Chapter 5

(J. F. St.)

LEVY, AMY(1861-1889), English poetess and novelist, second daughter of Lewis Levy, was born at Clapham on the 10th of November 1861, and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She showed a precocious aptitude for writing verse of exceptional merit, and in 1884 she published a volume of poems,A Minor Poet and Other Verse, some of the pieces in which had already been printed at Cambridge with the titleXantippe and Other Poems. The high level of this first publication was maintained inA London Plane Tree and Other Poems, a collection of lyrics published in 1889, in which the prevailing pessimism of the writer’s temperament was conspicuous. She had already in 1888 tried her hand at prose fiction inThe Romance of a Shop, which was followed byReuben Sachs, a powerful novel. She committed suicide on the 10th of September 1889.

LEVY, AUGUSTE MICHEL(1844- ), French geologist, was born in Paris on the 7th of August 1844. He became inspector-general of mines, and director of the Geological Survey of France. He was distinguished for his researches on eruptive rocks, their microscopic structure and origin; and he early employed the polarizing microscope for the determination of minerals. In his many contributions to scientific journals he described the granulite group, and dealt with pegmatites, variolites, eurites, the ophites of the Pyrenees, the extinct volcanoes of Central France, gneisses, and the origin of crystalline schists. He wroteStructures et classification des roches éruptives(1889), but his more elaborate studies were carried on with F. Fouqué. Together they wrote on the artificial production of felspar, nepheline and other minerals, and also of meteorites, and producedMinéralogie micrographique(1879) andSynthèse des minéraux et des roches(1882). Levy also collaborated with A. Lacroix inLes Minéraux des roches(1888) andTableau des minéraux des roches(1889).

LEVY(Fr.levée, fromlever, Lat.levare, to lift, raise), the raising of money by the collection of an assessment, &c., a tax or compulsory contribution; also the collection of a body of men for military or other purposes. When all the able-bodied men of a nation are enrolled for service, the French termlevée en masse, levy in mass, is frequently used.

LEWALD, FANNY(1811-1889), German author, was born at Königsberg in East Prussia on the 24th of March 1811, of Jewish parentage. When seventeen years of age she embraced Christianity, and after travelling in Germany, France and Italy, settled in 1845 at Berlin. Here, in 1854, she married the author, Adolf Wilhelm Theodor Stahr (1805-1876), and removed after his death in 1876 to Dresden, where she resided, engaged in literary work, until her death on the 5th of August 1889. Fanny Lewald is less remarkable for her writings, which are mostly sober, matter-of-fact works, though displaying considerable talent and culture, than for her championship of “women’s rights,” a question which she was practically the first German woman to take up, and for her scathing satire on the sentimentalism of the Gräfin Hahn Hahn. This authoress she ruthlessly attacked in the exquisite parody (Diogena, Roman von Iduna Gräfin H.... H....(2nd ed., 1847). Among the best known of her novels areKlementine(1842);Prinz Louis Ferdinand(1849; 2nd ed., 1859);Das Mädchen von Hela(1860);Von Geschlecht zu Geschlecht(8 vols., 1863-1865);Benvenuto(1875), andStella(1883; English by B. Marshall, 1884). Of her writings in defence of the emancipation of womenOsterbriefe für die Frauen(1863) andFür und wider die Frauen(1870) are conspicuous. Her autobiography,Meine Lebensgeschichte(6 vols., 1861-1862), is brightly written and affords interesting glimpses of the literary life of her time.

A selection of her works was published under the titleGesammelte Schriftenin 12 vols. (1870-1874). Cf. K. Frenzel,Erinnerungen und Strömungen(1890).

LEWANIKA(c.1860- ), paramount chief of the Barotse and subject tribes occupying the greater part of the upper Zambezi basin, was the twenty-second of a long line of rulers, whose founder invaded the Barotse valley about the beginning of the 17th century, and according to tradition was the son of a woman named Buya Mamboa by a god. The graves of successive ruling chiefs are to this day respected and objects of pilgrimage for purposes of ancestor worship. Lewanika was born on the upper Kabompo in troublous times, where his father—Letia, a son of a former ruler—lived in exile during the interregnum of a foreign dynasty (Makololo), which remained in possession from about 1830 to 1865, when the Makololo were practically exterminated in a night by a well-organized revolt. Once more masters of their own country, the Barotse invited Sepopa, an uncle of Lewanika, to rule over them. Eleven years of brutality and licence resulted in the tyrant’s expulsion and subsequent assassination, his place being taken by Ngwana-Wina, a nephew. Within a year abuse of power brought about this chief’s downfall (1877), and he was succeeded by Lobosi, who assumed the name of Lewanika in 1885. The early years of his reign were also stained by many acts of blood, until in 1884 the torture and murder of his own brother led to open rebellion, and it was only through extreme presence of mind that the chief escaped with his life into exile. His cousin, Akufuna or Tatela, was then proclaimed chief. It was during his brief reign that François Coillard, the eminent missionary, arrived at Lialui, the capital. The following year Lewanika, having collected his partisans, deposed the usurper and re-established his power. Ruthless revenge not unmixed with treachery characterized his return to power, but gradually the strongpersonality of the high-minded François Coillard so far influenced him for good that from about 1887 onward he ruled tolerantly and showed a consistent desire to better the condition of his people. In 1890 Lewanika, who two years previously had proposed to place himself under the protection of Great Britain, concluded a treaty with the British South Africa Company, acknowledging its supremacy and conceding to it certain mineral rights. In 1897 Mr R. T. Coryndon took up his position at Lialui as British agent, and the country to the east of 25° E. was thrown open to settlers, that to the west being reserved to the Barotse chief. In 1905 the king of Italy’s award in the Barotse boundary dispute with Portugal deprived Lewanika of half of his dominions, much of which had been ruled by his ancestors for many generations. In 1902 Lewanika attended the coronation of Edward VII. as a guest of the nation. His recognized heir was his eldest son Letia.

SeeBarotse, and the works there cited, especiallyOn the Threshold of Central Africa(London, 1897), by François Coillard.

(A. St. H. G.)

LEWES, CHARLES LEE(1740-1803), English actor, was the son of a hosier in London. After attending a school at Ambleside he returned to London, where he found employment as a postman; but about 1760 he went on the stage in the provinces, and some three years later began to appear in minor parts at Covent Garden Theatre. His first rôle of importance was that of “Young Marlow” inShe Stoops to Conquer, at its production of that comedy in 1773, when he delivered an epilogue specially written for him by Goldsmith. He remained a member of the Covent Garden company till 1783, appearing in many parts, among which were “Fag” inThe Rivals, which he “created,” and “Sir Anthony Absolute” in the same comedy. In 1783 he removed to Drury Lane, where he assumed the Shakespearian rôles of “Touchstone,” “Lucio” and “Falstaff.” In 1787 he left London for Edinburgh, where he gave recitations, including Cowper’s “John Gilpin.” For a short time in 1792 Lewes assisted Stephen Kemble in the management of the Dundee Theatre; in the following year he went to Dublin, but he was financially unsuccessful and suffered imprisonment for debt. He employed his time in compiling hisMemoirs, a worthless production published after his death by his son. He was also the author of some poor dramatic sketches. Lewes died on the 23rd of July 1803. He was three times married; the philosopher, George Henry Lewes, was his grandson.

See John Genest,Some Account of the English Stage(Bath, 1832).

LEWES, GEORGE HENRY(1817-1878), British philosopher and literary critic, was born in London in 1817. He was a grandson of Charles Lee Lewes, the actor. He was educated in London, Jersey, Brittany, and finally at Dr Burney’s school in Greenwich. Having abandoned successively a commercial and a medical career, he seriously thought of becoming an actor, and between 1841 and 1850 appeared several times on the stage. Finally he devoted himself to literature, science and philosophy. As early as 1836 he belonged to a club formed for the study of philosophy, and had sketched out a physiological treatment of the philosophy of the Scottish school. Two years later he went to Germany, probably with the intention of studying philosophy. In 1840 he married a daughter of Swynfen Stevens Jervis (1798-1867), and during the next ten years supported himself by contributing to the quarterly and other reviews. These articles discuss a wide variety of subject, and, though often characterized by hasty impulse and imperfect study, betray a singularly acute critical judgment, enlightened by philosophic study. The most valuable are those on the drama, afterwards republished under the titleActors and Acting(1875). With this may be taken the volume onThe Spanish Drama(1846). The combination of wide scholarship, philosophic culture and practical acquaintance with the theatre gives these essays a high place among the best efforts in English dramatic criticism. In 1845-1846 he publishedThe Biographical History of Philosophy, an attempt to depict the life of philosophers as an ever-renewed fruitless labour to attain the unattainable. In 1847-1848 he made two attempts in the field of fiction—Ranthrope, andRose, Blanche and Violet—which, though displaying considerable skill both in plot, construction and in characterization, have taken no permanent place in literature. The same is to be said of an ingenious attempt to rehabilitate Robespierre (1849). In 1850 he collaborated with Thornton Leigh Hunt in the foundation of theLeader, of which he was the literary editor. In 1853 he republished under the title ofComte’s Philosophy of the Sciencesa series of papers which had appeared in that journal. In 1851 he became acquainted with Miss Evans (George Eliot) and in 1854 left his wife. Subsequently he lived with Miss Evans as her husband (seeEliot, George).

The culmination of Lewes’s work in prose literature is theLife of Goethe(1855), probably the best known of his writings. Lewes’s many-sidedness of mind, and his combination of scientific with literary tastes, eminently fitted him to appreciate the large nature and the wide-ranging activity of the German poet. The high position this work has taken in Germany itself, notwithstanding the boldness of its criticism and the unpopularity of some of its views (e.g.on the relation of the second to the first part ofFaust), is a sufficient testimony to its general excellence. From about 1853 Lewes’s writings show that he was occupying himself with scientific and more particularly biological work. He may be said to have always manifested a distinctly scientific bent in his writings, and his closer devotion to science was but the following out of early impulses. Considering that he had not had the usual course of technical training, these studies are a remarkable testimony to the penetration of his intellect. The most important of these essays are collected in the volumesSeaside Studies(1858),Physiology of Common Life(1859),Studies in Animal Life(1862), andAristotle, a Chapter from the History of Science(1864). They are much more than popular expositions of accepted scientific truths. They contain able criticisms of authorized ideas, and embody the results of individual research and individual reflection. He made a number of impressive suggestions, some of which have since been accepted by physiologists. Of these the most valuable is that now known as the doctrine of the functional indifference of the nerves—that what are known as the specific energies of the optic, auditory and other nerves are simply differences in their mode of action due to the differences of the peripheral structures or sense-organs with which they are connected. This idea was subsequently arrived at independently by Wundt (Physiologische Psychologie, 2nd ed., p. 321). In 1865, on the starting of theFortnightly Review, Lewes became its editor, but he retained the post for less than two years, when he was succeeded by John Morley. This date marks the transition from more strictly scientific to philosophic work. He had from early youth cherished a strong liking for philosophic studies; one of his earliest essays was an appreciative account of Hegel’sAesthetics. Coming under the influence of positivism as unfolded both in Comte’s own works and in J. S. Mill’sSystem of Logic, he abandoned all faith in the possibility of metaphysic, and recorded this abandonment in the above-mentionedHistory of Philosophy. Yet he did not at any time give an unqualified adhesion to Comte’s teachings, and with wider reading and reflection his mind moved away further from the positivist standpoint. In the preface to the third edition of hisHistory of Philosophyhe avowed a change in this direction, and this movement is still more plainly discernible in subsequent editions of the work. The final outcome of this intellectual progress is given to us inThe Problems of Life and Mind, which may be regarded as the crowning work of his life. His sudden death on the 28th of November 1878 cut short the work, yet it is complete enough to allow us to judge of the author’s matured conceptions on biological, psychological and metaphysical problems. Of his three sons only one, Charles (1843-1891), survived him; in the first London County Council Election (1888) he was elected for St Pancras; he was also much interested in the Hampstead Heath extension.

Philosophy.—The first two volumes onThe Foundations of a Creedlay down what Lewes regarded as the true principles of philosophizing. He here seeks to effect arapprochementbetween metaphysic and science. He is still so far a positivist as to pronounce all inquiry into the ultimate nature of things fruitless. What matter, form, spirit arein themselves is a futile question that belongs to the sterile region of “metempirics.” But philosophical questions may be so stated as to be susceptible of a precise solution by scientific method. Thus, since the relation of subject to object falls within our experience, it is a proper matter for philosophic investigation. It may be questioned whether Lewes is right in thus identifying the methods of science and philosophy. Philosophy is not a mere extension of scientific knowledge; it is an investigation of the nature and validity of the knowing process itself. In any case Lewes cannot be said to have done much to aid in the settlement of properly philosophical questions. His whole treatment of the question of the relation of subject to object is vitiated by a confusion between the scientific truth that mind and body coexist in the living organism and the philosophic truth that all knowledge of objects implies a knowing subject. In other words, to use Shadworth Hodgson’s phrase, he mixes up the question of thegenesisof mental forms with the question of theirnature(seePhilosophy of Reflexion, ii. 40-58). Thus he reaches the “monistic” doctrine that mind and matter are two aspects of the same existence by attending simply to the parallelism between psychical and physical processes given as a fact (or a probable fact) of our experience, and by leaving out of account their relation as subject and object in the cognitive act. His identification of the two as phases of one existence is open to criticism, not only from the point of view of philosophy, but from that of science. In his treatment of such ideas as “sensibility,” “sentience” and the like, he does not always show whether he is speaking of physical or of psychical phenomena. Among the other properly philosophic questions discussed in these two volumes the nature of the casual relation is perhaps the one which is handled with most freshness and suggestiveness. The third volume,The Physical Basis of Mind, further develops the writer’s views on organic activities as a whole. He insists strongly on the radical distinction between organic and inorganic processes, and on the impossibility of ever explaining the former by purely mechanical principles. With respect to the nervous system, he holds that all its parts have one and the same elementary property, namely, sensibility. Thus sensibility belongs as much to the lower centres of the spinal cord as to the brain, contributing in this more elementary form elements to the “subconscious” region of mental life. The higher functions of the nervous system, which make up our conscious mental life, are merely more complex modifications of this fundamental property of nerve substance. Closely related to this doctrine is the view that the nervous organism acts as a whole, that particular mental operations cannot be referred to definitely circumscribed regions of the brain, and that the hypothesis of nervous activity passing in the centre by an isolated pathway from one nerve-cell to another is altogether illusory. By insisting on the complete coincidence between the regions of nerve-action and sentience, and by holding that these are but different aspects of one thing, he is able to attack the doctrine of animal and human automatism, which affirms that feeling or consciousness is merely an incidental concomitant of nerve-action and in no way essential to the chain of physical events. Lewes’s views in psychology, partly opened up in the earlier volumes of theProblems, are more fully worked out in the last two volumes (3rd series). He discusses the method of psychology with much insight. He claims against Comte and his followers a place for introspection in psychological research. In addition to this subjective method there must be an objective, which consists partly in a reference to nervous conditions and partly in the employment of sociological and historical data. Biological knowledge, or a consideration of the organic conditions, would only help us to explain mentalfunctions, as feeling and thinking; it would not assist us to understand differences of mentalfacultyas manifested in different races and stages of human development. The organic conditions of these differences will probably for ever escape detection. Hence they can be explained only as the products of the social environment. This idea of dealing with mental phenomena in their relation to social and historical conditions is probably Lewes’s most important contribution to psychology. Among other points which he emphasizes is the complexity of mental phenomena. Every mental state is regarded as compounded of three factors in different proportions—namely, a process of sensible affection, of logical grouping and of motor impulse. But Lewes’s work in psychology consists less in any definite discoveries than in the inculcation of a sound and just method. His biological training prepared him to view mind as a complex unity, in which the various functions interact one on the other, and of which the highest processes are identical with and evolved out of the lower. Thus the operations of thought, “or the logic of signs,” are merely a more complicated form of the elementary operations of sensation and instinct or “the logic of feeling.” The whole of the last volume of theProblemsmay be said to be an illustration of this position. It is a valuable repository of psychological facts, many of them drawn from the more obscure regions of mental life and from abnormal experience, and is throughout suggestive and stimulating. To suggest and to stimulate the mind, rather than to supply it with any complete system of knowledge, may be said to be Lewes’s service in philosophy. The exceptional rapidity and versatility of his intelligence seems to account at once for the freshness in his way of envisaging the subject-matter of philosophy and psychology, and for the want of satisfactory elaboration and of systematic co-ordination.

(J. S.; X.)

LEWES,a market-town and municipal borough and the county town of Sussex, England, in the Lewes parliamentary division, 50 m. S. from London by the London, Brighton & South Coast railway. Pop. (1901) 11,249. It is picturesquely situated on the slope of a chalk down falling to the river Ouse. Ruins of the old castle, supposed to have been founded by King Alfred and rebuilt by William de Warenne shortly after the Conquest, rise from the height. There are two mounds which bore keeps, an uncommon feature. The castle guarded the pass through the downs formed by the valley of the Ouse. In one of the towers is the collection of the Sussex Archaeological Society. St Michael’s church is without architectural merit, but contains old brasses and monuments; St Anne’s church is a transitional Norman structure; St Thomas-at-Cliffe is Perpendicular; St John’s, Southover, of mixed architecture, preserves some early Norman portions, and has some relics of the Warenne family. In the grounds of the Cluniac priory of St Pancras, founded in 1078, the leaden coffins of William de Warenne and Gundrada his wife were dug up during an excavation for the railway in 1845. There is a free grammar school dating from 1512, and among the other public buildings are the town hall and corn exchange, county hall, prison, and the Fitzroy memorial library. The industries include the manufacture of agricultural implements, brewing, tanning, and iron and brass founding. The municipal borough is under a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 1042 acres.

The many neolithic and bronze implements that have been discovered, and the numerous tumuli and earthworks which surround Lewes, indicate its remote origin. The town Lewes (Loewas, Loewen, Leswa, Laquis, Latisaquensis) was in the royal demesne of the Saxon kings, from whom it received the privilege of a market. Æthelstan established two royal mints there, and by the reign of Edward the Confessor, and probably before, Lewes was certainly a borough. William I. granted the whole barony of Lewes, including the revenue arising from the town, to William de Warenne, who converted an already existing fortification into a place of residence. His descendants continued to hold the barony until the beginning of the 14th century. In default of male issue, it then passed to the earl of Arundel, with whose descendants it remained until 1439, when it was divided between the Norfolks, Dorsets and Abergavennys. By 1086 the borough had increased 30% in value since the beginning of the reign, and its importance as a port and market-town is evident from Domesday. A gild merchant seems to have existed at an early date. The first mention of it is in a charter of Reginald de Warenne, about 1148, by which he restored to the burgesses the privileges they had enjoyed in the time of his grandfather and father, but of which they had been deprived. In 1595 a “Fellowship” took the place of the old gild and in conjunction with two constables governed the town until the beginning of the 18th century. The borough seal probably dates from the 14th century. Lewes was incorporated by royal charter in 1881. The town returned two representatives to parliament from 1295 until deprived of one member in 1867. It was disfranchised in 1885. Earl Warenne and his descendants held the fairs and markets from 1066. In 1792 the fair-days were the 6th of May, Whit-Tuesday, the 26th of July (for wool), and the 2nd of October. The market-day was Saturday. Fairs are now held on the 6th of May for horses and cattle, the 20th of July for wool, and the 21st and 28th of September for Southdown sheep. A corn-market is held every Tuesday, and a stock-market every alternate Monday. The trade in wool has been important since the 14th century.

Lewes was the scene of the battle fought on the 14th of May 1264 between Henry III. and Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester. Led by the king and by his son, the future king Edward I., the royalists left Oxford, took Northampton and drove Montfort from Rochester into London. Then, harassed on the route by their foes, they marched through Kent into Sussex and took up their quarters at Lewes, a stronghold of the royalist Earl Warenne. Meanwhile, reinforced by a number of Londoners, Earl Simon left London and reached Fletching, about 9 m. north of Lewes,on the 13th of May. Efforts at reconciliation having failed he led his army against the town, which he hoped to surprise, early on the following day. His plan was to direct his main attack against the priory of St Pancras, which sheltered the king and his brother Richard, earl of Cornwall, king of the Romans, while causing the enemy to believe that his principal objective was the castle, where Prince Edward was. But the surprise was not complete and the royalists rushed from the town to meet the enemy in the open field. Edward led his followers against the Londoners, who were gathered around the standard of Montfort, put them to flight, pursued them for several miles, and killed a great number of them. Montfort’s ruse, however, had been successful. He was not with his standard as his foes thought, but with the pick of his men he attacked Henry’s followers and took prisoner both the king and his brother. Before Edward returned from his chase the earl was in possession of the town. In its streets the prince strove to retrieve his fortunes, but in vain. Many of his men perished in the river, but others escaped, one band, consisting of Earl Warenne and others, taking refuge in Pevensey Castle. Edward himself took sanctuary and on the following day peace was made between the king and the earl.

LEWES,a town in Sussex county, Delaware, U.S.A., in the S.E. part of the state, on Delaware Bay. Pop. (1910), 2158. Lewes is served by the Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington (Pennsylvania System), and the Maryland, Delaware & Virginia railways. Its harbour is formed by the Delaware Breakwater, built by the national government and completed in 1869, and 2¼ m. above it another breakwater was completed in December 1901 by the government. The cove between them forms a harbour of refuge of about 550 acres. At the mouth of Delaware Bay, about 2 m. below Lewes, is the Henlopen Light, one of the oldest lighthouses in America. The Delaware Bay pilots make their headquarters at Lewes. Lewes has a large trade with northern cities in fruits and vegetables, and is a subport of entry of the Wilmington Customs District. The first settlement on Delaware soil by Europeans was made near here in 1631 by Dutch colonists, sent by a company organized in Holland in the previous year by Samuel Blommaert, Killian van Rensselaer, David Pieterszen de Vries and others. The settlers called the place Zwaanendael, valley of swans. The settlement was soon entirely destroyed by the Indians, and a second body of settlers whom de Vries, who had been made director of the colony, brought in 1632 remained for only two years. The fact of the settlement is important; because of it the English did not unite the Delaware country with Maryland, for the Maryland Charter of 1632 restricted colonization to land within the prescribed boundaries, uncultivated and either uninhabited or inhabited only by Indians. In 1658 the Dutch established an Indian trading post, and in 1659 erected a fort at Zwaanendael. After the annexation of the Delaware counties to Pennsylvania in 1682, its name was changed to Lewes, after the town of that name in Sussex, England. It was pillaged by French pirates in 1698. One of the last naval battles of the War of Independence was fought in the bay near Lewes on the 8th of April 1782, when the American privateer “Hyder Ally” (16), commanded by Captain Joshua Barnes (1759-1818), defeated and captured the British sloop “General Monk” (20), which had been an American privateer, the “General Washington,” had been captured by Admiral Arbuthnot’s squadron in 1780, and was now purchased by the United States government and, as the “General Washington,” was commanded by Captain Barnes in 1782-1784. In March 1813 the town was bombarded by a British frigate.

See the “History of Lewes” in thePapersof the Historical Society of Delaware, No. xxxviii. (Wilmington, 1903); and J. T. Scharf,History of Delaware(2 vols., Philadelphia, 1888).

LEWIS, SIR GEORGE CORNEWALL,Bart.(1806-1863), English statesman and man of letters, was born in London on the 21st of April 1806. His father, Thomas F. Lewis, of Harpton Court, Radnorshire, after holding subordinate office in various administrations, became a poor-law commissioner, and was made a baronet in 1846. Young Lewis was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, where in 1828 he took a first-class in classics and a second-class in mathematics. He then entered the Middle Temple, and was called to the bar in 1831. In 1833 he undertook his first public work as one of the commissioners to inquire into the condition of the poor Irish residents in the United Kingdom.1In 1834 Lord Althorp included him in the commission to inquire into the state of church property and church affairs generally in Ireland. To this fact we owe his work onLocal Disturbances in Ireland, and the Irish Church Question(London, 1836), in which he condemned the existing connexion between church and state, proposed a state provision for the Catholic clergy, and maintained the necessity of an efficient workhouse organization. During this period Lewis’s mind was much occupied with the study of language. Before leaving college he had published some observations on Whately’s doctrine of the predicables, and soon afterwards he assisted Thirlwall and Hare in starting thePhilological Museum. Its successor, theClassical Museum, he also supported by occasional contributions. In 1835 he published anEssay on the Origin and Formation of the Romance Languages(re-edited in 1862), the first effective criticism in England of Raynouard’s theory of a uniform romance tongue, represented by the poetry of the troubadours. He also compiled a glossary of provincial words used in Herefordshire and the adjoining counties. But the most important work of this earlier period was one to which his logical and philological tastes contributed.The Remarks on the Use and Abuse of some Political Terms(London, 1832) may have been suggested by Bentham’sBook of Parliamentary Fallacies, but it shows all that power of clear sober original thinking which marks his larger and later political works. Moreover, he translated Boeckh’sPublic Economy of Athensand Müller’sHistory of Greek Literature, and he assisted Tufnell in the translation of Müller’sDorians. Some time afterwards he edited a text of theFablesof Babrius. While his friend Hayward conducted theLaw Magazine, he wrote in it frequently on such subjects as secondary punishments and the penitentiary system. In 1836, at the request of Lord Glenelg, he accompanied John Austin to Malta, where they spent nearly two years reporting on the condition of the island and framing a new code of laws. One leading object of both commissioners was to associate the Maltese in the responsible government of the island. On his return to England Lewis succeeded his father as one of the principal poor-law commissioners. In 1841 appeared theEssay on the Government of Dependencies, a systematic statement and discussion of the various relations in which colonies may stand towards the mother country. In 1844 Lewis married Lady Maria Theresa Lister, sister of Lord Clarendon, and a lady of literary tastes. Much of their married life was spent in Kent House, Knightsbridge. They had no children. In 1847 Lewis resigned his office. He was then returned for the county of Hereford, and Lord John Russell appointed him secretary to the Board of Control, but a few months afterwards he became under-secretary to the Home Office. In this capacity he introduced two important bills, one for the abolition of turnpike trusts and the management of highways by a mixed county board, the other for the purpose of defining and regulating the law of parochial assessment. In 1850 he succeeded Hayter as financial secretary to the treasury. About this time, also, appeared hisEssay on the Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion. On the dissolution of parliament which followed the resignation of Lord John Russell’s ministry in 1852, Lewis was defeated for Herefordshire and then for Peterborough. Excluded from parliament he accepted the editorship of theEdinburgh Review, and remained editor until 1855. During this period he served on the Oxford commission, and on the commission to inquire into the government of London. But its chief fruits were theTreatise on the Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics, and theEnquiry into the Credibility of the Early Roman History,2in which he vigorously attackedthe theory of epic lays and other theories on which Niebuhr’s reconstruction of that history had proceeded. In 1855 Lewis succeeded his father in the baronetcy. He was at once elected member for the Radnor boroughs, and Lord Palmerston made him chancellor of the exchequer. He had a war loan to contract and heavy additional taxation to impose, but his industry, method and clear vision carried him safely through. After the change of ministry in 1859 Sir George became home secretary under Lord Palmerston, and in 1861, much against his wish, he succeeded Sidney Herbert (Lord Herbert of Lea) at the War Office. The closing years of his life were marked by increasing intellectual vigour. In 1859 he published an ableEssay on Foreign Jurisdiction and the Extradition of Criminals, a subject to which the attempt on Napoleon’s life, the discussions on the Conspiracy Bill, and the trial of Bernard, had drawn general attention. He advocated the extension of extradition treaties, and condemned the principal idea ofWeltrechtsordnungwhich Mohl of Heidelberg had proposed. His two latest works were theSurvey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, in which, without professing any knowledge of Oriental languages, he applied a sceptical analysis to the ambitious Egyptology of Bunsen; and theDialogue on the Best Form of Government, in which, under the name of Crito, the author points out to the supporters of the various systems that there is no one abstract government which is the best possible for all times and places. An essay on theCharacteristics of Federal, National, Provincial and Municipal Governmentdoes not seem to have been published. Sir George died in April 1863. A marble bust by Weekes stands in Westminster Abbey.

Lewis was a man of mild and affectionate disposition, much beloved by a large circle of friends, among whom were Sir E. Head, the Grotes, the Austins, Lord Stanhope, J. S. Mill, Dean Milman, the Duff Gordons. In public life he was distinguished, as Lord Aberdeen said, “for candour, moderation, love of truth.” He had a passion for the systematic acquirement of knowledge, and a keen and sound critical faculty. His name has gone down to history as that of a many-sided man, sound in judgment, unselfish in political life, and abounding in practical good sense.

A reprint from theEdinburgh Reviewof his long series of papers on theAdministration of Great Britainappeared in 1864, and hisLetters to various Friends(1870) were edited by his brother Gilbert, who succeeded him in the baronetcy.

1See theAbstract of Final Report of Commissioners of Irish Poor Enquiry, &c., by G. C. Lewis and N. Senior (1837).2Translated into German by Liebrecht (Hanover, 1858).

1See theAbstract of Final Report of Commissioners of Irish Poor Enquiry, &c., by G. C. Lewis and N. Senior (1837).

2Translated into German by Liebrecht (Hanover, 1858).

LEWIS, HENRY CARVILL(1853-1888), American geologist, was born in Philadelphia on the 16th of November 1853. Educated in the university of Pennsylvania he took the degree of M.A. in 1876. He became attached to the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania in 1879, serving for three years as a volunteer member, and during this term he became greatly interested in the study of glacial phenomena. In 1880 he was chosen professor of mineralogy in the Philadelphia academy of natural sciences, and in 1883 he was appointed to the chair of geology in Haverford College, Pennsylvania. During the winters of 1885 to 1887 he studied petrology under H. F. Rosenbusch at Heidelberg, and during the summers he investigated the glacial geology of northern Europe and the British Islands. His observations in North America, where he had studied under Professor G. F. Wright, Professor T. C. Chamberlin and Warren Upham, had demonstrated the former extension of land-ice, and the existence of great terminal moraines. In 1884 hisReport on the Terminal Moraine in Pennsylvania and New Yorkwas published: a work containing much information on the limits of the North American ice-sheet. In Britain he sought to trace in like manner the southern extent of the terminal moraines formed by British ice-sheets, but before his conclusions were matured he died at Manchester on the 21st of July 1888. The results of his observations were published in 1894 entitledPapers and Notes on the Glacial Geology of Great Britain and Ireland, edited by Dr H. W. Crosskey.

See “Prof. Henry Carvill Lewis and his Work in Glacial Geology,” by Warren Upham,Amer. Geol.vol. ii. (Dec. 1888) p. 371, with portrait.

LEWIS, JOHN FREDERICK(1805-1876), British painter, son of F. C. Lewis, engraver, was born in London. He was elected in 1827 associate of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, of which he became full member in 1829 and president in 1855; he resigned in 1858, and was made associate of the Royal Academy in 1859 and academician in 1865. Much of his earlier life was spent in Spain, Italy and the East, but he returned to England in 1851 and for the remainder of his career devoted himself almost exclusively to Eastern subjects, which he treated with extraordinary care and minuteness of finish, and with much beauty of technical method. He is represented by a picture, “Edfou: Upper Egypt,” in the National Gallery of British Art. He achieved equal eminence in both oil and water-colour painting.

LEWIS, MATTHEW GREGORY(1775-1818), English romance-writer and dramatist, often referred to as “Monk” Lewis, was born in London on the 9th of July 1775. He was educated for a diplomatic career at Westminster school and at Christ Church, Oxford, spending most of his vacations abroad in the study of modern languages; and in 1794 he proceeded to the Hague as attaché to the British embassy. His stay there lasted only a few months, but was marked by the composition, in ten weeks, of his romanceAmbrosio, or the Monk, which was published in the summer of the following year. It immediately achieved celebrity; but some passages it contained were of such a nature that about a year after its appearance an injunction to restrain its sale was moved for and a rulenisiobtained. Lewis published a second edition from which he had expunged, as he thought, all the objectionable passages, but the work still remains of such a character as almost to justify the severe language in which Byron inEnglish Bards and Scotch Reviewersaddresses—

“Wonder-working Lewis, Monk or Bard,Who fain would’st make Parnassus a churchyard;Even Satan’s self with thee might dread to dwell,And in thy skull discern a deeper hell.”

“Wonder-working Lewis, Monk or Bard,

Who fain would’st make Parnassus a churchyard;

Even Satan’s self with thee might dread to dwell,

And in thy skull discern a deeper hell.”

Whatever its demerits, ethical or aesthetic, may have been,The Monkdid not interfere with the reception of Lewis into the best English society; he was favourably noticed at court, and almost as soon as he came of age he obtained a seat in the House of Commons as member for Hindon, Wilts. After some years, however, during which he never addressed the House, he finally withdrew from a parliamentary career. His tastes lay wholly in the direction of literature, andThe Castle Spectre(1796, a musical drama of no great literary merit, but which enjoyed a long popularity on the stage),The Minister(a translation from Schiller’sKabale u. Liebe),Rolla(1797, a translation from Kotzebue), with numerous other operatic and tragic pieces, appeared in rapid succession.The Bravo of Venice, a romance translated from the German, was published in 1804; next toThe Monkit is the best known work of Lewis. By the death of his father he succeeded to a large fortune, and in 1815 embarked for the West Indies to visit his estates; in the course of this tour, which lasted four months, theJournal of a West Indian Proprietor, published posthumously in 1833, was written. A second visit to Jamaica was undertaken in 1817, in order that he might become further acquainted with, and able to ameliorate, the condition of the slave population; the fatigues to which he exposed himself in the tropical climate brought on a fever which terminated fatally on the homeward voyage on the 14th of May 1818.

The Life and Correspondence of M. G. Lewis, in two volumes, was published in 1839.

LEWIS, MERIWETHER(1774-1809), American explorer, was born near Charlottesville, Virginia, on the 18th of August 1774. In 1794 he volunteered with the Virginia troops called out to suppress the “Whisky Insurrection,” was commissioned as ensign in the regular United States army in 1795, served with distinction under General Anthony Wayne in the campaigns against the Indians, and attained the rank of captain in 1797. From 1801 to 1803 he was the private secretary of President Jefferson. On the 18th of January 1803 Jefferson sent a confidential message to Congress urging the development of trade with the Indians of the Missouri Valley and recommending that an exploring party be sent into this region, notwithstandingthe fact that it was then held by Spain and owned by France. Congress appropriated funds for the expedition, and the president instructed Lewis to proceed to the head-waters of the Missouri river and thence across the mountains to the Pacific Ocean. With Jefferson’s consent Lewis chose as a companion Lieut. William Clark, an old friend and army comrade. The preparations were made under the orders of the War Department, and, until the news arrived that France had sold Louisiana to the United States, they were conducted in secrecy. Lewis spent some time in Philadelphia, gaining additional knowledge of the natural sciences and learning the use of instruments for determining positions; and late in 1803 he and Clark, with twenty-nine men from the army, went into winter quarters near St Louis, where the men were subjected to rigid training. On the 14th of May 1804 the party, with sixteen additional members, who, however, were to go only a part of the way, started up the Missouri river in three boats, and by the 2nd of November had made the difficult ascent of the stream as far as 47° 21′ N. lat., near the site of the present Bismarck, North Dakota, where, among the Mandan Indians, they passed the second winter. Early in April 1805 the ascent of the Missouri was continued as far as the three forks of the river, which were named the Jefferson, the Gallatin and the Madison. The Jefferson was then followed to its source in the south-western part of what is now the state of Montana. Procuring a guide and horses from the Shoshone Indians, the party pushed westward through the Rocky Mountains in September, and on the 7th of October embarked in canoes on a tributary of the Columbia river, the mouth of which they reached on the 15th of November. They had travelled upwards of 4000 m. from their starting-point, had encountered various Indian tribes never before seen by whites, had made valuable scientific collections and observations, and were the first explorers to reach the Pacific by crossing the continent north of Mexico. After spending the winter on the Pacific coast they started on the 23rd of March 1806 on their return journey, and, after crossing the divide, Lewis with one party explored Maria’s river, and Clark with another the Yellowstone. On the 12th of August the two explorers reunited near the junction of the Yellowstone and the Missouri, and on the 23rd of September reached St Louis. In spite of exposure, hardship and peril only one member of the party died, and only one deserted. No later feat of exploration, perhaps, in any quarter of the globe has exceeded this in romantic interest. The expedition was commemorated by the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition at Portland, Oregon, in 1905. The leaders and men of the exploring party were rewarded with liberal grants of land from the public domain, Lewis receiving 1500 acres; and in March 1807 Lewis was made governor of the northern part of the territory obtained from France in 1803, which had been organized as the Louisiana Territory. He performed the duties of this office with great efficiency, but it is said that in the unwonted quiet of his new duties, his mind, always subject to melancholy, became unbalanced, and that while on his way to Washington he committed suicide about 60 m. south-west of Nashville, Tennessee, on the 11th of October 1809. It is not definitely known, however, whether he actually committed suicide or was murdered.

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