Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/664

Rh 632 M A T M A T In ISli he visited Liverpool, Manchester, and London with almost equal success. Meanwhile the expenses of his enterprise had involved him in heavy liabilities, and led on one occasion to his arrest for debt ; from this embarrassment he was only partially relieved by a pension of .300 granted by the queen in 1847. In 1849 he paid a visit to the United States, returning in 1851. He died at Queenstown on December 8, 185G, See Father Mathew, a Biography, by J. F. Maguire, M.P. (1863). MATHEWS, CHARLES (1776-1835), comedian, was born in London, 28th June 1776. His father was what he called &quot;a serious bookseller,&quot; and also officiated as minister in one of Lady Huntingdon s chapels. Mathews was educated at Merchant Taylors School. His love for the stage was formed in his boyhood, partly from admiration of Elliston, with whom he had taken part in private theatricals. According to his own statement, it ripened into an &quot; over powering, all-absorbing passion,&quot; unfitting him for business when he became apprentice to his father, who at length, in 1794, unwillingly permitted him to enter on a theatrical engagement in Dublin. For several years Mathews had not only to content himself with the most thankless parts at an almost nominal salary, but his figure, at this period of life thin and ungainly, and the peculiar twist in his countenance generally awakened the unconcealed ridicule of the audience. In 1798 he obtained a conditional engagement from Tate Wilkinson at Yor,k. In 1802 Mathews began to play in London at the Haymarket, and from this time his professional career was an un interrupted triumph. His special excellence as an actor consisted in his wonderful gift of mimicry, enabling him to grasp the minutest and most individual features of the character he represented. His sense of the purely ludicrous in all its varied phases was perhaps unequalled, and by his marvellous command of facial expression and of different tones and accents of voice he could, when he so willed, completely disguise his personality without even the smallest change of dress. The versatility and origin ality of his powers were, in public, best seen in his &quot;At Homes,&quot; begun in the Lyceum Theatre in 1818, &quot;which,&quot; according to Leigh Hunt, &quot; for the richness and variety of his humour, were as good as half a dozen plays distilled.&quot; But it was in the social circle that he displayed the finest and rarest traits of genius, while his simple and truly kind-hearted disposition won him an affection and esteem which mere genius could not have purchased. From his infancy the health of Mathews had been uncertain, and the toils of his profession gradually undermined it. He died at Plymouth, of heart disease, 28th June 1835. See Memoirs, by Mrs Mathews, 4 vols., 1838-39. MATHEWS, CHARLES JAMES (1803-1878), comedian, son of the above, was born at Liverpool, 26th December 1803. After attending Merchant Taylors School he was articled as pupil to an architect, and he continued nominally to follow this business till 1835. His first appearance on the stage was made at the Adelphi, London. In 1838 he married Madame Vestris, then lessee of the Olympic, but neither his management of this theatre, nor subsequently of Covent Garden, nor of the Lyceum, resulted in pecuniary advantage. As an actor, however, he held from the first an unrivalled place in his peculiar vein of light eccentric comedy. The inimitable easy grace of his manner, and the imperturbable solemnity with which Ipe perpetrated his absurdities, never failed to charm and amuse ; his humour was never broad, but always measured and restrained. His range of characters was exceptionally narrow, and he was wholly incapable of representing any form of strong passion. It was as the leading character in such plays as the Game of Speculation, My Awful Lad, Cool as a Cucumber, Patter versus Clatter, and Little ToodleJdns, that he specially excelled. Mathews was one of the few English actors who have played in French successfully his appearance at Paris in 1863 in a French version of Cool as a Cucumber, written by himself, being received with the utmost approbation. After reaching his sixty-sixth year, Mathews set out on a tour round tLe world, and on his return in 1872 he continued to prosecute his professional duties without interruption till within a few weeks of his death, on July 26, 1878. See Life of Charles James Matheu&amp;gt;s, edited by Charles Dickens, 2 vols., 1879. MATILDA, countess of Tuscany (1046-1114), popu larly known as the Great Countess, was born in 1046, of a race of nobles of Lombard descent. By the death of her father Boniface the Rich, duke and marquis of Tuscany, she was left, at eight years old, under the guardianship of her mother, Beatrice of Lorraine, heiress to a powerful state, including Tuscany, Liguria, part of Lombardy, Modena, and Ferrara. Her life was a pro tracted struggle against the schism which rent the churcli, under a series of antipopes, supported by a large section of the clergy and people of Italy and Germany, as well as by the whole strength of the empire. Against this formidable combination she maintained the cause of the holy see, often single-handed, for years, with varying fortune but undaunted resolution. The champion of several successive pontiffs, she is best known as the ally of Gregory VII., and her hereditary fief of Canossa was, in 1077, the scene of the celebrated penance of Henry IV. in presence of this pope. On the same occasion she made the donation, subsequently renewed in 1102, of her possessions to the holy see, in right of which the church OAvned the greater part of its temporal dominions. Matilda was twice married, first to Godfrey of Lorraine, surnamed the Humpbacked, son of her mother s second husband, and secondly to Guelph of Bavaria, both marriages of policy, which counted for little in her life. She died of gout in 1114, in her sixty-ninth year, and was buried first at San Benedetto, and finally in the Vatican. Her steadfastness of purpose, strength of character, and loftiness of aim, made her one of the most striking figures even of the age which produced Robert Guiscard, William the Conqueror, Pope Hildebrand, and Godfrey of Bouillon, her nephew by marriage. The contemporary record of her life in rude Latin verse, by her chaplain Donnizone, is preserved in the Vatican Library. An Italian biography was published in Lucca by Francesco Fiorentini in 1642 (new edition by Mansi, 1756), and one in French by Aniedee Eenee, La Grande Italicnnc, in 1859. MATLOCK, a town of Derbyshire, England, is situated on the river Derwent and on the Midland Railway, 149 miles north-west of London and 17 north-west of Derby. It possesses cotton, corn, and paper mills, and in the vicinity there are lead-mines. About 1J miles south-east, also on the Derwent, is Matlock Bath, possessing hot medicinal springs. There are in all three springs, the first of which was discovered in 1692. Their mean tem perature is 68 Fahr., and applied both externally and internally the water is efficacious in glandular affection?, rheumatism, biliary obstructions, and relaxation of the muscular fibres. The fine scenery of the vale of Matlock, and its proximity to the thickly peopled districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire, cause the village to be much frequented in summer not only by invalids but by holiday visitors. There are several large stalactite caverns. Matlock Bank, a mile to the north-east, in a finely sheltered situation, contaius several well-known hydropathic establishments. The population of the urban sanitary district of Matlock (4513 acres) in 1871 was 3834, and in 1881 it was 4396 ; that of Matlock Bath and Scar-thin Nick in the same years was 1386 and 1698. These two districts are conterminous with the civil parish of Matlock.