MASON, William, an English poet of distinction, born in the year 1725, was the son of a clergyman who held the living of Hull. He took his first degree at St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1745, whence he removed to Pembroke College, of which he was admitted a fellow in 1747. The Earl of Holdernesse presented him to the valuable rectory of Aston, in Yorkshire, and procured for him the office of chaplain to his majesty. His ode on the installation of the Duke of Newcastle as chancellor of the University of Cambridge was the first specimen of his poetical talents, and gained him considerable reputation, although the subject was not popular. His monody to the memory of Pope, and Isis an elegy, added to his fame, which was still further increased by his dramatic poems of Elfrida in 1752, and Caractacus in 1759. He did not succeed in writing tragedy, as he did not compose for the modern stage, but wished to revive the manner of the ancients. He published a small collection of odes in 1756, intended as an imitation of his friend Gray. In 1763, he gave the world some elegies, which are in general marked with the simplicity of language that is proper to this species of composition, yet breathe noble sentiments of freedom and of virtue. In point of morality he may justly be considered as the purest of poets, and one of the warmest friends of civil liberty. The first book of his English Garden made its appearance .in 1772, being a didactic poem in blank verse, of which the fourth and last book was printed in the year 1781. Some good critics consider this poem as rather stiff; and the dry minuteness of the preceptive part prevented it from bringing the author any great degree of popularity. In 1775 he published the poems of Gray, to which he prefixed memoirs of his life and writings. His observations on the character and genius of his illustrious friend do honour to his taste and feelings, and justly merit the favour with which the volume was received. At the place of his residence he acted with the friends of reform, and the enemies of such measures as were deemed incompatible with the liberties of freemen. During the continuance of the American war, he addressed an ode to the naval officers of Great Britain, on the acquittal of Admiral Keppel in 1779,in which he execrated the warthen carrying on against the people of America. When Mr Pitt rose to power in 1782, Mason addressed an ode to him, which contained many patriotic and manly sentiments; but his lyric imagery did it considerable injury. He published, in 1783, a poetical translation of Fresnoy’s Latin poem on the art of painting, which unites great elegance of language and versification with a correct representation of a difficult original. Besides the living with which he was presented soon after taking orders, he obtained the preferments of precentor [7:14:280]and canon residentiary of the cathedral of York. At that church he, in the year 1788, preached an occasional discourse on the subject of the slave-trade, full of animated declamation against the inhumanity of the traffic. The centenary commemoration of the Revolution in that year produced his secular ode, which breathed his usual spirit of freedom. An additional volume of his poems was given to the world in 1797, consisting of miscellaneous pieces, the revised productions of his youth, and the effusions of his old age. In his Palinode to Liberty, we behold the change wrought in his political principles by the disastrous events of the French Revolution. Mr Mason died in April 1797, at the age of seventy-two, of a mortification occasioned by a hurt in his leg. He had married an amiable lady, who died of consumption in 1767, and was buried at Bristol cathedral, under a monument upon which are inscribed some very tender and beautiful lines by her husband. The character of Mason in private life was exemplary for worth and active benevolence. A tablet has been placed to his memory in the poets’ corner in Westminster Abbey.