the Market.’ Charles Mathews played his familiar parts, and Mrs. Mathews produced the best remembered of Planché's burlesques. A company including the Leigh Murrays, Selby, Harley, Meadows, Buckstone, Mrs. Fitzwilliam, and Mrs. Stirling, made the house one of the most fashionable in London. William Beverley painted the scenery, and what was long known as the transformation scene was introduced. In April 1848 she played Theseus to the Dædalus of Mathews in Planché's ‘Theseus and Ariadne;’ on 26 Dec. 1848 was Argus the Brilliant-eyed in his ‘King of the Peacocks;’ on 9 April 1849 produced the ‘Seven Champions of Christendom;’ on 26 Dec. 1849 the ‘Island of Jewels;’ on 1 April 1850 ‘Cymon and Iphigenia;’ on 26 Dec. 1850 was King Charming the First in ‘King Charming;’ on 21 April 1851 produced the ‘Queen of the Frogs;’ on 26 Dec. 1851 the ‘Prince of Happy Land’ (‘La Biche au Bois’); on 27 Dec. 1852 was Dame Goldenhead in the ‘Good Woman in the Wood;’ and 26 Dec. 1853 was Queen Dominantia in ‘Once upon a time there were two Kings.’
Her last appearance was for her husband's benefit at the Lyceum, 26 July 1854, in ‘Sunshine through Clouds,’ an adaptation of ‘La Joie fait Peur’ of Madame de Girardin. She died, after a long and painful illness, 8 Aug. 1856, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery. She was responsible for many improvements in stage scenery and effects, and had much taste in costume. As a singer of songs she had no equal on the stage. Had she possessed musical patience and energy, she might, says Chorley in his ‘Musical Recollections,’ have ‘queened it’ at the Italian opera. In high comedy she was but moderately successful, and, though her Julia in the ‘Rivals’ found admirers, her Lady Teazle was generally condemned. Leigh Hunt ascribes to her at the outset tenderness, depth, and subtlety. Her command of these qualities, if ever possessed, was soon lost, and apart from the attraction of a flexible mouth, large lustrous eyes, and a thick crop of dark hair, her chief gifts were archness, fascination, mutinerie, a careless acceptance of homage, and a kind of constant confidential appeal to an audience by which she was always spoiled. In pieces such as the ‘Carnival Ball,’ the ‘Loan of a Lover,’ ‘Naval Engagements,’ and ‘You can't marry your Grandmother,’ she was irresistible. At the Haymarket she was bewitching in the ‘Little Devil,’ an adaptation from Scribe, and in ‘Who's your Friend?’ Engraved portraits of Mme. Vestris abound. A picture of her by George Clint, A.R.A., with Liston, Mrs. Glover, and Mr. Williams, in ‘Paul Pry,’ was exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery in 1868, and is now in the Science and Art Department, South Kensington. One after Clint is in the Mathews collection in the Garrick Club. Her name on her marriage certificate is signed Lucy Bartolozzi. A constant signature in following days was ‘Eliza Vestris.’
[The early dramatic career of Mrs. Mathews is given fully in Genest's Account of the English Stage. Some scandalous Memoirs, published in 1839 for the booksellers, are untrustworthy in the main and are almost entirely without dates. Dickens's Life of Charles J. Mathews makes very sparing mention of her; Westland Marston, in his Some Recollections of the Modern Actors, gives some characteristically just and appreciative criticisms, of which full use has been made. Cole's Life and Times of Charles Kean, Marshall's Lives of the most Celebrated Actors and Actresses, Mrs. Baron-Wilson's Our Actresses; the Dramatic and Musical Review, Notes and Queries, 7th ser. vols. i. and xi., the Theatrical Inquisitor, &c., have been consulted.]
MATHEWS, THOMAS (1676–1751), admiral, eldest son of Colonel Edward Mathews (d. 1700), and of Jane, daughter of Sir Thomas Armstrong [q. v.], was born in October 1676 at Llandaff Court, the seat of the family for many generations, now the palace of the bishops of Llandaff. He entered the navy about 1690, on board the Albemarle with Sir Francis Wheler. It is uncertain whether he was in her at the battle of Beachy Head; it is believed that he was at the battle of Barfleur. In 1697 he was a volunteer in the Portland with Captain James Littleton [q. v.], and on 31 Oct. 1699 was promoted by Vice-admiral Aylmer to be a lieutenant of the Boyne, his flagship in the Mediterranean (Add. MS. 28124). On 15 March 1699–1700, on the king's direction to the admiralty to appoint Mathews as a lieutenant to the Deal Castle, he was called before the board, and deposed that before he had been appointed by Aylmer to act as a lieutenant, he had been examined and had passed (Admiralty Minutes); there is no mention of any certificate. In 1703 he was with Graydon in the West Indies, and was promoted by him to be captain of the Yarmouth. He took post from 24 May 1703. In 1704 he commanded the Kinsale in the Channel, and in October 1708 was appointed to the Gloucester, from which he was moved shortly afterwards to the Chester, a new ship of 50 guns. In the spring of 1709 the Chester was attached to the Channel fleet under Lord Berkeley, when it fell in, on the Soundings, with the little squadron
