London, Published 1834 by J Murray, & Sold by lilt, 26, Fleet Stre

Engrad by JH...

M. G. LEWIS, Esq.

From a Drawing by Harlowe.

"Oh! wonder-working Lewis, monk or bard,
Who fain wouldst make Parnassus a churchyard!
Lo! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow-
Thy muse a sprite, Apollo's sexton thou!
Whether on ancient tombs thou tak'st thy stand,
By gibb'ring spectres hailed, thy kindred band;
Or tracest chaste descriptions on thy page,
To please the females of our modest age
All hail M.P.! from whose infernal brain,

Thin, sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly train;

At whose command "grim women" throng in crowds,
And kings of fire, of water, and of clouds,

With small gray men,
"wild yagers," and what not,
To crown with honour thee and Walter Scott.
Again all hail! if tales like thine may please,
St. Luke alone can vanquish the disease."

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.

THE wild and imaginative stories in prose and verse written by Mr. Lewis, and which sprung from a mind tutored in the German school, were, in their day,

extremely popular; and the notoriety of the author gave him a place in "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers :" but it is remarkable, that, with one striking exception, nearly all the persons introduced into that celebrated satire of Lord Byron afterwards became his friends, and among them Matthew Gregory Lewis, Esq.-a gentleman who was known, when very young, in the literary world as the author of " Tales of Terror," the "Castle Spectre," the "Bravo of Venice," and who latterly obtained the dishonourable cognomination of Monk Lewis, from a work he published under the title of "The Monk," and which drew down upon him the deserved and indignant reprehension of the serious world.

The period in which Lewis flourished was fortunate for the distinctions he received as a literary man; earlier or later, his powers, which were of a mediocre order, would have scarcely been noticed. The "Bravo of Venice" is a tale of great interest, written with much spirit; but it is little more than a translation from Zschokke. Byron met Lewis in the best circles, to which he had long had access. "Lewis," says the editor of Byron's works, "was for several years the fashionable versifier of his time; but his plagiarisms, perhaps more audacious than had ever before been resorted to by a man of real talents, were by degrees unveiled, and writers of greater original genius, as well as of