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MAT seventy thousand in five days. In 1844 Father Mathew visited Liverpool, Manchester, and London, and everywhere excited the greatest possible enthusiasm. His fortune and that of his brother and other relatives, who were distillers, suffered considerably from the change brought about by his preaching. A pension of £300 a year was granted to him from the crown, and collections were made in his behalf in various parts of the kingdom. For a short period he went out as a missionary to the Feejee islands, then returned to Queenstown, Ireland, where, after a few years of retirement, he died on the 8th December, 1856.—R. H.  MATHEWS,, an eminent comedian, was born on the 28th June, 1776, at No. 18 in the Strand, London, where his father was a bookseller and a Wesleyan methodist. Charles was sent to Merchant Taylors' school, and a chance acquaintance with Elliston stimulated that curiosity about the stage which had arisen from the boy's strict exclusion from theatres. A secret visit to Drury Lane fascinated young Mathews, who began acting privately under Elliston's guidance in the backroom of a pastry cook's in the Strand. His first public appearance was in September, 1793, at Richmond, in Richard III, when he played in the character of Richmond. His father offered no useless opposition to his wishes, but giving him twenty guineas, let him start on his new career before he was eighteen. For the first ten years he achieved no particular success in his various engagements in Ireland, Wales, Bath, York, &c. In 1797 he married Miss Strong of Exeter, who died of a decline in 1802. The following year he married Miss Jackson, and the newly-married pair were engaged by Colman to perform at the Haymarket, London. Their fame was here thoroughly established as excellent actors of comedy and farce. In 1810 Mrs. Mathews quitted the stage, and two years later her husband began an engagement at Covent Garden, which lasted till 1817. In April, 1818, began his celebrated entertainment "At Home," which offered peculiar advantages for the display of his talents, and continued for many years to attract crowds. An excellent mimic, full of vivacity, abounding in anecdote and humorous descriptions, he exhibited in appropriate costume characteristic adventures of men of every variety. His spirit of fun, his gentlemanly manners, and his clever comic singing, gave an inimitable charm to these performances. Success attended him in America, whither he went in 1823, returning to England with fresh materials for a new "At Home." He became joint proprietor of the Adelphi theatre, where he gave his entertainments for some years. In 1834 he again went to America, was taken ill on the voyage home, and died at Devonport, on his fifty-ninth birthday, of water on the chest.—His son, *, has followed in his father's steps, and enjoys a well-earned reputation as an actor of farce and comedy. At the time these lines are written, he offers to the public a dramatic representation of the occurrences of his own life, in which he is ably seconded by Mrs. Charles Mathews, and to which he has given the old title of "Mathews at Home."—R. H.  MATILDA, Countess of Tuscany, was born in 1046, or possibly in 1039, her father, Boniface III., being marquis of Tuscany; a territory which then included the present Tuscany, Modena, Reggio, Mantua, Ferrara, part of Umbria, the duchy of Spoleto, Verona, almost all the present patrimony of St. Peter from Viterbo to Orvieto, and part of the march of Ancona. In 1063 she married Godfrey le Bossu, son of the duke of Lorraine; and after his death, Guelph V., duke of Bavaria, in 1089. She left both her husbands on account, it is said, of their not being sufficiently devoted to the Holy See, which Matilda specially revered and upheld. In 1077, under the influence of Pope Gregory VII., she made a reversionary donation to the church of all her possessions, which would otherwise have passed to the emperor. This donation led to a great deal of active hostility between the emperors and Matilda: she took the field in person several times, and finally carried her point, having renewed her donation before her death, which took place on the 24th July, 1115. The church succeeded in obtaining possession of a great part of the territory thus conferred upon its chief.—W. M. R.  MATILDA or MAUD, Queen of England. See I.  MATILDA or MAUD, Queen of England, was the daughter of Henry I., and was born in the year 1100. She was affianced in 1110 to Henry V., emperor of Germany, who left her a widow in 1125. Two years afterwards she married Geoffrey Plantagenet, earl of Anjou, by whom she had three sons. On the death of her father in 1135, Matilda succeeded to the vacant throne. But Stephen, count of Boulogne, grandson of William the Conqueror by his daughter Adela, also claimed the crown, which he alleged could not be inherited by females; and having gained over the clergy and the barons by liberal promises of concessions and a redress of grievances, he was crowned upon the 26th of September, 1135. David, king of Scotland, having invaded England for the purpose of supporting the right of his niece, was defeated in the "battle of the Standard." Matilda's cause was reduced to the lowest ebb, and her husband even consented to conclude a truce with Stephen on receiving payment of a pension. The popularity of the new king, however, soon declined. His measures offended both the clergy and the nobles; and even his own brother Henry, bishop of Winchester, complained loudly of his violation of the privileges of the church. Matilda promptly availed herself of this favourable opportunity to recover her lost inheritance, and landed in England in 1139, accompanied by her natural brother, Robert of Gloucester, and a small body of adherents. A fierce and protracted civil war now commenced, and was productive of great misery to the nation. At length Stephen was defeated and taken prisoner at a battle fought at Lincoln, February 2nd, 1141. His party for a time was entirely overthrown, and Matilda was soon afterwards crowned at Winchester by the papal legate, Stephen's brother. Her haughty and imperious conduct, however, speedily alienated both the nobles and the people. A conspiracy was formed against her, the citizens of London revolted, and she was compelled to seek safety by flight; while her brother Robert, the life and soul of her party, fell into the hands of the enemy. Stephen and he were exchanged for each other. The civil war was renewed with redoubled fury, and raged for many years with alternate success and defeat on both sides. At length, worn out with anxieties and trials, Matilda retired to Normandy on the death of her brother in 1147, and spent the remaining twenty years of her life there in retirement and peace. She died in 1167.—J. T.  MATILDA CAROLINE, Queen of Denmark. See.  MATSYS,, written also Massys and Metsys, the well-known smith at Antwerp, was born at Louvain about 1460, and was brought up by his father to his own occupation, that of a smith, a pursuit then often requiring artistic knowledge and manipulative skill. Quintin distinguished himself first at Louvain, and afterwards at Antwerp, by his ornamental railings and such productions. At Antwerp he fell in love with a painter's daughter, and to gain her hand changed his occupation from that of smith to painter, removing for a time to Brussels to learn the art of Roger vander Weyden. He soon succeeded; in 1491 he was admitted a master into the Antwerp guild of St. Luke, and shortly afterwards he married Adelaide van Tuylt, by whom he had six children; she died, and Quintin married again in 1508-9, and had by his second wife seven children. Adelaide van Tuylt must be the heroine of the story with which Quintin's name is romantically associated; the portrait with his own in the gallery of Florence represents his second wife, Catherine Heyens; it is dated 1520. Quintin Matsys was the most celebrated painter of his time at Antwerp. His masterpiece, the "Taking down from the cross," painted in 1508, for the altar of the chapel of the Joiners' company in the cathedral, is now one of the principal attractions of the Antwerp museum. It is most carefully and elaborately executed, and is an admirable work, in spite of its Gothic taste. The painter received only three hundred florins for it, about £25; and the city purchased it of the Joiners' company for fifteen hundred florins in 1577. Queen Elizabeth wished to possess it, and is said to have offered in vain forty thousand florins for it. The careful works of this painter are well known in this country, from the so-called "Misers" at Windsor, the picture in the National gallery, and other examples. Rathgeber in his Annals enumerates seventy-eight works attributed to this painter. He is said to have died of the suette in the Carthusian convent at Antwerp in 1530-31. The monumental funeral-stone, preserved in the Antwerp museum, has the date 1529; but this is now shown to be an error; it was not made until a hundred years after his death. Quintin was originally buried in the convent of the Carthusians, and when this convent was suppressed his remains were reburied in front of the cathedral at Antwerp, with the following inscription placed in the wall of the cathedral, to commemorate the circumstance and his history:—"Quintino Matsys, incomparabilis artis pictori, admiratrix grataque Posteritas anno post obitum sæculari ciↄ. iↄc. xxix. posuit. 