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 ...