Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/202

Rh 2. ‘Report on the Age of the Utrecht Psalter,’ 1874. 3. ‘The Library of Corpus Christi College,’ 1891. He left by will to his college his collection of coins, gems, vases, and archæological books (now known as the Lewis collection), and the reversion of his personal estate. The gems were catalogued by Professor Middleton in 1892.

 LEWIS, STUART (1756?–1818), Scottish poet, born about 1756 at Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire, son of an innkeeper with Jacobite sympathies, was named after Prince Charles the young Pretender. His school career was shortened by his father's early death. For a time he was in partnership as a merchant tailor in Chester, but being ruined by his partner returned to Ecclefechan to carry on the same occupation. He read much and wrote popular verses, besides establishing and fostering a village library and a debating club. But his business did not prosper, and he enlisted into the Hopetoun Fencibles. Here he somewhat augmented his regulation pay by what he received for writing suitable lyrics for the officers. On the disbanding of the regiment in 1799 Lewis was employed as a travelling cloth-merchant in the west of England, but he fell a victim to intemperance, and from about his fiftieth year roamed over Scotland as ‘the mendicant bard,’ picking up a livelihood as ‘beggar, ballad-vendor, and tinker’ (Bards of Bon-Accord, p. 648). Fever, induced by a fall into the Nith, ended in his death at Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire, 22 Sept. 1818. His wife died a year before.

While at Ecclefechan Lewis produced his poem on ‘Fair Helen of Kirkconnell,’ Edinburgh, 1796, 8vo. The poem was afterwards published for the author at Aberdeen in 1816. The preface, in which he tries to settle the history of the famous legendary ballad on the same theme, is interesting and valuable (Scots Musical Museum, iv. 208*). ‘Moranza, or the African Slave, an Address to Poverty, and an Elegy on a Young Gentleman who died at Angola,’ was published at Edinburgh, 1816, 8vo. Of his miscellaneous lyrics ‘O'er the Muir’ is noteworthy both for its intrinsic merits and because it is either an anticipation or an expansion of ‘O'er the Muir amang the Heather,’ by Jean Glover (1758–1801) [q. v.] Lewis averred that his piece was the earlier (Gallovidian Encyclopædia, p. 338), but the precise relationship of the two cannot be determined.

 LEWIS, THOMAS (1689–1749?), controversialist, son of Stephen Lewis, vicar of Weobly and rector of Holgate, Shropshire, was born at Kington, Herefordshire, on 14 March 1688–9. He was educated at Hereford ‘Free Schole’ under a Mr. Traherne, was admitted a Bible clerk at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, whence he matriculated 3 July 1704, graduated B.A. in 1711, does not appear to have proceeded M.A., but was ordained priest in 1713 at Worcester. Four years later he established a periodical publication entitled ‘The Scourge, in vindication of the Church of England.’ This sheet, which appeared every Monday, was characterised by violent and trenchant abuse of dissenters, broad churchmen, and papists alike. On 15 July 1717 the writer denounced Hoadly from the text, ‘Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defie the Armes of the Living God?’ Six weeks later he headed an attack on Scottish presbyterianism with the words, ‘Every beast loveth his like.’ Such high-flying sentiments being little to the taste of the party in power, his paper was presented by the grand jury of Westminster as the work of a libeller and an embroiler of the nation, and Lewis, who promptly absconded, was ordered to stand his trial for sedition at the king's bench. In the meantime there appeared ‘The Scourge Scourged, or a short Account of the Life of the Author of the Scourge,’ full of violent and obscene abuse of Lewis and his ‘weekly excrement.’

From his hiding-place Lewis defiantly issued ‘The Danger of the Church Establishment of England from the Insolence of the Protestant Dissenters, wherein it appears from their late writing that they have attempted to subvert the Liturgy, the Canons, Articles and the whole Discipline of the Church of England, to Ruin the Reputation of the Universities and the Episcopal Clergy, and to inflame the minds of the People against the Established Form of Church Government in this Kingdom. In a Letter to Sir John Smith [his accuser in the matter of the “Scourge.”] “Heu pietas, heu prisca fides,”’ London, 1718. This epistle, which included a bitter attack upon Hoadly, rapidly passed through two editions, and was shortly answered by a comparatively moderate, though anonymous, pamphlet entitled ‘A brief Answer to a long Libel.’ Lewis had the last word in the controversy with his ‘Anatomy of the Heretical Synod of Dissenters at Salter's Hall,’ 1719. Lewis's remaining writings, enumerated below, are less acrimoniously controversial; all alike are supported by much erudition and ingenuity. About 1720 Lewis appears to have been acting as