MATHEW, Theobald (1790-1856), popularly known as Father Mathew, the “Apostle of Temperance,” was descended from an illegitimate branch of the Llandaff family, and was born at Thomastown, Tipperary, on October 10, 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 the queen in 1847. In 1849 he paid a visit to the United States, returning in 1851. He died at Queenstown on December 8, 1856, See Father Mathew, a Biography, by J. F. Maguire, M.P. (1863).

MATHEWS, Charles (1776-1835), comedian, was born in London, 28th June 1776. His father was what he called “a serious bookseller,” and also officiated as minister in one of Lady Huntingdon’s chapels. Mathews was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School. His love for the stage was formed in his boyhood, partly from admiration of Elliston, with whom he had taken part in private theatricals. According to his own statement, it ripened into an “overpowering, all-absorbing passion,” unfitting him for business when he became apprentice to his father, who at length, in 1794, unwillingly permitted him to enter on a theatrical engagement in Dublin. For several years Mathews had not only to content himself with the most thankless parts at an almost nominal salary, but his figure, at this period of life thin and ungainly, and the peculiar twist in his countenance generally awakened the unconcealed ridicule of the audience. In 1798 he obtained a conditional engagement from Tate Wilkinson at York. In 1802 Mathews began to play in London at the Haymarket, and from this time his professional career was an uninterrupted triumph. His special excellence as an actor consisted in his wonderful gift of mimicry, enabling him to grasp the minutest and most individual features of the character he represented. His sense of the purely ludicrous in all its varied phases was perhaps unequalled, and by his marvellous command of facial expression and of different tones and accents of voice he could, when he so willed, completely disguise his personality without even the smallest change of dress. The versatility and originality of his powers were, in public, best seen in his “At Homes,” begun in the Lyceum Theatre in 1818, “which,” according to Leigh Hunt, “for the richness and ...