Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/181

Rh in 1722, and proceeded M.A. in 1726. On 23 Sept. 1725 he was presented by Sir Henry Ashhurst to the rectory of Emmington, Oxfordshire, and 18 July 1726 he became rector of Waterstock in the same county. He was also, he says, chaplain to the Earl of Cadogan. He died 4 Nov. 1784; there is a tablet to his memory in the chancel of Waterstock Church. He married, on 4 Sept. 1725, Elinor Manby, who died 17 Jan. 1766. Lewis's chief works were: 1. ‘Sinners saved by Jesus Christ as preached in Scripture, but Church Fathers and Clergy are no sure Guides to Heaven,’ Oxford, 1756, 8vo; a visitation sermon, in which Lewis showed his distrust of Roman catholic doctrines. 2. ‘The Patriot King, displayed in the Life of Henry VIII, King of England, from the time of his Quarrel with the Pope till his Death,’ London, 1769, 8vo; another edition the same year. This had the same object as No. 1, and is equally violent in tone. Lewis also translated two sermons by Chrysostom, under the title of ‘The Sin of Sodom reproved,’ London, 1772 and 1776, 8vo. Baker considers him to have been the author of ‘The Italian Husband, or the Violated Bed avenged,’ a moral drama, London, 1754, 8vo, chiefly on the ground that ‘the author of the most ridiculous of all dramatic performances’ might also have written Lewis's ‘Patriot King.’ It must be distinguished from Ravenscroft's tragedy of the same name, acted in 1697. 

LEWIS, ERASMUS (1670–1754), the friend of Swift and Pope, was born at Abercothy, in the vale of Towy, six miles from Carmarthen, on the road towards Llandeilofawr. In 1686 he was admitted a king's scholar at Westminster. In 1690 he was elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1693 he graduated B.A. In October 1698 he was in Berlin, with his ‘cousin,’ George Stepney, writing the first of a series of newsletters to John Ellis, M.P. He asked for some government post, and Stepney, in letters to Ellis and the Earl of Macclesfield, supported Lewis's claims (Addit. MSS. 28902 f. 291, 28903 f. 52, &c.; Hist. MSS. Comm. 8th Rep. pt. ii. p. 70). In March 1699 Lewis went to Hamburg, and after visiting Hanover, Brussels, Lille, and other places, reached Paris in the summer. Some time after his arrival, in 1700 or 1701, he became secretary to the English ambassador, the Earl of Manchester, and when the earl was recalled to England in September 1701 he remained behind to wind up affairs. In June 1702 he was in Carmarthen, probably employed as a schoolmaster, and thanked Ellis for favours shown to him in London. In May 1704 Robert Harley made him one of his secretaries (, Brief Relation, v. 428), and in an anonymous pamphlet, called ‘A Dialogue between Louis le Petite [Lewis] and Harlequin le Grand [Harley],’ Harley is said to have brought Lewis from a country school into his service. In 1708 Lewis was appointed secretary at Brussels (Hist. MSS. Comm. 8th Rep. pt. i. p. 35), and he was afterwards under-secretary of state under the Earl of Dartmouth and Mr. Bromley.

In September 1710 Swift came to London, and from the 30th of that month constant reference is made in the ‘Journal to Stella’ to Lewis, whom Swift described as ‘a cunning shaver, and very much in Harley's favour,’ in his ‘Horace Imitated’ (bk. i. ep. 7). Swift frequently dined with him, often in company with Prior, Ford, Harley, or St. John. In April 1711 Swift asked Archbishop King to direct letters for him under cover to Lewis, at Lord Dartmouth's office. In December, when the tories feared things were going against them, Lewis talked of nothing but retiring to his estate in Wales; but Lord Oxford declared that he had not ‘the soul of a chicken nor the heart of a mite.’ Meanwhile the negotiations for a peace with France were proceeding, and Swift often consulted Lewis about political pamphlets which he was writing or editing. In October 1712 Lewis was appointed provost-marshal-general of Barbadoes, with power to provide a deputy or deputies to perform the duties. The clause in the patent that the office was to be held ‘during his residence in the said island’ must have been intended to be inoperative (Signet Book, Patents, Publ. Rec. Office).

In January 1713 Lewis ‘had a lie spread on him’ through one Skelton going, by mistake, to another of his name, Henry Lewis, to thank him for despatching a license under the privy seal to enable Skelton to come from France, and in February Swift published ‘A complete Refutation of the Falsehoods alleged against Erasmus Lewis, Esq.’ In May Swift left London for Dublin, and thenceforth frequently corresponded with Lewis. Difficulties were increasing between Lord Oxford and Lord Bolingbroke (St. John), and Lewis urged Swift to return and endeavour to prevent ruin to the party. In November Lewis was chosen M.P. for Lostwithiel, Cornwall. Oxford was dismissed in July, but Bolingbroke's triumph was brought to a speedy end by the queen's death on 1 Aug. and