MATY, Matthew, an eminent physician and polite writer, was born in Holland in the year 1718. He was the son of a clergyman, and was originally intended for the church; but, in consequence of some mortifications his father met with from the synod on account of the peculiar sentiments he entertained respecting the doctrine of the Trinity, he turned his thoughts to physic. Maty took his degree of doctor of physic at Leyden, and in 1740 came to settle in England, his father having determined to quit Holland for ever. In order to make himself known, he began in 1749 to publish, in French, an account of the productions of the English press, printed at the Hague, under the name of the Journal Britannique. This journal, [7:14:327]which continues to hold its rank amongst the best of those which have appeared since the time of Bayle, answered the end he had intended by it, and introduced him to the acquaintance of some of the most respectable literary characters of the country he had made his own. It was to their active and uninterrupted friendship that he owed the places he afterwards possessed. In 1758 he was chosen fellow, and in 1765, on the resignation of Dr Birch, who died a few months afterwards, and had made him his executor, secretary to the Royal Society. He had been appointed one of the under librarians of the British Museum at its first institution in 1753, and became principal librarian on the death of Dr Knight in 1772. Useful in all these situations, he promised to be eminently so in the last, when he was seized with a languishing disorder, which in 1776 put an end to a life that had been uniformly devoted to the pursuits of science and the offices of humanity. He was an early and an active advocate for inoculation; and when there was a doubt entertained that one might have the small-pox this way a second time, he tried it upon himself unknown to his family. He was a member of the medical club (along with Drs Parsons, Templeman, Fothergill, Watson, and others) which met every fortnight in St Paul’s Churchyard. He was twice married, and left a son and three daughters. He had nearly finished the Memoirs of the Earl of Chesterfield, which were completed by his son-in-law, Mr Justamond, and prefixed to that nobleman’s Miscellaneous Works, 1777, in two vols. 4to.

Maty, Paul Henry, the son of the former, was born in 1745, and educated at Westminster, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, the travelling fellowship of which he held for three years. He was subsequently chaplain to Lord Stormont at Paris, and soon afterwards vacated his next fellowship by marrying one of the three daughters of Joseph Clerk, and sister of Captain Charles Clerk, who succeeded to the command on the death of Captain Cook. On his father’s death in 1776, he was appointed to the office of one of the under librarians of the British Museum, and was afterwards preferred to a superior department, having the care of the antiquities, for which he was eminently qualified. In 1776 he succeeded his father in the office of secretary to the Royal Society. In the disputes respecting the reinstatement of Dr Hutton in the department of secretary for foreign correspondence in 1784, Mr Maty took a warm and distinguished part, and resigned the office of secretary; after which he undertook to assist gentlemen or ladies in perfecting their knowledge of the Greek, Latin, French, and Italian classics. Mi-Maty was a judicious and conscientious man; and having conceived some doubts about the articles he had subscribed in early life, he never could be prevailed upon to place himself in the way of ecclesiastical preferment, though his connexions were amongst those who could have served him essentially in this point; and soon after his father’s death he withdrew himself from ministering in the established church, his reasons for which he published in the forty-seventh volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine (p. 466). His whole life was thenceforward devoted to literary pursuits. He received L.100 from the Duke of Marlborough, with a copy of that beautiful work, the Gemmce Marlhurienses, of which only a hundred copies were worked off for presents, and of which Mr Maty wrote the French account, as Mr Bryant did the Latin. In January 1782 he set on foot a review of publications, principally foreign, which he carried on, with great credit to himself and satisfaction to the public, for nearly five years, when he was obliged to discontinue it on account of ill health. He had long laboured under an asthmatic complaint, which at times made great ravages in his constitution, and at last put a period to his life in January 1787, at the age of forty-two, leaving behind him one son.