Chapter XXII: Part 22

MATHER, INCREASE (1639-1723), American Congregational minister, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, on the 21st of June 1639, the youngest son of Richard Mather.[1] He entered Harvard in 1651, and graduated in 1656. In 1657, on his eighteenth birthday, he preached his first sermon; in the same year he went to visit his eldest brother in Dublin, and studied there at Trinity College, where he graduated M.A. in 1658. He was chaplain to the English garrison at Guernsey in April-December 1659 and again in 1661; and in the latter year, refusing valuable livings in England offered on condition of conformity, he returned to America. In the winter of 1661-1662 he began to preach to the Second (or North) Church of Boston, and was ordained there on the 27th of May 1664. As a delegate from Dorchester, his father's church, to the Synod of 1662, he opposed the Half-Way Covenant adopted by the Synod and defended by Richard Mather and by Jonathan Mitchell (1624-1668) of Cambridge; but soon afterwards he "surrendered a glad captive" to "the truth so victoriously cleared by Mr Mitchell," and like his father and his son became one of the chief exponents of the Half-Way Covenant. He was bitterly opposed, however, to the liberal practices that followed the Half-Way Covenant and (after 1677) in particular to "Stoddardeanism," the doctrine of Solomon Stoddard (1643-1729) that all "such Persons as have a good Conversation and a Competent Knowledge may come to the Lord's Supper," only those of openly immoral life being excluded. In May 1679 Mather was a petitioner to the General Court for the call of a Synod to consider the reformation in New England of "the Evils that have Provoked the Lord to bring his Judgments,"[2] and when the "Reforming Synod" met in September it appointed him one of a committee to draft a creed; this committee reported in May 1680, at the Synod's second session, of which Mather was moderator, the Savoy Declaration (slightly modified, notably in ch. xxiv., "Of the Civil Magistrate"), which was approved but was not made mandatory on the churches by the General Court, and in 1708 was reaffirmed at Saybrook, Connecticut. With the Cambridge Platform of 1646, drafted by his father, the Confession of 1680, for which Increase Mather was largely responsible, was printed as a book of doctrine and government for the churches of Massachusetts.

After the threat of a _Quo Warranto_ writ in 1683 for the surrender of the Massachusetts charter, Mather used all his tremendous influence to persuade the colonists not to give up the charter; and the Boston freemen unanimously voted against submission. The royal agents immediately afterwards sent to London a treasonable letter, falsely attributed to Mather; but its spuriousness seems to have been suspected in England and Mather was not "fetch'd over and made a Sacrifice." He became a leader in the opposition to Sir Edmund Andros, to his secretary Edward Randolph, and to Governor Joseph Dudley. He was chosen by the General Court to represent the colony's interests in England, eluded officers sent to arrest him,[3] and in disguise boarded a ship on which he reached Weymouth on the 6th of May 1688. In London he acted with Sir Henry Ashurst, the resident agent, and had two or three fruitless audiences with James II. His first audience with William III. was on the 9th of January 1689; he was active in influencing the Commons to vote (1689) that the New England charters should be restored; and he published _A Narrative of the Miseries of New-England, By Reason of an Arbitrary Government Erected there Under Sir Edmund Andros_ (1688), _A Brief Relation for the Confirmation of Charter Privileges_ (1691), and other pamphlets. In 1690 he was joined by Elisha Cooke (1638-1715) and Thomas Oakes (1644-1719), additional agents, who were uncompromisingly for the renewal of the old charter. Mather, however, was instrumental in securing a new charter (signed on Oct. 7, 1691), and prevented the annexation of the Plymouth Colony to New York. The nomination of officers left to the Crown was reserved to the agents. Mather had expressed strong dissatisfaction with the clause giving the governor the right of veto, and regretted the less theocratic tone of the charter which made all freemen (and not merely church members) electors. With Sir William Phips, the new governor, a member of Mather's church, he arrived in Boston on the 14th of May 1692. The value of his services to the colony at this time is not easily over-estimated. In England he won the friendship of divines like Baxter, Tillotson and Burnet, and effectively promoted the union in 1691 of English Presbyterians and Congregationalists. He was at heavy expense throughout his stay, and even greater than his financial loss was his loss of authority and control in the church and in Harvard College because of his absence.

Mather had been acting president of Harvard College in 1681-1682, and in June 1685 he again became acting president (or rector), but still preached every Sunday in Boston and would not comply with an order of the General Court that he should reside in Cambridge. In 1701 after a short residence there he returned to Boston and wrote to the General Court to "think of another President for the Colledge." The opposition to him had been increasing in strength, his resignation was accepted, and Samuel Willard took charge of the college as vice-president, although he also refused to reside in Cambridge. That Mather's administration of the college was excellent is admitted even by his harsh critic, Josiah Quincy, in his _History of Harvard University_.[4] The Liberal party, which now came into control in the college repeatedly disappointed the hopes of Cotton Mather (q.v.) that he might be chosen president, and by its ecclesiastical laxness and its broader views of Church polity forced the Mathers to turn from Harvard to Yale as a truer school of the prophets.

The Liberal leaders, John Leverett (1662-1724), William Brattle (1662-1713)--who graduated with Leverett in 1680, and with him as tutor controlled the college during Increase Mather's absence in England--William Brattle's eldest brother, Thomas Brattle (1658-1713), and Ebenezer Pemberton (1671-1717), pastor of the Old South Church, desired an "enrichment of the service," and greater liberality in the matter of baptism. In 1697 the Second Boston Church, in which Cotton Mather had been his father's colleague since 1685, upbraided the Charlestown Church "for betraying the liberties of the churches in their late putting into the hands of the whole inhabitants the choice of a minister." In 1699 Increase Mather published _The Order of the Gospel_, which severely (although indirectly), criticized the methods of the "Liberals" in establishing the Brattle Street Church and especially the ordination of their minister Benjamin Colman by a Presbyterian body in London; the Liberals replied with _The Gospel Order Revived_, which was printed in New York to lend colour to the (partly true) charge of its authors that the printers of Massachusetts would print nothing hostile to Increase Mather.[5] The autocracy of the Mathers in church, college, colony and press, had slipped from them. The later years of Mather's life were spent almost entirely in the work of the ministry, now beginning to be a less varied career than when he entered on it. He died on the 23rd of August 1723. He married in 1662 Maria, daughter of Sarah and John Cotton. His first wife died in 1714; and in 1715 he married Ann Lake, widow of John Cotton, of Hampton, N.H., a grandson of John Cotton of Boston.

Increase Mather was a great preacher with a simple style and a splendid voice, which had a "Tonitruous Cogency," to quote his son's phrase. His style was much simpler and more vernacular than his son's. He was an assiduous student, commonly spending sixteen hours a day among his books; but his learning (to quote Justin Winsor's contrast between Increase and Cotton Mather) "usually left his natural ability and his education free from entanglements." He was not so much self-seeking and personally ambitious as eager to advance the cause of the church in which he so implicitly believed. That it is a mistake to consider him a narrow churchman is shown by his assisting in 1718 at the ordination of Elisha Callender in the First Baptist Church of Boston. Like the most learned men of his time he was superstitious and a firm believer in "praesagious impressions"; his _Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences: Wherein an Account is Given of many Remarkable and very Memorable Events which have Hapned in this Last Age, Especially in New England_ (1684) shows that he believed only less thoroughly than his son in witchcraft, though in his _Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits_ (1693) he considered some current proofs of witchcraft inadequate. The revulsion of feeling after the witchcraft delusion undermined his authority greatly, and Robert's Calef's _More Wonders of the Spiritual World_ (1700) was a personal blow to him as well as to his son. With Jonathan Edwards, than whom he was much more of a man of affairs, and with Benjamin Franklin, whose mission in England somewhat resembled Mather's, he may be ranked among the greatest Americans of the period before the War of Independence.

The first authority for the life of Increase Mather is the work of his
son Cotton Mather, _Parentator: Memoirs of Remarkables in the Life and
Death of the Ever Memorable Dr Increase Mather_ (Boston, 1724); there
are also a memoir and constant references in Cotton Mather's
_Magnalia_ (London, 1702) especially vol. iv.; there is an excellent
sketch in the first volume of J. L. Sibley's _Biographical Sketches of
Graduates of Harvard University_ (Cambridge, 1873), with an exhaustive
list of Mather's works (about 150 titles); there is much valuable
matter in Williston Walker's _Ten New England Leaders_ (New York,
1901) and in his _Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism_ (New
York, 1893); for literary criticism of the Mathers see ch. xii. of M.
C. Tyler's _History of American Literature, 1607-1676_ (New York,
1878), and Barrett Wendell's _Cotton Mather_ (New York, 1891).
Mather's worth has been under-estimated by Josiah Quincy, Justin
Winsor and other historians out of sympathy with his ecclesiastical
spirit, who represent him as only an ambitious narrow-minded schemer.
(R. We.)

FOOTNOTES:

[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.