Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/85

 Gurton.’ At Drury Lane he created a sensation by imitating Duvernay in ‘La Cachuca.’ His Orson was also a hit. Engaged by Macready at 3l. per week, 20 July 1837, he reappeared at Covent Garden, where he brought out ‘Fair Rosamond,’ and danced a mock bayadère dance. He visited Scotland and played in Edinburgh and elsewhere, and returned to the Olympic in Nelson Lee's pantomime ‘Riddle me, Riddle me Ree;’ then went to Paris, where, August 1842, he superintended the production at the Variétés of a pantomime called ‘Arlequin.’ Théophile Gautier speaks of his get-up as of ‘a rare fantasy,’ and praises his parody of the ‘Cachuca’ (L'Art Dramatique en France, ii. 260).

In 1843 he played at Drury Lane in Planché's ‘Fortunio,’ was seen in ballet at Vauxhall with the Paynes and Rosina Wright in 1847, was clown in 1848 in ‘Harlequin Lord Lovel’ at the Surrey, was at the Marylebone in 1851, and in the following year was at Drury Lane in Blanchard's ‘Dame Durden and the Droll Days of the Merry Monarch.’ In other pantomimes at the Adelphi, Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and in the country, he was familiarly known, singing constantly the songs of ‘Hot Codlings,’ ‘Tippitywitchet,’ and the ‘Life of a Clown,’ the last composed for him by Balfe. In 1859 he gave an entertainment. After this he played at Drury Lane in the burlesque introductions to various pantomimes. His last appearance was at Drury Lane in 1865 in ‘Hop o' my Thumb.’ He then retired. After being bedridden for four months he died at Brighton, 4 March 1889, and was buried in Brighton cemetery. He was the last of the old-fashioned clowns, sang in approved fashion, transmitted the traditions of Grimaldi, was a prudent man, and was much respected. 

MATTHIAS. [See .]

MATTHIESSEN, AUGUSTUS (1831–1870), chemist and physicist, was born in London on 2 Jan. 1831. His father, who died while Matthiessen was quite young, was a merchant. A paralytic seizure during infancy produced a permanent and severe twitching of Matthiessen's right hand. Notwithstanding the taste for chemistry which he displayed as a boy, he was, upon leaving school, sent by his guardians to learn farming with a Dorset farmer, as being the only occupation suited to his condition. His inclination was then towards a business career, but becoming interested in agricultural chemistry, then in its earliest infancy in this country, he immediately, on coming of age, went to Giessen, where he studied under Will and Buff, and graduated Ph.D. From 1853 he spent nearly four years under the direction of Bunsen at Heidelberg, and by means of his electrolytic method isolated the metals calcium and strontium in the pure state for the first time. In Kirchhoff's laboratory he studied the electrical conductivity first of the new metals, and then of many others. His results were published in Poggendorff's ‘Annalen’ and the ‘Philosophical Magazine’ for 1857. He returned to London in 1857 with a thorough knowledge of the methods of physics and of inorganic chemistry, and studied organic chemistry with Hofmann at the Royal College of Chemistry. The work done under Hofmann's direction was not important, but it led the way to Matthiessen's considerable researches on the opium alkaloids of later years. Matthiessen soon fitted up a laboratory on his own account at No. 1 Torrington Place, where he began a series of investigations on the physical properties of pure metals and alloys which has become classical.

The preparation of copper of the greatest conducting power possible had become a question of great practical importance in connection with telegraphy. Matthiessen showed that the discrepancies of previous observations and the low conductivity of certain samples of the metal supposed to be pure were due to the presence of minute quantities of other elements. He embodied his results both in a report presented in 1860 to the government committee appointed to inquire into the subject, and in a conjoint paper with Holzmann, published in the ‘Philosophical Transactions.’ In 1861 he became a fellow, and afterwards a member of the council of the Royal Society. In 1862 he was elected to the lectureship on chemistry at St. Mary's Hospital, a post which he held till 1868. During 1862–5 he undertook important voluntary work for the British Association committee on electrical standards, and in the latter year constructed for them ten standards and several copies of these, made from various metals and alloys. In 1867 he summarised his work on the constitution of alloys in a lecture given before the Chemical Society (Chem. Soc. Journ. 1867, p. 201). Besides pointing out a remarkable difference in the behaviour of tin, lead, zinc, and cadmium in alloys from that of other metals, he made two general sug-