Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/63

 Burdon,’ 1799; and eight severe lines by Grattan printed in Wrangham's ‘Catalogue of his English Library,’ pp. 409–10. An ephemeral production by Mathias was called ‘Pandolpho Attonito, or Lord Galloway's Poetical Lamentation on the Removal of the Armchairs from the Pit of the Opera House’ [anon.], 1800; and next year he produced a volume of ‘Prose on Various Occasions collected from the Newspapers’ [anon.], 1801.

Mathias was a devoted admirer of Gray the poet and of Dr. Robert Glynn [q. v.] One of his first works was ‘Runic Odes imitated from the Norse Tongue in the manner of Mr. Gray,’ 1781, republished in London in 1790 in ‘Odes English and Latin,’ in 1798, and at New York in 1806 in a collection called ‘The Garden of Flowers.’ In 1814 he edited, at a ruinous expense, ‘The Works of Thomas Gray, with Mason's Memoir. To which are subjoined Extracts from the Author's Original Manuscripts,’ 1814, 2 vols. 4to. The second volume contained his ‘Observations on the Writings and Character of Mr. Gray,’ also issued separately in 1815. His knowledge of Gray's appearance and habits was derived from Nicholls, of whom he wrote in ‘A Letter occasioned by the Death of the Rev. Norton Nicholls, with Italian Ode to him,’ pp. 30. A few copies were printed for private circulation, and it was inserted in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ 1810, pt. ii. pp. 346–51; his ‘Works of Gray’ (1814), i. 515–35; his ‘Observations on the Writings and Character of Gray,’ 1815; ‘Correspondence of Gray and Nicholls,’ 1843, pp. 3–28; in ‘Poesie Liriche,’ 1810; and in Nichols's ‘Illustrations of Literature,’ v. 65–83; while the Italian ‘Canzone’ to Nicholls was printed separately in 1807. Nicholls left his books to Mathias and a considerable sum of money in the event, which did not take place, of his surviving a near relation of his own. With the assistance of Dr. Glynn, who gave him some Chatterton manuscripts, he compiled ‘An Essay on the Evidence relating to the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley,’ 1783; 2nd edit. 1784. In 1782 he brought out an anonymous ‘Elysian Interlude in Prose and Verse of Rowley and Chatterton in the Shades,’ in which Chatterton described the success of the poems, the means by which they were concocted, and the strife over their authenticity. His unpublished volume of ‘Odes English and Latin,’ 1798, contained, as pt. i., ‘The Runic Odes,’ and as pt. ii. many Latin poems, among which were verses to Thomas Orde as governor of the Isle of Wight, an ode to Bishop Mansel on his neglecting a parrot, and an address on Lord Holland's villa near Margate: all three had been printed separately, and were afterwards included in ‘Odæ Latinæ,’ 1810. He printed privately at Rome in 1818 and at Naples in 1819 several ‘Lyrica Sacra excerpta ex Hymnis Ecclesiæ Antiquis,’ which were reprinted, with an appendix, by Frederick Martin at Norwich in January 1835. Mathias also printed privately a few copies of a Latin elegy taken from that on Netley Abbey by George Keate [q. v.], and of the ballad of Hardyknute with a commentary. There are letters to him in ‘Notes and Queries,’ 2nd ser. x. 41–2, 283–4, xii. 221, and from him in Nichols's ‘Illustrations of Literature,’ viii. 214, 312–14.

Mathias was probably instructed in Italian at Cambridge by Agostino Isola, and he ranks as the best English scholar in that language since the time of Milton. He was the author of ‘Poesie Liriche’ and of ‘Canzoni Toscane,’ each of which went through many editions, and of ‘Canzoni’ on Nicholls, Sir William Drummond, and Lord Guilford. He edited the works of numerous Italian authors, among whom were Gravina, Tiraboschi, and Menzini; published a collection in three volumes of ‘Lyrics from Italian Poets,’ 1802, 1808, and 1819; and letters in Italian on the study of its literature, a new edition of which was published by L. P. at Naples in 1834. The English works which he translated into Italian included Akenside's ‘Naiads,’ Armstrong's ‘Art of Health,’ Beattie's ‘Minstrel,’ Mason's ‘Caractacus’ and ‘Sappho,’ Milton's ‘Lycidas,’ Spenser's ‘Fairy Queen,’ and Thomson's ‘Castle of Indolence.’ In Wrangham's ‘English Library,’ pp. 348–9, is an unpublished Italian sonnet by him. 

MATILDA (d. 1083), queen of William the Conqueror, was the daughter of Baldwin V, called of Lisle, count of Flanders, by his second wife, Adela, daughter of Robert, and sister of Henry I, kings of France. She was a descendant of Alfred or Ælfred [q. v.], king of the West Saxons, through his daughter Ælfthryth, wife of Count Baldwin II (d. 918). William, then duke of Normandy, sought her in marriage in 1049, and the marriage was forbidden by the council of Rheims held in that year by Pope Leo IX, the prohibi-