Lewis Matthew Gregory

Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818), "Monk Lewis," was born in London and educated at Westminster and Christ Church, and in 1792 met Goethe at Weimar. Two years later he became an attaehi at the Hague, where Ambrosio, or the Monk, was written. It was highly popular, but had to be expurgated under threat of a public prosecution.

Lewis sat in Parliament from 1796 to 1802, saw the best society, and wrote plays and poems, his Castle Spectre, produced at Drury Lane in 1798, being the most successful. In that year he first met Sir Walter Scott. He died of yellow fever in 1818.