Thomas James Mathias


Thomas James Mathias, FRS was a British satirist and scholar.

Life

Mathias was educated in Kingston upon Thames and Trinity College, Cambridge. He held some minor appointments in the royal household. He died in Naples, Italy.
Mathias became a vegetarian after reading Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees. He gave up all meat and lived on a diet of milk and vegetables.

Works

He was an accomplished Italian scholar, and translated various English works into Italian, such as Canzoni e prose toscane, and vice versa. He also produced a fine edition of the work of Thomas Gray, on which he lost heavily. His chief work was The Pursuits of Literature, an undiscriminating satire on his literary contemporaries that went through 16 editions, but is now almost forgotten. More so was his uncompromising criticism of the times. An example:

Selected publications

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