150 
see his old friend. ‘So, so, all over the town already.” Vexed and 
hurt now here, as much as he was before enraged, Mathews as a 
defence and a challenge against these tales publicly contradicted 
all by the following advertisement,* which will give clearly the 
position from the other side :— 
Bath, Wednesday, April 8, 1772. 
MirsRichard Siee-reneh. = having attempted in a letter left behind 
him for that purpose to account for his scandalous method of running 
away from this place by insinuations derogating from my character 
and that of a young lady zumocent as far as relates to me or my 
knowledge, since which he has neither taken any notice of letters or 
even informed his own family of the place where he has hid himself 
I can no longer think he deserves the treatment of a gentleman, and 
therefore shall trouble myself no further about him than in this public 
method to post him as a L(iar) and a ¢reacherous S (coundrel). And 
as 1 am convinced there have been many malevolent incendiaries 
concerned in the propogation of this infamous lie, if any of them, 
unprotected by age, infirmities or profession will dare to acknowledge 
the part they have acted, and affirm ¢0, what they have a/, me, they 
may depend on receiving the proper reward of their villainy in the 
most public manner. The world will be candid enough to judge 
properly (I make no doubt) of any Zrivaze abuse on this subject for 
the future, as nobody can defend himself from an accusation he is 
ignorant of. 
THOMAS MATHEWS 
This announcement (#¢, the advertisement) says the last 
biography “was alike comical and absurd. Mathews arrogated 
to himself the right of debauching Miss Linley, and he treated 
as an enemy the young man who had thwarted him.”t The 
comical thing here must be rather in this paragraph, as Mathews 
is not seen or shown as arrogating anything of the sort. As 
Sheridan was gone, address not known, the advertisement seems 
the only means at hand for self-vindication and for a public 
— 
* Bath Chronicle, 9th April, 1772, p. 3, col. 3. 
+ Rae, Vol. 1., p. 174. 
mete 
