Mataro

Mataro, a maritime city of Catalonia, Spain, in the province and 16 m. N. N. E. of the city of Barcelona; pop. about 17.500. It is divided into the old and new towns; the former on a declivity, with narrow and crooked streets, and the latter with regular and spacious streets, and well built. There are eight squares. Besides the parish church, embellished with good paintings by Viladomat and Montafia, there are several chapels, two convents, a city hall, court house, prison, and barracks. The hospital and the custom house are fine structures. There is a college founded in 1737. Mataro is a prosperous manufacturing town, producing cotton, linen, woollen, and some silk fabrics, sails, ropes, glass, hardware, soap, leather, wine, and brandy. Timber and fruit are also exported. Fishing is extensively carried on. Mataro is connected with Barcelona by a railway opened in October, 1848, the first built in Spain.

Matera

Matera, a town of S. Italy, in the province and 43 m. E. of the city of Potenza, on the Gravina; pop. about 14,000. It is the seat of an archbishop, and has a royal school of belles-lettres, medicine, law, and agriculture, and manufactories of firearms. Near it are the famous caverns of Monte Seaglioso.

Materia Medica

See Medicine.

Mather Byles

Mather Byles, an American clergyman, born in Boston, March 26, 1706, died there, July 5, 1788. He graduated at Harvard college in 1725, was ordained minister of the Hollis street church, Boston, in 1733, and received the degree of doctor of divinity from the university of Aberdeen in 1765. He remained loyal during the revolution, and was compelled on that account to resign his pastorate in 1776. The following year he was denounced in town meeting as an enemy to his country, arrested, imprisoned in a guard ship, and sentenced to banishment, which was afterward commuted to confinement to his own house, from which he was soon released. Many of his sermons were published separately from 1729 to 1771. He also published "A Poem on the Death of George I." (1727); " A Poetical Epistle to Gov. Belcher, on the Death of his Lady" (1736); and " Miscellaneous Poems " (1744). His reputation rests mainly upon his wit, which exhibited itself chiefly in puns.

Mathnrin Jacques Brisson

Mathnrin Jacques Brisson, a French savant, born at Fontenay-le-Oomte, April 30, 1723, died at Boissy, near Versailles, June 23, 1806. He was instructor to the children of the royal family of France in physics and natural history. He was also royal censor, member of the academy of sciences and of the institute, and succeeded Nollet in the chair of natural philosophy at the college of Navarre. He translated Priestley's work on electricity, although he opposed his theories, and still more those of Franklin. The best of his writings are on specific gravity and on ornithology. Buffbn quotes frequently from the latter work.

Mathurin Regnier

Mathurin Regnier, a French poet, born in Chartres, Dec. 21, 1573, died in Rouen, Oct. 22, 1613. He was the son of Jacques Regnier, who established a tennis court in Paris, known as the tripot Regnier. He was educated for the church, and in 1593 went with the cardinal Joyeuse to Rome, where he remained about eight years, and subsequently returned with the duke de Béthune, French ambassador. After a life of dissipation he became in 1609 canon of the cathedral of Chartres. He was called the good Regnier on account of his amiability. Boileau, although objecting to his broad cynicism, characterized him as the satirical poet who before Molière gave the best insight into manners and life. Numerous editions of his works have appeared. The best are by Brossette (Amsterdam, 1729; London, 2 vols., 1736), Viollet-Leduc (1822; new ed., 1853), and Ed. de Barthélemy with additional poems, but not all well authenticated (1862).