Jeaffreson’s
Novels and
Novelists.
“Lewis’s personal appearance was not prepossessing. He describes himself as
‘Of passions strong, of hasty nature,
Of graceless form and dwarfish stature.’
He had, moreover, large gray eyes, thick features, and an inexpressive countenance. When he talked he had an insufferable habit of drawing the fore-finger of his right hand across his eyelid, and in conversation he was guilty of the absurd affectation of a drawling tone such as was popular with dandies.”
New Monthly
Magazine, 1848.
“Matthew Gregory Lewis. Of this gentleman I knew but little, not having encountered him half a dozen times after my introduction to him at the house of Nat Middleton, the banker. With a short thick-set figure, unintellectual features, and a disagreeable habit of peering, being very short-sighted, his aspect was by no means prepossessing; but as he had ‘that within which passeth show,’ he recovered the ground lost at starting as rapidly as Wilkes could have done.”
JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART
1794-1854
The Times,
9th Dec. 1854.