Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Maty, Paul Henry
MATY, PAUL HENRY (1745–1787), assistant-librarian of the British Museum, son of Matthew Maty [q. v.], was born in London in 1745. He was admitted a king's scholar at Westminster in 1758, and was elected in 1763 to Trinity College, Cambridge, whence he graduated B.A. in 1767 and M.A. in 1770 (Grad. Cantabr. s.v. Matty'). He was nominated to one of the travelling fellowships of his college, and passed three years abroad, after which he was appointed chaplain to David Murray, lord Stormont (afterwards second Earl of Mansfield) [q. v.], English ambassador at the court of France. He vacated his fellowship in 1775 by his marriage to a daughter of Joseph Clerke of Wethersfield, Essex, sister to Captain Charles Clerke [q. v.], the successor to Captain Cook. In the following year doubts conceived as to the consistency of the Thirty-nine Articles, especially on such points as predestination and original sin, compelled him to refrain from seeking any further ecclesiastical appointment; his scruples, which evince a tendency to Arianism, were printed in full in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for October 1777. Fortunately for him, however, he obtained, upon his father's death in July 1776, the situation of an assistant-librarian in the British Museum, and in 1782 was promoted to be under-librarian in the department of natural history and antiquities. Ile also succeeded in 1776 to the foreign secretaryship of the Royal Society, of which he had been elected a member 13 Feb. 1772 (Thomson), and on 30 Nov. 1778, on the withdrawal of Dr. Horsley, he became prin-cipal secretary. In this capacity he threw himself with unexplained and ungovernable heat into the controversy which raged about the virtual dismissal of Dr. Charles Hutton [q. v.] from the post of foreign secretary by the president, Sir Joseph Banks. In a pamphlet entitled 'An History of the instances of Exclusion from the Royal Society … with Strictures on the formation of the Council and other instances of the despotism of Sir Joseph Banks, the present President, and of his incapacity for his high office ' (1784), he proposed that, as a means of protest against the president, the dissatisfied minority should form themselves into a solid phalanx, and resolutely oppose any admission whatsoever into the society, a proposal from which all moderate supporters of Maty's views dissented. Having tried in vain to organise a regular opposition under Horsley, Maty resigned his office on 25 March 1784, and his resignation helped to restore peace to the society (Weld, Hist, of Roy. Soc. ii. 160 sq.; Kippis, Observations on the late Contests in the Roy. Soc.) As secretary and an officer of the society he was not called upon to take any active part in the dissension, but here, as elsewhere, 'his vivacity outran his judgment.’ The loss of his office involved a reduction of income which he could ill afford, and he was not highly successful in the attempt which he made to replace it by giving instruction in classical and modern languages.
He had commenced in January 1782 a ‘New Review,’ which aimed at giving a bird's-eye view of foreign publications, and he continued this considerable work, almost unassisted, down to September 1786. As a reviewer Gibbon speaks of him as the ‘angry son’ who wielded the rod of criticism with but little of ‘the tenderness and reluctance’ of his father. Horace Walpole speaks of some of his comments as ‘pert and foolish’ (cf. Canons of Criticism extracted from the Beauties of Maty's Review). A kindly man, though cantankerous and utterly devoid of his father's complaisance, Maty made strong friendships and strong enmities. He died of asthma on 16 Jan. 1787, and was buried in Bunhill Fields. He left his widow and young son (aged 10) in very poor circumstances. The child was educated at the expense of Dr. Burney, but died while at school. A medallion by James Tassie in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery depicts Maty's shaven face, bald prominent forehead, and protruding lower lip.
Three works appeared from Maty's hand bearing the date of the year of his death: 1. ‘A General Index to the Philosophical Transactions,’ vols. i–lxx. 4to, which he had prepared some time previously. 2. A translation of Riesbeck's ‘Travels through Germany, in a Series of Letters,’ 3 vols. 8vo (see Monthly Review, lxxvi. 608). 3. A French translation of the text to the first volume of ‘Gemmæ Marlburienses,’ to accompany the Latin of James Bryant, for which Maty received 100l. and a copy of the work (cf. Brunet, Manuel, 1861, ii. 1528). A volume of sermons delivered in the Ambassador's Chapel at Paris during the years 1774, 1775, and 1776, in which some of Secker's sermons were inadvertently included, was published in 1788. Bishop Horsley, Dean Layard, and Dr. Southgate were responsible for the editing.
[Gent. Mag. 1787, i. 92; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. iii. 259, 261, 623, iv. 97, v. passim, and Lit. Illustr. iv. 833; Watt's Bibl. Britannica; Chalmers's Biog. Dict.; Welch's Queen's Scholars, p. 380; D'Arblay's Memoirs, iii. 303; Green's Diary of a Lover of Lit. 1810, pp. 162, 169, 173; Gibbon's Memoirs; Lindsey's Historical View of the Unitarian Doctrine, 1783, pp. 515–25; Rutt's Memoirs of Priestley, i. 406, 407; Add. MS. 33977; An Authentic Narrative of the Dissensions and Debates in the Roy. Soc. 1784.]