, thick features, and an inexpressive countenance. In talking, he had a disagreeable habit of drawing the fore-finger of his right hand across his tight eye-lid. He affected, in conversation, a sort of dandified, drawling tone: young Harlowe, the artist, did the same. A foreigner who had but slight knowledge of the English language might have concluded, from their cadences, that they were little better than fools—“just a born goose,” as Terry the actor used to say. Lewis died on his passage homeward from Jamaica, owing to a dose of James’s powders injudiciously administered by “his own mere motion.” He wrote various plays, with various success, he had admirable notions of dramatic construction, but the goodness of his scenes and incidents was marred by the badness of his dialogue.
[65] “Mr. Coleridge will not, we fear, be as much entertained as we were with his ‘Playhouse Musings,’ which begin with characteristic pathos and simplicity, and put us much in mind of the affecting story of old Poulter’s mare.”—Quarterly Review.
“‘Playhouse Musings,’ by Mr. Coleridge, a piece which is unquestionably Lakish, though we cannot say that we recognise in it any of the peculiar traits of that powerful and misdirected genius whose name it has borrowed. We rather think, however, that the tuneful brotherhood will consider it as a respectable eclogue.”—Jeffrey, Edinburgh Review.
[66] “He of Blackfriars’ Road,” viz. the late Rev. Rowland Hill, who is said to have preached a sermon congratulating his congregation on the catastrophe. [See before:—
Meux’s new brewhouse shows the light,
Rowland Hill’s Chapel, and the height
Where Patent Shot they sell.]
[67] “Oh, Mr. Whitbread!” Sir William Grant, then Master of the Rolls, repeated this passage aloud at a Lord Mayor’s dinner, to the no small astonishment of the writer, who happened to sit within ear-shot.
[68] “Padmanaba,” viz., in a pantomime called Harlequin in Padmanaba. This elephant [Chunee], some years afterwards, was exhibited over Exeter ’Change, where, the reader will remember, it was found necessary [March, 1826] to destroy the poor animal by discharges of musketry. When he made his entrance in the pantomime above mentioned, Johnson, the machinist of the rival house, exclaimed, “I should be very sorry if I could not make a better elephant than that!” Johnson was right: we go to the theatre to be pleased with the skill of the imitator, and not to look at the reality.