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Mathews a gentleman well known in the fashionable circles at 
Bath. A paragraph inserted in a newspaper was construed to 
imply a reflection on the intimacy between Mr. Sheridan and 
Miss Linley and traced through the printer to Mr. Mathews. 
Mr. Mathews having set out for London was followed by 
Mr. Sheridan. They met,—they fought a duel with swords in a 
tavern &c. Mathews gave an apology and with this—Sheridan 
hastened to Bath to make the apology as public as the insult. 
Another account of 1808 shows the same intention, this 
says—Mr. Mathews one of the distinguished votaries of fashion 
at Bath had the audacity to insert in a public paper a paragraph 
reflecting on Miss Linley’s character. Sheridan followed him 
to London and “ found Mathews at a tavern in the neighbour- 
hood of Covent Garden and a duel on the spot was the con- 
sequence.” This was still the prevailing idea and opinion and 
was repeated when Sheridan died in 1816, the only blame on 
Mathews was that he had “aspersed the character and libelled ” 
the young lady in a provincial paper. Dr. Watkins in 1817 puts 
the matter a little clearer when he says—after the elopement—_ 
“some animadversions upon the fugitives in a local paper excited 
much attention as evidently coming from the pen of one who 
must have been well acquainted with their affairs and former 
history.” All these allusions, not exactly recording fact, show 
the effect of or allude to the advertisement which neither writer 
troubled to hunt up, but so far it is clear there was no idea or 
charge that Mathews had behaved offensively in any other way. 
__ When the elopement was known—‘“‘it was buzzed about in Bath ” 
_ that Mathews had been privy to it,* but this he promptly denied. 
_ Yet this helps to show how little suspicion or thought of injury 
) there could have been against him at the time It was only 
after the elopement when Sheridan’s charge purposely left 
a behind him got into circulation that such a thought originated. 
* “©The Craftsman,” 10 Oct., 1772. 
