so far to the east that I have forgotten the name of the west." Few were the countries between China and Spain that he did not visit. In 915 he was at Bassora; after visiting the ancient Persepolis and other towns he embarked for India. In 926 he is found to have been in Palestine; in 943 at Antioch. In 945 he was residing at Damascus; and eleven years afterwards he died in Egypt in 957. No Arabian writer up to his day had done so much to enlighten his countrymen and co-religionists on the habits, character, and learning of foreign nations. His knowledge was evidently more various than profound; and what he narrates was gathered from hearsay, not from the study of books. His principal work was a kind of encyclopædia, entitled "Akhbar-al-zeman" (Memoirs of the time), of which the abridgment executed by himself is still extant, under the title of "Moroudj-al-dzeheb" (Meadows of gold). The first part of the work consists of a geographical description of the globe and its various regions; the second part, which is much larger, contains a narrative of historical events from the time of Mahomet to the end of the ninth century. A translation of the work by Dr. Sprenger was printed in quarto, 1841, by the Society of the Oriental Translation Fund, under the title of "El Masudi's Historical Encyclopædia." In the imperial library at Paris there is another work by this author entitled "The Book of Warning," being a collection of his observations on history, geography, and science.—R. H.
MASTER or MASTERS, Thomas, an English clergyman, who gained some celebrity in classical and literary pursuits, was born at Cote in Gloucestershire, and in 1624 obtained a fellowship at New college, Oxford. His principal work is a Greek poem on the crucifixion, which was published in 1658 with a Latin version by Jacob, and an English translation from the pen of Cowley. Its author had died in 1643. A Latin epitaph in honour of him was composed by his friend, Lord Herbert of Cherbury.—W. B.
MASTERS, Robert, born in London in 1713, and educated at Corpus Christi college, Oxford, entered the English church, and held the rectory of Landbeach in Cambridgeshire. He devoted himself to antiquarian studies, and contributed several articles to the Archæologia. The separate works published by him were "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Rev. Thomas Baker;" a "Catalogue of the Pictures in the Cambridge Colleges;" and a "Short Account of the Parish of Waterbeach;" besides a "Sermon on the Mischiefs of Faction," and a "History of Corpus Christi College." He died in 1798.—W. B.
MATHAM, Jacob, Dutch engraver, was born at Haarlem in 1571. He was son-in-law and scholar of H. Goltzius; he also studied in Italy. He worked wholly with the graver, which he used with great facility and firmness; but his drawing is often incorrect. He engraved many pictures of the Italian masters, including the Mount Parnassus, and a Holy Family, by Raphael; a Visitation, by P. Veronese; a Holy Family with St. Catharine, by Titian; and several after Zucchero. Also many by Northern painters, including Albert Durer's Crucifixion; Samson and Dalilah, by Rubens; an Annunciation, and various others by Bloemart; several from the designs of Goltzius; and a great many portraits. He died in 1631.—His son and scholar, Theodor Matham, a very respectable engraver, especially of portraits, was born about 1600, and was living in 1678.—J. T—e.
MATHER was the name of a family which produced four ministers of the gospel, still remembered in English and American history:—
Richard Mather was a native of Lowton in Lancashire. He studied at Brazennose college, Oxford, and entered the English church; but was suspended for nonconformity in 1633. Two years later, having emigrated to New England, he became pastor of a congregation at Dorchester, to which he continued to minister till his death in 1669.
Samuel Mather, eldest son of the preceding, was born in Lancashire in 1626; he accompanied his father to America, and studied at Harvard college. Returning to England in 1650, he completed his education at Oxford and Cambridge, became chaplain to Magdalen college, and after officiating a few years at Leith he went with Henry Cromwell to Ireland, where he attained popularity as a preacher. He was suspended after the Restoration, and died in 1671. A posthumous volume of his sermons on the Old Testament types had an extensive circulation.
Increase Mather, a younger son of Richard, was born at Dorchester in 1639, and educated at Harvard college, where he took his degree with honours at the age of seventeen. He afterwards visited England, studied at Trinity college, Dublin, and became chaplain to the governor of Guernsey in 1659. On his return to America he was elected pastor of the north church in Boston; the presidency of Harvard college was conferred upon him in 1684; and he had subsequently the honour of obtaining the first doctorship in divinity which it bestowed. In a state of society which gave the clergy so much weight in civil affairs, a man of his ability and learning easily acquired great political influence; and when Charles II. attempted to deprive the colony of its charter, he took a prominent part in the public meeting of his townsmen, which passed a resolution against the surrender of their privileges. He was also appointed to carry their remonstrance to England; and after the proclamation of liberty of conscience in the following year, he presented at court the addresses of thanks sent by churches in the colony. He did not return to America till after the Revolution, and had the satisfaction of carrying with him the new charter granted by William III. The number of his publications came little short of a hundred. He died in 1723.
Cotton Mather, son of the preceding, was born in Boston in 1663. He entered Harvard college at the age of twelve, having already acquired considerable familiarity with the Latin and Greek languages. Four years later he took his first degree, and before he had passed his twentieth year he had been ordained as his father's colleague in the pastorate, having conquered an impediment in his speech which threatened to exclude him from the pulpit. Like his father, he took a prominent part in the political affairs of the colony, prosecuting at the same time those varied studies and incessant labours of the pen, which made him one of the most accomplished linguists and voluminous authors of that age. He was distinguished also by his active benevolence; many charitable schemes were originated by him, and his native city owed to him the introduction of the practice of inoculation. But his keen advocacy of the judicial procedure which brought so large a number of persons to death or imprisonment in New England on a charge of witchcraft, and the views which he maintained on demoniacal possession in such works as his "Remarkable Providences" and his "Wonders of the Invisible World," though they were common errors of the age, have cast a shadow of superstition and fanaticism on his piety. Of his other writings, which exceeded the number of three hundred, his "Essays to do Good" is the best known; but his genius and learning appear more distinctly in his "Ecclesiastical History of New England," and his "Curiosa Americana." The university of Glasgow conferred upon him the degree of D.D, and in 1714 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London. His death took place in 1728.—W. B.
MATHEW, Theobald, was born at Thomastown, county of Tipperary, on the 10th of October, 1790. Losing both his parents at an early age, he was placed by a relative. Lady Elizabeth Mathew, under the tuition of the Rev. D. O'Donnell, a parish priest. At the age of thirteen he was sent to a school at Limerick, whence in 1810 he proceeded to Maynooth. In 1814 he was ordained priest in Dublin. Cork became the scene of his first active charities among the poor, to whom he acted as counsellor, physician, banker, and friend. The direst obstacle to all his efforts for the improvement of the lowest classes was drunkenness, a vice deemed ineradicable from the Irish character. Nevertheless, a society for the suppression of drunkenness was formed by certain Quakers and others in Cork, who, finding their own efforts almost useless, addressed themselves to the Roman catholic priest, Father Mathew. The latter applied himself zealously to the task of converting drunkards to sobriety, and in about twenty months succeeded in attaching to the Total Abstinence Association some of the most obdurate sots in Cork. The fame of Father Mathew's eloquence and energy spread rapidly through the country. In the month of August, 1839, a general outburst of enthusiasm in favour of temperance took place. Thousands upon thousands rushed to take the pledge. Limerick presented a scene of indescribable excitement. At Parsontown a military force was necessary to keep order about the chapel in which the apostle of temperance was preaching. At Nenagh twenty thousand persons are said to have become teetotallers in one day; one hundred thousand in Galway in two days; in Loughrea eighty thousand in two days; between that and Portumna from one hundred and eighty thousand to two hundred thousand; and in Dublin about
