MATHEWS, CHARLES, comedian, born in London; abandoned his father’s trade of bookseller for the stage in 1794; appeared in Dublin and York, and from 1803 till 1818 played in Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and the Lyceum; the rest of his life he spent as a single-handed entertainer, charming countless audiences in Britain and America with his good singing and incomparable mimicry; he died at Plymouth (1776-1835).

MATHEWS, CHARLES JAMES, light comedian, son of the preceding; married Madame Vestris; was a charming actor, acted with a great grace and delicacy of feeling (1803-1878).

MATLOCK, a watering-place in Derbyshire, on a slope overlooking the Derwent, 15 m.  NW. of Derby.

MATILDA, the “Great Countess” of Tuscany, celebrated for her zeal on behalf of the Popes against the Emperor Henry IV., and for the donation of her possessions to the Church, which gave rise to a contest after her death (1046-1115).

MATILDA or MAUD, daughter of Henry I. of England and wife of the Emperor Henry V., on whose decease she was married to Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou and became mother of Henry II.; on the death of her father succeeded to the English throne, but was supplanted by Stephen, whom she defeated and who finally defeated her (1103-1167).

MATADORE, the athlete who kills the bull in a bull-fight.

MATSYS, QUENTIN, a Flemish painter, originally a blacksmith, did altar-pieces and genre paintings (1466-1530).

MATTATHIAS, a Jewish priest, the father of the Maccabees, who in 170 B.C., when asked by a Syrian embassy to offer sacrifice to the Syrian gods, not only refused to do so, but slew with his own hand the Jew that stepped forward to do it for him, and then fell upon the embassy that required the act; upon which he rushed with his five sons into the wilderness of Judea and called upon all to follow him who had any regard for the Lord; this was the first step in the war of the Maccabees, the immediate issue of which was to the Jew the achievement of an independence which he had not enjoyed for 400 years.

MATTERHORN, a sharp Alpine peak 14,700 ft., on the Swiss-Italian border, difficult of ascent; first scaled by Whymper 1865.

MATTHEW, a publican, by the Sea of Tiberias, who being called became a disciple and eventually an apostle of Christ; generally represented in Christian art as an old man with a large flowing beard, often occupied in writing his gospel, with an angel standing by.

MATTHEW, GOSPEL ACCORDING TO, written not later than 62 A.D., is the earliest record we possess of the ministry and teaching of Christ, and is believed to have been originally a mere collection of His sayings and parables; was written in Aramaic, the spoken language of the Jews at the period, of which the version we have in Greek is a translation, as some think by Matthew himself; its aim is to show that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah promised in the Old Testament, in a form, however, which led to His rejection by the Jews, and their consequent rejection by Him, to the proclamation of His gospel among the Gentiles (chap. xxviii. 19, 20).