[1] He was so christened "because of the never-to-be-forgotten
increase, of every sort, wherewith God favoured the country about the
time of his nativity." He often latinized his name, spelling it
_Crescentius Matherus_.
[2] That is, King Philip's War, the Boston fires of 1676, when
Mather's church and home were burned, and 1679, the threatened
introduction of Episcopacy, and the general spiritual decay of the
country.
[3] He had previously been arrested and acquitted on a charge of
having attributed the forged letter to Randolph.
[4] Mather led the resistance to the royal demand instigated by
Edward Randolph in 1683, for the annulment of the college charter,
and after its vacation in 1684 strove for the grant of a new charter;
King James promised him a confirmation of the former charter; the new
provincial charter granted by William and Mary confirmed all gifts
and grants to colleges; in 1692 Mather drafted an act incorporating
the college, which was signed by Phips but was disallowed in England;
and in 1696, 1697, 1699, and 1700, Mather repeated his efforts for a
college charter.
[5] Mather was made a licenser of the Press in 1674 when the General
Court abolished the monopoly of the Cambridge Press.
MATHER, RICHARD (1596-1669), American Congregational clergyman, was born
in Lowton, in the parish of Winwick, near Liverpool, England, of a
family which was in reduced circumstances but entitled to bear a
coat-of-arms. He studied at Winwick grammar school, of which he was
appointed a master in his fifteenth year, and left it in 1612 to become
master of a newly established school at Toxteth Park, Liverpool. After a
few months at Brasenose College, Oxford, he began in November 1618 to
preach at Toxteth, and was ordained there, possibly only as deacon,
early in 1619. In August-November 1633 he was suspended for
nonconformity in matters of ceremony; and in 1634 was again suspended by
the visitors of Richard Neile, archbishop of York, who, hearing that he
had never worn a surplice during the fifteen years of his ministry,
refused to reinstate him and said that "it had been better for him that
he had gotten Seven Bastards." He had a great reputation as a preacher
in and about Liverpool; but, advised by letters of John Cotton and
Thomas Hooker, and persuaded by his own elaborate formal "Arguments
tending to prove the Removing from Old-England to New ... to be not only
lawful, but also necessary for them that are not otherwise tyed, but
free," he left England and on the 17th of August 1635, and landed in
Boston after an "extraordinary and miraculous deliverance" from a
terrible storm. As a famous preacher "he was desired at Plimouth,
Dorchester, and Roxbury." He went to Dorchester, where the Church had
been greatly depleted by migrations to Windsor, Connecticut; and where,
after a delay of several months, in August 1636 there was constituted by
the consent of magistrates and clergy a church of which he was "teacher"
until his death in Dorchester on the 22nd of April 1669.
He was an able preacher, "aiming," said his biographer, "to shoot his
arrows not over his people's heads, but into their Hearts and
Consciences"; and he was a leader of New England Congregationalism,
whose policy he defended and described in the tract _Church Government
and Church Covenant Discussed, in an Answer of the Elders of the
Severall Churches of New England to Two and Thirty Questions_ (written
1639; printed 1643), and in his _Reply to Mr Rutherford_ (1647), a
polemic against the Presbyterianism to which the English
Congregationalists were then tending. He drafted the Cambridge
Platform, an ecclesiastical constitution in seventeen chapters,
adopted (with the omission of Mather's paragraph favouring the
"Half-way Covenant," of which he strongly approved) by the general
synod in August 1646. In 1657 he drafted the declaration of the
Ministerial Convention on the meaning and force of the Half-way
Covenant; this was published in 1659 under the title: _A Disputation
concerning Church Members and their Children in Answer to XXI.
Questions_. With Thomas Welde and John Eliot he wrote the "Bay Psalm
Book," or, more accurately, _The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully
Translated into English Metre_ (1640), probably the first book printed
in the English colonies.
He married in 1624 Katherine Hoult or Holt (d. 1655), and secondly in
1656 Sarah Hankredge (d. 1676), the widow of John Cotton. Of six sons,
all by his first wife, four were ministers: SAMUEL (1626-1671), the
first fellow of Harvard College who was a graduate, chaplain of Magdalen
College, Oxford, in 1650-1653, and pastor (1656-1671, excepting
suspension in 1660-1662) of St Nicholas's in Dublin; NATHANIEL
(1630-1697), who graduated at Harvard in 1647, was vicar of Barnstaple,
Devon, in 1656-1662, pastor of the English Church in Rotterdam, his
brother's successor in Dublin in 1671-1688, and then until his death
pastor of a church in London; ELEAZAR (1637-1669), who graduated at
Harvard in 1656 and after preaching in Northampton, Massachusetts, for
three years, became in 1661 pastor of the church there; and INCREASE
MATHER (q.v.). Horace E. Mather, in his _Lineage of Richard Mather_
(Hartford, Connecticut, 1890), gives a list of 80 clergymen descended
from Richard Mather, of whom 29 bore the name Mather and 51 other names,
the more famous being Storrs and Schauffler.
See _The Life and Death of That Reverend Man of God, Mr Richard
Mather_ (Cambridge, 1670; reprinted 1850, with his _Journal_ for 1635,
by the Dorchester Antiquarian and Historical Society), with an
introduction by Increase Mather, who may have been the author; W. B.
Sprague's _Annals of the American Pulpit_, vol. i. (New York, 1857);
Cotton Mather's _Magnalia_ (London, 1702); an essay on Richard Mather
in Williston Walker's _Ten New England Leaders_ (New York, 1901); and
the works referred to in the article on Increase Mather. (R. We.)
MATHERAN, a hill sanatorium in India, in the Kolaba district of Bombay,
2460 ft. above the sea, and about 30 m. E. of Bombay city. Pop. (1901),
3060. It consists of several thickly wooded ridges, on a spur of the
Western Ghats, with a magnificent outlook over the plain below and the
distant sea. First explored in 1850, it has since become the favourite
resort of the middle classes of Bombay (especially the Parsis) during
the spring and autumn months. It has recently been connected by a 2 ft.
gauge mountain line with Neral station on the Great Indian Peninsula
railway, 54 m. from Bombay.
MATHESON, GEORGE (1842-1906), Scottish theologian and preacher, was born
in Glasgow in 1842, the son of George Matheson, a merchant. He was
educated at the university of Glasgow, where he graduated first in
classics, logic and philosophy. In his twentieth year he became totally
blind, but he held to his resolve to enter the ministry, and gave
himself to theological and historical study. His first ministry began in
1868 at Innellan, on the Argyllshire coast between Dunoon and Toward.
His books on _Aids to the Study of German Theology, Can the Old Faith
live with the New? The Growth of the Spirit of Christianity from the
First Century to the Dawn of the Lutheran Era_, established his
reputation as a liberal and spiritually minded theologian; and Queen
Victoria invited him to preach at Balmoral. In 1886 he removed to
Edinburgh, where he became minister of St Bernard's Parish Church. Here
his chief work as a preacher was done. In 1879 the university of
Edinburgh conferred upon him the honorary degree of D.D., and the same
year he declined an invitation to the pastorate of Crown Court, London,
in succession to Dr John Cumming (1807-1881). In 1881 he was chosen as
Baird lecturer, and took for his subject "Natural Elements of Revealed
Theology," and in 1882 he was the St Giles lecturer, his subject being
"Confucianism." In 1890 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh, Aberdeen gave him its honorary LL.D., and in 1899 he was
appointed Gifford lecturer by that university, but declined on grounds
of health. In the same year he severed his active connexion with St
Bernard's. One of his hymns, "O love that will not let me go," has
passed into the popular hymnology of the Christian Church. He died
suddenly of apoplexy on the 28th of August 1906. His exegesis owes its
interest to his subjective resources rather than to breadth of learning;
his power lay in spiritual vision rather than balanced judgment, and in
the vivid apprehension of the factors which make the Christian
personality, rather than in constructive doctrinal statement.
MATHEW, THEOBALD (1790-1856), Irish temperance reformer, popularly known
as Father Mathew, was descended from a branch of the Llandaff family,
and was born at Thomastown, Tipperary, on the 10th of October 1790. He
received his school education at Kilkenny, whence he passed for a short
time to Maynooth; from 1808 to 1814 he studied at Dublin, where in the
latter year he was ordained to the priesthood. Having entered the
Capuchin order, he, after a brief time of service at Kilkenny, joined
the mission in Cork, which was the scene of his religious and benevolent
labours for many years. The movement with which his name is most
intimately associated began in 1838 with the establishment of a total
abstinence association, which in less than nine months, thanks to his
moral influence and eloquence, enrolled no fewer than 150,000 names. It
rapidly spread to Limerick and elsewhere, and some idea of its
popularity may be formed from the fact that at Nenagh 20,000 persons are
said to have taken the pledge in one day, 100,000 at Galway in two days,
and 70,000 in Dublin in five days. In 1844 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 Queen Victoria in
1847. In 1849 he paid a visit to the United States, returning in 1851.
He died at Queenstown on the 8th of December, 1856.
See _Father Mathew, a Biography_, by J. F. Maguire, M.P. (1863).
MATHEWS, CHARLES (1776-1835), English actor, was born in London on the
28th of June 1776. His father was "a serious bookseller," who 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, when he was apprentice to his father, and the latter in
1794 unwillingly permitted him to enter on a theatrical engagement in
Dublin. For several years Mathews had not only to content himself with
thankless parts at a low salary, but in May 1803 he made his first
London appearance at the Haymarket as Jabel in Cumberland's _The Jew_
and as Lingo in _The Agreeable Surprise_. From this time his
professional career was an uninterrupted triumph. He had a wonderful
gift of mimicry, and could completely disguise his personality without
the smallest change of dress. The versatility and originality of his
powers were admirably displayed in his "At Homes," begun in the Lyceum
theatre in 1818, which, according to Leigh Hunt, "for the richness and
variety of his humour, were as good as half a dozen plays distilled."
Off the stage his simple and kind-hearted disposition won him affection
and esteem. In 1822 Mathews visited America, his observation on his
experiences there forming for the reader a most entertaining portion of
his biography. From infancy his health had been uncertain, and the toils
of his profession gradually undermined it. In 1834 he paid a second
visit to America. His last appearance in New York was on the 11th of
February 1835, when he played Samuel Coddle in _Married Life_ and Andrew
Steward in _The Lone House_. He died at Plymouth on the 28th of June
1835. In 1797 he had married Eliza Kirkham Strong (d. 1802), and in 1803
Anne Jackson, an actress, the author of the popular and diverting
_Memoirs, by Mrs Mathews_ (4 vols., 1838-1839).
His son CHARLES JAMES MATHEWS (1803-1878), who was born at Liverpool on
the 26th of December 1803, became even better known as an actor. After
attending Merchant Taylors' School he was articled as pupil to an
architect, and continued for some years nominally to follow this
profession. His first public appearance on the stage was made on the 7th
of December 1835, at the Olympic, London, as George Rattleton in his own
play _The Humpbacked Lover_, and as Tim Topple the Tiger in Leman Rode's
_Old and Young Stager_. 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
success, although the introduction of scenery more realistic and careful
in detail than had hitherto been employed was due to his enterprise. In
the year of his marriage he visited America, but without receiving a
very cordial welcome. As an actor he held in England an unrivalled place
in his peculiar vein of light eccentric comedy. The easy grace of his
manner, and the imperturbable solemnity with which he perpetrated his
absurdities, never failed to charm and amuse; his humour was never
broad, but always measured and restrained. It was as the leading
character in such plays as the _Game of Speculation_, _My Awful Dad_,
_Cool as a Cucumber_, _Patter versus Clatter_, and _Little Toddlekins_,
that he specially excelled. In 1856 Mme Vestris died, and in the
following year Mathews again visited the United States, where in 1858 he
married Mrs A. H. Davenport. In 1861 they gave a series of "At Homes" at
the Haymarket theatre, which were almost as popular as had been those of
the elder Mathews. Charles James Mathews was one of the few English
actors who played in French successfully,--his appearance in Paris in
1863 in a French version of _Cool as a Cucumber_, written by himself,
being received with great approbation. He also played there again in
1865 as Sir Charles Coldcream in the original play _L'Homme blasé_
(English version by Boucicault, _Used up_). After reaching his
sixty-sixth year, Mathews set out on a tour round the world, in which
was included a third visit to America, and on his return in 1872 he
continued to act without interruption till within a few weeks of his
death on the 24th of June 1878. He made his last appearance in New York
at Wallack's theatre on the 7th of June 1872, in H. J. Byron's _Not such
a Fool as he Looks_. His last appearance in London was at the Opéra
Comique on the 2nd of June 1877, in _The Liar_ and _The Cosy Couple_. At
Stalybridge he gave his last performance on the 8th of June 1878, when
he played Adonis Evergreen in his own comedy _My Awful Dad_.
See the _Life of Charles James Mathews_, edited by Charles Dickens (2
vols., 1879); H. G. Paine in _Actors and Actresses of Great Britain
and the United States_ (New York, 1886).
MATHEWS, THOMAS (1676-1751), British admiral, son of Colonel Edward
Mathews (d. 1700), and grandson on his mother's side of Sir Thomas
Armstrong (1624-1684), who was executed for the Rye House Plot, was born
at Llandaff Court, Llandaff. He entered the navy and became lieutenant
in 1699, being promoted captain in 1703. During the short war with Spain
(1718-20) he commanded the "Kent" in the fleet of Sir George Byng (Lord
Torrington), and from 1722 to 1724 he had the command of a small
squadron sent to the East Indies to repress the pirates of the coast of
Malabar. He saw no further service till March 1741, when he was
appointed to the command in the Mediterranean, and plenipotentiary to
the king of Sardinia and the other courts of Italy. It is impossible to
understand upon what grounds he was selected. As an admiral he was not
distinguished; he was quite destitute of the experience and the tact
required for his diplomatic duties; and he was on the worst possible
terms with his second in command, Richard Lestock (1679?-1746). Yet the
purpose for which he was sent out in his double capacity was not
altogether ill performed. In 1742 Mathews sent a small squadron to
Naples to compel King Charles III., afterwards king of Spain, to remain
neutral. It was commanded by commodore, afterwards admiral, William
Martin (1696?-1756), who refused to enter into negotiations, and gave
the king half an hour in which to return an answer. In June of the same
year a squadron of Spanish galleys, which had taken refuge in the Bay of
Saint Tropez, was burnt by the fireships of Mathews' fleet. In the
meantime a Spanish squadron of line-of-battleships had taken refuge in
Toulon, and was watched by the British fleet from its anchorage at
Hyères. In February 1744 the Spaniards put to sea in company with a
French force. Mathews, who had now returned to his flagship, followed,
and an engagement took place on the 11th of February. The battle was
highly discreditable to the British fleet, and not very honourable to
their opponents, but it is of the highest historical importance in the
history of the navy. It marked the lowest pitch reached in discipline
and fighting and efficiency by the fleet in the 18th century, and it had
a very bad effect in confirming the pedantic system of tactics set up by
the old Fighting Instructions. The British fleet followed the enemy in
light winds on the 10th of February, and became scattered. Mathews
hoisted the signal to form the line, and then when night fell, to lie
to. At that moment Lestock, who commanded in the rear, was at a
considerable distance from the body of the fleet, and he ought
undoubtedly to have joined his admiral before lying to, but he obeyed
the second order, with the result, which it is impossible not to feel
that he foresaw and desired, that when morning came he was a long way
off the flag of Mathews. The enemy were within striking distance of the
van and centre of the British fleet, and Mathews attacked their rear.
The battle was ill fought, as it had been ill prepared. Lestock never
came into action at all. One Spanish line-of-battleship, the "Poder"
(74), was taken, but afterwards burnt. Several of the British captains
behaved very badly, and Mathews in a heat of confused anger bore down on
the enemy out of his line, while the signal to keep the line was still
flying at his mast head. The French and Spaniards got away, and were not
pursued by Mathews, though they were of inferior strength.
Deep indignation was aroused at home by this naval miscarriage, and the
battle led to more than twenty courts-martial and a parliamentary
inquiry. The evils which had overrun the navy were clearly displayed,
and in so far some good was done. It was shown for instance that one of
the captains whose ship behaved worst was a man of extreme age who was
nearly blind and deaf. One of the captains was so frightened at the
prospect of a trial that he deserted on his way home and disappeared
into Spain. Mathews resigned and returned home after the battle. In
consequence of the parliamentary motion for inquiry, Lestock was brought
to trial, and acquitted on the ground that he had obeyed orders. Then
Mathews was tried in 1746, and was condemned to be dismissed the service
on the ground that he had not only failed to pursue the enemy but had
taken his fleet into action in a confused manner. He had in fact not
waited till he had his fleet in a line with the enemy before bearing
down on them, and he had disordered his own line. To the country at
large it appeared strange that the admiral who had actually fought
should be condemned, while the admiral who had kept at a distance was
acquitted. Mathews looked upon his condemnation as the result of mere
party spirit. Sheer pedantry on the part of the officers forming the
court-martial affords a more satisfactory explanation. They judged that
a naval officer was bound not to go beyond the Fighting Instructions as
Mathews had undoubtedly done, and therefore condemned him. Their
decision had a serious effect in fixing the rule that all battles, at
any rate against enemies of equal or nearly equal numbers, were to be
fought on one pattern. Mathews died on the 2nd of October 1751 in
London. There is a portrait of him in the Painted Hall at Greenwich.
In Beatson's _Naval and Military Memoirs_, vol. i., will be found a
fair account of the battle of February 1744. It is fully dealt with by
Montagu Burrows in his _Life of Hawke_. The French account may be
found in Tronde's _Batailles Navales de la France_. The Spanish view
is in the _Vida de Don Josef Navarro_ by Don Josef de Vargas. The
battle led to a violent pamphlet controversy. The charges and findings
at the courts-martial on both Lestock and Mathews were published at
the time. The minor trials arising out of the action are collected in
a folio under the title "Copies of all the Minutes and Proceedings
taken at and upon the several Tryals of Captain George Burrish"
(1746). A "Narrative" was published by, or for, Lestock in 1744, and
answered by, or on behalf of, Mathews under the title "Ad----l
M----w's Conduct in the late Engagement Vindicated" in 1745.
(D. H.)
MATHY, KARL (1807-1868), Badenese statesman, was born at Mannheim on the
17th of March 1807. He studied law and politics at Heidelberg, and
entered the Baden government department of finance in 1829. His sympathy
with the revolutionary ideas of 1830, expressed in his paper the
_Zeitgeist_, cost him his appointment in 1834, and he made his way to
Switzerland, where he contributed to the _Jeune Suisse_ directed by
Mazzini. On his return to Baden in 1840 he edited the _Landtagszeitung_
at Carlsruhe, and in 1842 he entered the estates for the town of
Constance. He became one of the opposition leaders and in 1847 helped to
found the _Deutsche Zeitung_, a paper which eventually did much to
further the cause of German unity. He took part in the preliminary
parliament and in the assembly of Frankfort in 1848-1849, where he
supported the policy of H. W. A. von Gagern, and after the refusal of
Frederick William IV. to accept the imperial crown he still worked for
the cause of unity. He was made finance minister in Baden in May 1849,
but was dismissed after a few days of office. He then applied his
financial knowledge to banking business in Cologne, Berlin, Gotha and
Leipzig. He was recalled to Baden in 1862, and in 1864 became president
of the new ministry of commerce. He sought to bring Baden institutions
into line with those of northern Germany with a view to ultimate union,
and when in 1866 Baden took sides with Austria against Prussia he sent
in his resignation. After the war he became president of a new cabinet,
but he did not live to see the realization of the policy for which he
had striven. He died at Carlsruhe on the 3rd of February 1868.
His letters during the years 1846-1848 were edited by Ludwig Mathy
(Leipzig, 1899), and his life was written by G. Freytag (Leipzig, 2nd
ed., 1872).
MATILDA (1102-1164), queen of England and empress, daughter of Henry I.
of England, by Matilda, his first wife, was born in 1102. In 1109 she
was betrothed to the emperor-elect, Henry V., and was sent to Germany,
but the marriage was delayed till 1114. Her husband died after eleven
years of wedlock, leaving her childless; and, since both her brothers
were now dead, she was recalled to her father's court in order that she
might be recognized as his successor in England and Normandy. The Great
Council of England did homage to her under considerable pressure. Their
reluctance to acknowledge a female sovereign was increased when Henry
gave her in marriage to Geoffrey Plantagenet, the heir of Anjou and
Maine (1129); nor was it removed by the birth of the future Henry II. in
1133. On the old king's death both England and Normandy accepted his
nephew, Stephen, of Mortain and Boulogne. Matilda and her husband were
in Anjou at the time. They wasted the next few years in the attempt to
win Normandy; but Earl Robert of Gloucester, the half-brother of the
empress, at length induced her to visit England and raise her standard
in the western shires, where his influence was supreme. Though on her
first landing Matilda only escaped capture through the misplaced
chivalry of her opponent, she soon turned the tables upon him with the
help of the Church and the barons of the west. Stephen was defeated and
captured at Lincoln (1141); the empress was acclaimed lady or queen of
England (she used both titles indifferently) and crowned at London. But
the arrogance which she displayed in her prosperity alienated the
Londoners and the papal legate, Bishop Henry of Winchester. Routed at
the siege of Winchester, she was compelled to release Stephen in
exchange for Earl Robert, and thenceforward her cause steadily declined
in England. In 1148, having lost by the earl's death her principal
supporter, she retired to Normandy, of which her husband had in the
meantime gained possession. Henceforward she remained in the background,
leaving her eldest son Henry to pursue the struggle with Stephen. She
outlived Henry's coronation by ten years; her husband had died in 1151.
As queen-mother she played the part of a mediator between her sons and
political parties. Age mellowed her temper, and she turned more and more
from secular ambitions to charity and religious works. She died on the
30th of January 1164.
See O. Rössler, _Kaiserin Mathilde_ (Berlin, 1897); J. H. Round,
_Geoffrey de Mandeville_ (London, 1892). (H. W. C. D.)
MATILDA (1046-1115), countess or margravine of Tuscany, popularly known
as the Great Countess, was descended from a noble Lombard family. Her
great-grandfather, Athone of Canossa, had been made count of Modena and
Reggio by the emperor Otto I., and her grandfather had, in addition,
acquired Mantua, Ferrara and Brescia. Her own father, Boniface II., the
Pious, secured Tuscany, the duchy of Spoleto, the county of Parma, and
probably that of Cremona; and was loyal to the emperor until Henry
plotted against him. Through the murder of Count Boniface in 1052 and
the death of her older brother and sister three years later, Matilda was
left, at the age of nine, sole heiress to the richest estate in Italy.
She received an excellent education under the care of her mother,
Beatrice of Bar, the daughter of Frederick of Lorraine and aunt of Henry
III., who, after a brief detention in Germany by the emperor, married
Godfrey IV. of Lorraine, brother of Pope Stephen IX. (1057-1058).
Thenceforth Matilda's lot was cast against the emperor in the great
struggle over investiture, and for over thirty years she maintained the
cause of the successive pontiffs, Gregory VII., Victor III., Urban II.,
Paschal II., with varying fortune, but with undaunted resolution. She
aided the pope against the Normans in 1074, and in 1075 attended the
synod at which Guibert was condemned and deprived of the archbishopric
of Ravenna. Her hereditary fief of Canossa was the scene (Jan. 28, 1077)
of the celebrated penance of Henry IV. before Gregory VII. She provided
an asylum for Henry's second wife, Praxides, and urged his son Conrad to
revolt against his father. In the course of the protracted struggle her
villages were plundered, her fortresses demolished, and Pisa and Lucca
temporarily lost, but she remained steadfast in her allegiance, and,
before her death, had, by means of a league of Lombard cities which she
formed, recovered all her possessions. The donation of her estates to
the Holy See, originally made in 1077 and renewed on the 17th of
November 1102, though never fully consummated on account of imperial
opposition, constituted the greater part of the temporal dominion of the
papacy. Matilda was twice married, first to Godfrey V. of Lorraine,
surnamed the Humpbacked, who was the son of her step-father and was
murdered on the 26th of February 1076; and secondly to the 17-year-old
Welf V. of Bavaria, from whom she finally separated in 1095--both
marriages of policy, which counted for little in her life. Matilda was
an eager student: she spoke Italian, French and German fluently, and
wrote many Latin letters; she collected a considerable library; she
supervised an edition of the Pandects of Justinian; and Anselm of
Canterbury sent her his _Meditations_. She combined her devotion to the
papacy and her learning with very deep personal piety. She died after a
long illness at Bodeno, near Modena, on the 24th of July 1115, and was
buried in the Benedictine church at Polirone, whence her remains were
taken to Rome by order of Urban VIII. in 1635 and interred in St
Peter's.
The contemporary record of Matilda's life in rude Latin verse, by her
chaplain Domnizone (Donizo or Domenico), is preserved in the Vatican
Library. The best edition is that of Bethmann in the _Monumenta germ.
hist. scriptores_, xii. 348-409. The text, with an Italian
translation, was published by F. Davoli under the title _Vita della
granda contessa Matilda di Canossa_ (Reggio nell' Emilia 1888 seq.).
See A. Overmann, _Gräfin Mathilde von Tuscien; ihre Besitzungen ... u.
ihre Regesten_ (Innsbruck, 1895); A. Colombo, _Una Nuova vita delta
contessa Matilda in R. accad. d. sci. Atti_, vol. 39 (Turin, 1904); L.
Tosti, _La Contessa Matilda ed i romani pontefici_ (Florence, 1859);
A. Pannenborg, _Studien zur Geschichte der Herzogin Matilde von
Canossa_ (Göttingen, 1872); F. M. Fiorentini, _Memorie della Matilda_
(Lucca, 1756); and Nora Duff, _Matilda of Tuscany_ (1910).
(C. H. Ha.)
MATINS (Fr. _matines_, med. Lat. _matutinae_, sc. possibly vigiliae,
morning watches; from _matutinus_, "belonging to the morning"), a word
now only used in an ecclesiastical sense for one of the canonical hours
in the Roman Breviary, originally intended to be said at midnight, but
sometimes said at dawn, after which "lauds" were recited or sung. In the
modern Roman Catholic Church, outside monastic services, the office is
usually said on the preceding afternoon or evening. The word is also
used in the Roman Catholic Church for the public service held on Sunday
mornings before the mass (see BREVIARY; and HOURS, CANONICAL). In the
Church of England since the Reformation matins is used for the order of
public morning prayer.
MATLOCK, a market town in the western parliamentary division of
Derbyshire, England, on the river Derwent, 17 m. N. by W. of Derby on
the Midland railway. Pop. (1901), of urban district of Matlock, 5979; of
Matlock Bath and Scarthin Nick, 1819. The entire township includes the
old village of Matlock, the commercial and manufacturing district of
Matlock Bridge, and the fashionable health resorts of Matlock Bath and
Matlock Bank. The town possesses cotton, corn and paper mills, while in
the vicinity there are stone-quarries and lead mines. A peculiar local
industry is the manufacture of so-called "petrified" birds' nests,
plants, and other objects. These are steeped in water from the mineral
springs until they become encrusted with a calcareous deposit which
gives them the appearance of fossils. Ornaments fashioned out of spar
and stalactites have also a considerable sale.
MATLOCK BATH, one and a half miles south of Matlock, having a separate
railway station, overlooks the narrow and precipitous gorge of the
Derwent, and stands in the midst of woods and cliffs, deriving its name
from three medicinal springs, which first became celebrated towards the
close of the 17th century. They were not known to the Romans, although
lead-mining was carried on extensively in the district in the 1st and
2nd centuries A.D. The mean temperature of the springs is 68° F.
Extensive grounds have been laid out for public use; and in the
neighbourhood there are several fine stalactite caverns.
Sheltered under the high moorlands of Darley, MATLOCK BANK has grown up
about a mile north-east of the old village, and has become celebrated
for the number and excellence of its hydropathic establishments. A
tramway, worked by a single cable, over a gradient said to be the
steepest in the world, affords easy communication with Matlock Bridge.
MATOS FRAGOSO, JUAN DE (1614?-1689), Spanish dramatist, of Portuguese
descent, was born about 1614 at Alsito (Alemtejo). After taking his
degree in law at the university of Evora, he proceeded to Madrid, where
he made acquaintance with Perez de Montalbán, and thus obtained an
introduction to the stage. He quickly displayed great cleverness in
hitting the public taste, and many contemporaries of superior talent
eagerly sought his aid as a collaborator. The earliest of his printed
plays is _La Defensa de la fé y principe prodigioso_ (1651), and twelve
more pieces were published in 1658. But though his popularity continued
long after his death (January 4, 1689), Matos Fragoso's dramas do not
stand the test of reading. His emphatic preciosity and sophistical
insistence on the "point of honour" are tedious and unconvincing; in _La
Venganza en el despeño_, in _Á lo que obliga un agravio_, and in other
plays, he merely recasts, very adroitly, works by Lope de Vega.
MATRASS (mod. Lat. _matracium_), a glass vessel with a round or oval
body and a long narrow neck, used in chemistry, &c., as a digester or
distiller. The Florence flask of commerce is frequently used for this
purpose. The word is possibly identical with an old name "matrass" (Fr.
_materas_, _matelas_) for the bolt or quarrel of a cross-bow. If so,
some identity of shape is the reason for the application of the word;
"bolt-head" is also used as a name for the vessel. Another connexion is
suggested with the Arabic _matra_, a leather bottle.
MATRIARCHATE ("rule of the mother"), a term used to express a supposed
earliest and lowest form of family life, typical of primitive societies,
in which the promiscuous relations of the sexes result in the child's
father being unknown (see FAMILY). In such communities the mother took
precedence of the father in certain important respects, especially in
line of descent and inheritance. Matriarchate is assumed on this theory
to have been universal in prehistoric times. The prominent position then
naturally assigned women did not, however, imply any personal power,
since they were in the position of mere chattels: it simply constituted
them the sole relatives of their children and the only centre of any
such family life as existed. The custom of tracing descent through the
female is still observed among certain savage tribes. In Fiji father and
son are not regarded as relatives. Among the Bechuanas the chieftainship
passes to a brother, not to a son. In Senegal, Loango, Congo and Guinea,
relationship is traced through the female. Among the Tuareg Berbers a
child takes rank, freeman's or slave's, from its mother.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--J. F. McLennan, _Patriarchal Theory_ (London, 1885); T.
T. Bachofen, _Das Mutterrecht_ (Stuttgart, 1861); E. Westermarck,
_History of Human Marriage_ (1894); A. Giraud-Teulon, _La Mère chez
certains peuples de l'antiquité_ (Paris, 1867); _Les Origines du
mariage et de la famille_ (Geneva and Paris, 1884); C. S. Wake, _The
Development of Marriage and Kinship_ (London, 1889); Ch. Letourneau,
_L'Évolution du mariage et de la famille_ (Paris, 1888); L. H. Morgan,
_Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of Human Family_, "Smithsonian
Contributions to Knowledge," vol. xvii. (Washington, 1871); C. N.
Starcke, _The Primitive Family_ (London, 1889).
MATRIMONY (Lat. _matrimonium_, marriage, which is the ordinary English
sense), a game at cards played with a full whist pack upon a table
divided into three compartments labelled "Matrimony," "Intrigue" and
"Confederacy," and two smaller spaces, "Pair" and "Best." These names
indicate combinations of two cards, any king and queen being
"Matrimony," any queen and knave "Intrigue," any king and knave
"Confederacy"; while any two cards of the same denomination form a
"Pair" and the diamond ace is "Best." The dealer distributes a number of
counters, to which an agreed value has been given, upon the
compartments, and the other players do likewise. The dealer then gives
one card to each player, face down, and a second, face up. If any
turned-up card is the diamond ace, the player holding it takes
everything on the space and the deal passes. If not turned, the diamond
ace has only the value of the other three aces. If it is not turned, the
players, beginning with the eldest hand, expose their second cards, and
the resulting combinations, if among the five successful ones, win the
counters of the corresponding spaces. If the counters on a space are not
won, they remain until the next deal.
MATRIX, a word of somewhat wide application, chiefly used in the sense
of a bed or enclosing mass in which something is shaped or formed (Late
Lat. _matrix_, womb; in classical Latin _matrix_ was only applied to an
animal kept for breeding). Matrix is thus used of a mould of metal or
other substance in which a design or pattern is made in intaglio, and
from which an impression in relief is taken. In die-sinking and coining,
the matrix is the hardened steel mould from which the die-punches are
taken. The term "seal" should strictly he applied to the impression only
on wax of the design of the matrix, but is often used both of the matrix
and of the impression (see SEALS). In mineralogy, the matrix is the mass
in which a crystal mineral or fossil is embedded. In mathematics, the
name "matrix" is used of an arrangement of numbers or symbols in a
rectangular or square figure. (See ALGEBRAIC FORMS.)
In med. Latin _matrix_ and the diminutive _matricula_ had the meaning
of a roll or register, particularly one containing the names of the
members of an institution, as of the clergy belonging to a cathedral,
collegiate or other church, or of the members of a university. From
this use is derived "matriculation," the admission to membership of a
university, also the name of the examination for such admission.
_Matricula_ was also the name of the contributions in men and money
made by the various states of the Holy Roman Empire, and in the modern
German Empire the contributions made by the federal states to the
imperial finances are called _Matrikularbeiträge_, matricular
contributions. (See GERMANY: _Finance_.)
MATROSS, the name (now obsolete) for a soldier of artillery, who ranked
next below a gunner. The duty of a matross was to assist the gunners in
loading, firing and sponging the guns. They were provided with
firelocks, and marched with the store-wagons, acting as guards. In the
American army a matross ranked as a private of artillery. The word is
probably derived from Fr. _matelot_, a sailor.
MATSUKATA, MARQUIS (1835- ), Japanese statesman, was born at Kagoshima
in 1835, being a son of a _samurai_ of the Satsuma clan. On the
completion of the feudal revolution of 1868 he was appointed governor of
the province of Tosa, and having served six years in this office, was
transferred to Tokyo as assistant minister of finance. As representative
of Japan at the Paris Exhibition of 1878, he took the opportunity
afforded by his mission to study the financial systems of the great
European powers. On his return home, he held for a short time in 1880
the portfolio of home affairs, and was in 1881 appointed minister of
finance. The condition of the currency of Japan was at that time
deplorable, and national bankruptcy threatened. The coinage had not only
been seriously debased during the closing years of the Tokugawa régime,
but large quantities of paper currency had been issued and circulated,
both by many of the feudal lords, and by the central government itself,
as a temporary expedient for filling an impoverished exchequer. In 1878
depreciation had set in, and the inconvertible paper had by the close of
1881 grown to such an extent that it was then at a discount of 80% as
compared with silver. Matsukata showed the government the danger of the
situation, and urged that the issue of further paper currency should be
stopped at once, the expenses of administration curtailed, and the
resulting surplus of revenue used in the redemption of the paper
currency and in the creation of a specie reserve. These proposals were
acted upon: the Bank of Japan was established, and the right of issuing
convertible notes given to it; and within three years of the initiation
of these financial reforms, the paper currency, largely reduced in
quantity, was restored to its full par value with silver, and the
currency as a whole placed on a solvent basis. From this time forward
Japan's commercial and military advancement continued to make
uninterrupted progress. But _pari passu_ with the extraordinary impetus
given to its trade by the successful conclusion of the war with China,
the national expenditure enormously increased, rising within a few years
from 80 to 250 million yen. The task of providing for this expenditure
fell entirely on Matsukata, who had to face strong opposition on the
part of the diet. But he distributed the increased taxation so equally,
and chose its subjects so wisely, that the ordinary administrative
expenditure and the interest on the national debt were fully provided
for, while the extraordinary expenditure for military purposes was met
from the Chinese indemnity. As far back as 1878 Matsukata perceived the
advantages of a gold standard, but it was not until 1897 that his scheme
could be realized. In this year the bill authorizing it was under his
auspices submitted to the diet and passed; and with this financial
achievement Matsukata saw the fulfilment of his ideas of financial
reform, which were conceived during his first visit to Europe.
Matsukata, who in 1884 was created Count, twice held the office of prime
minister (1891-1892, 1896-1898), and during both his administrations he
combined the portfolio of finance with the premiership; from October
1898 to October 1900 he was minister of finance only. His name in
Japanese history is indissolubly connected with the financial progress
of his country at the end of the 19th century. In 1902 he visited
England and America, and he was created G.C.M.G., and given the Oxford
degree of D.C.L. In September 1907 he was advanced to the rank of
Marquis.
MATSYS (MASSYS or METZYS), QUINTIN (1466-1530), Flemish artist, was born
at Louvain, where he first learned a mechanical art. During the greater
part of the 15th century the centres in which the painters of the Low
Countries most congregated were Bruges, Ghent and Brussels. Towards the
close of the same period Louvain took a prominent part in giving
employment to workmen of every craft. It was not till the opening of the
16th century that Antwerp usurped the lead which it afterwards
maintained against Bruges and Ghent, Brussels, Mechlin and Louvain.
Quintin Matsys was one of the first men of any note who gave repute to
the gild of Antwerp. A legend relates how the smith of Louvain was
induced by affection for the daughter of an artist to change his trade
and acquire proficiency in painting. A less poetic but perhaps more real
version of the story tells that Quintin had a brother with whom he was
brought up by his father Josse Matsys, a smith, who held the lucrative
offices of clockmaker and architect to the municipality of Louvain. It
came to be a question which of the sons should follow the paternal
business, and which carve out a new profession for himself. Josse the
son elected to succeed his father, and Quintin then gave himself to the
study of painting. We are not told expressly by whom Quintin was taught,
but his style seems necessarily derived from the lessons of Dierick
Bouts, who took to Louvain the mixed art of Memlinc and Van der Weyden.
When he settled at Antwerp, at the age of twenty-five, he probably had a
style with an impress of its own, which certainly contributed most
importantly to the revival of Flemish art on the lines of Van Eyck and
Van der Weyden. What particularly characterizes Quintin Matsys is the
strong religious feeling which he inherited from earlier schools. But
that again was permeated by realism which frequently degenerated into
the grotesque. Nor would it be too much to say that the facial
peculiarities of the boors of Van Steen or Ostade have their
counterparts in the pictures of Matsys, who was not, however, trained to
use them in the same homely way. From Van der Weyden's example we may
trace the dryness of outline and shadeless modelling and the pitiless
finish even of trivial detail, from the Van Eycks and Memlinc through
Dierick Bouts the superior glow and richness of transparent pigments,
which mark the pictures of Matsys. The date of his retirement from
Louvain is 1491, when he became a master in the gild of painters at
Antwerp. His most celebrated picture is that which he executed in 1508
for the joiners' company in the cathedral of his adopted city. Next in
importance to that is the Marys of Scripture round the Virgin and Child,
which was ordered for a chapel in the cathedral of Louvain. Both
altar-pieces are now in public museums, one at Antwerp, the other at
Brussels. They display great earnestness in expression, great minuteness
of finish, and a general absence of effect by light or shade. As in
early Flemish pictures, so in those of Matsys, superfluous care is
lavished on jewelry, edgings and ornament. To the great defect of want
of atmosphere such faults may be added as affectation, the result of
excessive straining after tenderness in women, or common gesture and
grimace suggested by a wish to render pictorially the brutality of
gaolers and executioners. Yet in every instance an effort is manifest to
develop and express individual character. This tendency in Matsys is
chiefly illustrated in his pictures of male and female market bankers
(Louvre and Windsor), in which an attempt is made to display
concentrated cupidity and avarice. The other tendency to excessive
emphasis of tenderness may be seen in two replicas of the "Virgin and
Child" at Berlin and Amsterdam, where the ecstatic kiss of the mother is
quite unreal. But in these examples there is a remarkable glow of colour
which makes up for many defects. Expression of despair is strongly
exaggerated in a Lucretia at the museum of Vienna. On the whole the best
pictures of Matsys are the quietest; his "Virgin and Christ" or "Ecce
Homo" and "Mater Dolorosa" (London and Antwerp) display as much serenity
and dignity as seems consistent with the master's art. He had
considerable skill as a portrait painter. Egidius at Longford, which
drew from Sir Thomas More a eulogy in Latin verse, is but one of a
numerous class, to which we may add the portrait of Maximilian of
Austria in the gallery of Amsterdam. Matsys in this branch of practice
was much under the influence of his contemporaries Lucas of Leiden and
Mabuse. His tendency to polish and smoothness excluded to some extent
the subtlety of modulation remarkable in Holbein and Dürer. There is
reason to think that he was well acquainted with both these German
masters. He probably met Holbein more than once on his way to England.
He saw Dürer at Antwerp in 1520. Quintin died at Antwerp in 1530. The
puritan feeling which slumbered in him was fatal to some of his
relatives. His sister Catherine and her husband suffered at Louvain in
1543 for the then capital offence of reading the Bible, he being
decapitated, she buried alive in the square fronting the cathedral.
Quintin's son, Jan Matsys, inherited the art but not the skill of his
parent. The earliest of his works, a "St Jerome," dated 1537, in the
gallery of Vienna, the latest, a "Healing of Tobias," of 1564, in the
museum of Antwerp, are sufficient evidence of his tendency to
substitute imitation for original thought.
MATTEAWAN, a village of Fishkill township, Dutchess county, New York,
U.S.A., on the eastern bank of the Hudson river, opposite Newburgh and
15 m. S. of Poughkeepsie. Pop. (1890), 4278; (1900), 5807 (1044
foreign-born); (1905, state census), 5584; (1910), 6727. The village is
served by the Central New England railway, and is the seat of the
Matteawan state hospital for the criminal insane, the Highland hospital,
and the Sargeant industrial school. The Teller House dates back to the
beginning of the 18th century. Near Matteawan is Beacon Hill, the
highest of the highlands, which has an electric railway to its summit.
There are manufactures of hats, rubber goods, machinery (notably
"fuel-economizers"), &c., water-power being furnished by Fishkill Creek.
The village owns its waterworks, the supply for which is derived from
Beacon Hill. Matteawan was incorporated as a village in 1886.