[178] Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775–1818), eldest son of Matthew Lewis, Esq., and Frances Maria, daughter of Sir Thomas Sewell. He was educated at Westminster, and passed some time in Germany, near Weimar, where he learnt the language and imbibed that taste for German literature which clung to him for the remainder of his life. When only twenty he wrote the novel which gave him the nickname by which he is best known. In addition to novels, he wrote numerous poems and verses, and also plays, several of which were produced in London. He sat in the House of Commons as a Whig from 1796 to 1802. His father, who was a large landed proprietor in the West Indies, died in 1812, and after his death Lewis took up very enthusiastically the question of the welfare of the slaves working on the property. He twice visited Jamaica, and died on the return journey in 1818 from yellow fever. [179] Frederick William III. (1770–1840) succeeded to the throne of Prussia on his father’s death in November 1797. The late King, Frederick William II. (1744–1797), was nephew and successor of Frederick the Great. The boundaries of Prussia were largely extended during his reign, but his methods of ruling the country, influenced by unworthy favourites, did not commend themselves to his people. He divorced his first wife, Princess Elizabeth of Brunswick, in 1769, and married Princess Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, by whom he had six children. [180] Better known under the name of Wilhelmine, Comtesse de Lichtenau (1752–1820), the title bestowed on her by Frederick William II. The daughter of a musician, she became his mistress at the age of sixteen, probably under the promise of morganatic marriage, and for the sake of appearances was married to one of his body servants, Rietz. On the King’s death she suffered eighteen months’ imprisonment, besides the loss of all her belongings. Some of her property was restored to her by Napoleon in 1807. Her daughter was called Comtesse de la Marche. Lord Bristol, in several letters to Lady E. Foster, published in _The Two Duchesses_, implores her assistance in persuading his second son, Frederick (who succeeded him), to marry the lady, and enumerates the benefits which would accrue to the whole family by the alliance. The young man in question, however, thought otherwise, and married, in February 1798, Elizabeth Charlotte, daughter of Clotworthy, first Lord Templetown.