Rev. William Mason

The son of a Yorkshire clergyman, William Mason studied at Hull before entering St. John's College Cambridge as a pensioner (B.A. 1746, M.A. from Pembroke 1749, Fellow 1747-54). In Isis (1748) he attacked Tory Oxford, provoking an answer by Thomas Warton. Mason was Rector of Aston in Yorkshire (1754-97), prebendary of York (1756-62), chaplain to the King (1757-60) and canon of York (1762-97). He was Gray's literary executor and the biographer of William Whitehead. In 1778 Mason was one of those responsible for restoring Spenser's monument in Westminster Abbey.

TEXT RECORDS:

1744Il Bellicoso. MDCCXLIV.
1744Il Pacifico.
1744Musaeus: a Monody to the Memory of Mr. Pope.
1748Isis. An Elegy.
1749Isis.
1772The English Garden, a Poem.
1775Memoirs of Thomas Gray.
1779Ode to the Naval Officers of Great Britain.
1782An Archaeological Epistle.
1782Preface to An Archaeological Epistle.
1787Elegy written in a Church-Yard in South Wales, 1787.
1788Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mr. William Whitehead.
1797Sappho.

PUBLICATIONS:

Musaeus: a monody to the memory of Pope, in imitation of Lycidas. 1747.
Isis: an elegy. 1749.
Ode performed in the senate house at Cambridge ... at the installation of ... Thomas Holles, duke of Newcastle, chancellor. 1749.
Elfrida: a dramatic poem. 1752.
Odes. 1756.
Caractacus: a dramatic poem. 1759.
Elegies. 1763.
Poems. 1764; 1771; 1773; 1774.
A supplement to Watts' psalms and hymns. 1769.
The English garden, a poem. 1772, 1781; 1847.
A catalogue of antiquities. 1773.
An heroic epistle to Sir William Chambers. 1773.
An heroic postscript to the public. 1774.
Poems. 2 vols, 1774; 1779; 3 vols, 1796-97.
The poems of Gray. To which are prefixed memoirs of his life and writings by William Mason. 1775.
Ode to Mr. Pinchbeck upon his newly invented patent candle-snuffers. 1776.
An epistle to Dr Shebbeare, An ode to Sir Fletcher Norton in imitation of Horace. 1777.
Animadversions on the present government of the York Lunatic asylum. 1778.
Ode to the naval officers of Great Britain. 1779.
Ode to Eliza Ryves. 1780.
An archeological epistle to the reverend and worshipful Jeremiah Miles D.D. 1782.
A copious collection of portions of the Psalms [with an essay by Mason]. 1782.
The dean and the 'squire: a political eclogue dedicated to Jenyns. 1782.
King Stephens's watch: a tale founded on fact. 1782.
Ode to the Honourable William Pitt. 1782.
The art of painting of du Fresnoy ... with annotations by Reynolds. 1783.
Animadversions on the present government of the York lunatic assylum. 1788.
An occasional discourse ... on the subject of the African slave trade. 1788.
Secular ode in commemoration of the Glorious Revolution. 1788.
Essays on English church music. 1795.
School for satire; or a collection of modern satirical poems. 1802.
Poetical works. 1805.
Sappho: a lyrical drama with Italian translation by Thomas James Mathias. 1809.
Works. 4 vols, 1811.
Anecdotes of Reynolds. 1859.
Correspondence of Mason ... and Walpole. 1851.
The correspondence of Thomas Gray and William Mason, ed. John Mitford. 1853.
Anecdotes of Reynolds. 1859.
Satirical poems published anonymously by W. M., with notes by Horace Walpole, ed. Paget Toynbee. 1926.
Correspondence of Richard Hurd and William Mason, ed. E. H. Pearce and L. Whibley. 1932.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English
Anglican

Hull School
St. John's College Cambridge
Bachelor of Arts
Pembroke College Cambridge
Master of Arts
College Fellow
Prebendary of York
Canon of York
courtier

editor
clergyman
poet
dramatist
translator
painter

General Evening Post

James Beattie
Rev. John Brown
John Chute
William Cole
Rev. John Delap
Robert Dodsley
Thomas Gray
Rev. Robert Greville
William Hayley
Rev. Francis Hoyland
Bp. Richard Hurd
Sir James Marriott
John Penn
Bp. Beilby Porteus
Christopher Smart
Rev. Michael Tyson
Horace Walpole
William Warburton
Rev. Joseph Warton
William Whitehead

REFERENCE:

DNB; NCBEL; DLB.

Robert Dodsley, Collection of Poems (1748-58); William Rider, Living Authors of Great Britain (1762); "Upon Mr. Mason's Taking Orders" (1754) in Bell's Fugitive Poets (1789-97) 6:96-97; M. M., "Mason's Poems" St. James's Chronicle (14 June 1764); Pearch, Supplement to Dodsley's Collection (1768-83); Eliza Ryves, "Ode to the Rev. Mr. Mason" (1780); Biographia Dramatica (1782; 1812); "William Mason" European Magazine 4 (December 1783) 410-13 [portrait]; Catalogue of five hundred Celebrated Authors (1788); Bell's Fugitive Poets (1789-97); Lounger's Common-Place Book (1792; 1796) 2:28-29; obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 67 (April 1797) 359; "Memoir of William Mason" Freemason's Magazine 9 (1797) 14-16; "Reflections on a the Death of a Friend [Mason]" Monthly Mirror 3 (April 1797) 217-20; T. Gisborne, "Elegy to the Memory of Rev. W. Mason (1797); Annual Register for 1797 (1797) 25; obituary in Universal Magazine 102 (April 1798) 265-66; "Anecdotes of Mason" European Magazine 49 (February 1806) 121; Censura Literaria 5 (1807) 299-308; "Sonnets of Warton, Bowles, and Mason" The Cabinet 3 (April 1808) 225-28; Samuel Jackson Pratt, Cabinet of Poetry (1808); Alexander Chalmers, English Poets (1810); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); Gregor M'Gregor, "Works of Mason" Monthly Magazine 34 (October 1812) 211-12; John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes (1812-15); "Mason and the Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers" Gentleman's Magazine 85 (December 1815) 485-86; "Author of the Archeological Epistle" Gentleman's Magazine 86 (June 1816) 489-90; Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets (1819); John Aikin, Select Works of the British Poets (1820); Henry Francis Cary, "William Mason" in London Magazine 6 (July 1822) 10-20; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Biographical Magazine 2 (1830) [portrait]; The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); Robert Southey, Life of Cowper (1835); Hartley Coleridge, "William Mason" in Worthies of Yorkshire and Lancashire (1836); Robert Aris Willmott, "Gray and Mason. A Summer Day with the Muses" in Conversations at Cambridge (1836) 160-218; Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); John Holland, in Psalmists of Britain (1843); John Holland, Poets of Yorkshire (1845); Robert Southey in The Doctor (1849) 313-18; Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Margaret Forbes, in James Beattie and his Friends (1904); Austin Dobson, "Gray's Biographer" National Review 59 (1912) 280-95; John W. Draper, William Mason: a Study in Eighteenth-Century Culture (1924); Leonard Whibley, "William Mason, Poet and Biographer" Blackwood's Magazine 222 (1927) 514-27; Longaker, English Biography (1931) 293-313; Leonard Whibley, "A Satirical Ode by Mason" TLS (24 September 1931) 727; Fairchild, in Religious Trends in English Poetry (1942); John P. W. Gaskell, The First Editions of William Mason (1951); Kenneth Hopkins, Portraits in Satire (1958); John R. Nabholtz, "Wordsworth and William Mason" RES NS 15 (1964) 297-302; Valentine, British Establishment (1970); Butt, OHEL (1979); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995); Michael F. Suarez, ed., Dodsley, Collection of Poems (1997) 1:181-82.

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Rev. William Mason:

1.	1748  Thomas Gray to Thomas Wharton, 5 June 1748; Poems of Mr. Gray, ed. Mason (1775) 190
2.	1749  Granticola, "Epigram on Mr. Mason" London Magazine 18 (December 1749) 572.
3.	1749  D. H., "To Mr. Mason of Cambridge" British Magazine 4 (August 1749) 344-45.
4.	1749  C. B., "On Mr. Pope, occasion'd by reading the Monody written by Mr. Mason" London Evening Post (13 July 1749).
5.	1752  R. D., "To Mr. Mason on his Elfrida" Newcastle General Magazine 5 (March 1752) 136.
6.	1756 ca.  James Hervey, 1756 ca.; in Collection of Letters of James Hervey (1760) 2:191-92.
7.	1757  Mr. Boyce, in "The Progress of the Sister Arts. An Ode" Public Advertiser (11 November 1757).
8.	1758  William Whitehead, "To Mr. Mason" in Dodsley, Collection of Poems (1758) 6:312-14.
9.	1758  Thomas Neville, in Imitations of Horace (1758) 93; Correspondence of Thomas Gray and William Mason, ed. John Mitford (1853) 83n.
10.	1760  Thomas Gray to William Mason, 7 June 1760; Letters, ed. Gosse (1895) 3:41-42.
11.	1760  Edward Cooper, in "In Retirement. Inscribed to Mr. Thompson" A Collection of Elegiac Poesy (1760) 33 & n.
12.	1761  William Shenstone to Mr. MacGowan, 24 September 1761; Letters, ed. Williams (1939) 596.
13.	1763  Thomas Balguy to Joseph Warton, 3 February 1763; Wooll, Biographical Memoirs of Joseph Warton (1806) 288.
14.	1763  Elizabeth Montagu to Benjamin Stillingfleet, 9 August 1763; in Reginald Blunt, Mrs. Montagu, 1762-1800 (1923) 1:54.
15.	1763  Richard Shepherd, in "Epistle to Robert Lloyd" St. James's Magazine 2 (May 1763) 200.
16.	1764  Charles Churchill, in The Author (1764); Poetical Works of Charles Churchill, ed. William Tooke (1804) 1:320.
17.	1765  Joseph Warton to Thomas Warton, 3 June 1765; Wooll, Biographical Memoirs of Joseph Warton (1806) 308.
18.	1768  Elizabeth Carter to Elizabeth Montagu, 21 June 1768; Letters to Mrs. Montagu, ed. Montagu Pennington (1817) 1:384-85.
19.	1772  Anonymous, in "Catalogue of the most celebrated Writers" Letters concerning the present State of England (1772) 382.
20.	1772 ca.  Richard Fenton, "Left on a Lady's Table, as an Apology for not waiting till her return from the Play of Elfrida" 1772 ca.; Poems (1790) 2:88-89.
21.	1772  Edward Jerningham, "To Mr. Mason the Day before he published his English Garden" 1772; Jerningham, Poems (1779) 115-16.
22.	1773  William Hayward Roberts, in A Poetical Epistle to Christopher Anstey on the English Poets (1773); Poems (1774) 108-09.
23.	1773  Danos, in "Verses on some late English Poets" Scots Magazine 35 (September 1773) 486.
24.	1777 ca.  William Cole, Collectanea for Athenae Cantabridgienses, 1777 ca.; in Restituta or ... English Literature Revived 3 (1815) 75.
25.	1777  Philo-Musa, "To Apollonius" Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser (9 January 1777).
26.	1777  Anonymous, "To the Author of the Heroick Epistle" St. James's Chronicle (12 July 1777).
27.	1778  Samuel Johnson, 1778; Boswell, Life of Johnson (1791); ed. G. B. Hill (1891) 3:334.
28.	1778  J. Boerhadem, "To Mr. Mason, on his English Garden" Gentleman's Magazine 48 (November 1778) 536.
29.	1779  Vicesimus Knox, in Essays Moral and Literary (1779) 1:93.
30.	1779  Anonymous, "An Invitation to Y—rk, to eat Minced-Pies this Christmas" General Evening Post (28 July 1779).
31.	1779  Philo-Musa, "A Critical Ode, addressed to Mr. Mason" Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser (20 May 1779).
32.	1782  William Hayley, in Essay on Epic Poetry (1782) 89-90.
33.	1784  Dr. Warwick, "Sonnet to the Author of the Dramatic Poem of Caractacus" Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser (20 April 1784).
34.	1785  H. S., in "An Epistle to William Hayley, Esq." European Magazine 8 (November 1785) 385.
35.	1785  Richard Polwhele, "An Epistle from the Reverend William Mason, to the Right Honourable William Pitt, Chancellor of the Exchequer: petitioning for the vacant Laureateship; April 23, 1785" Biographical Sketches in Cornwall (1831) 3:23-25.
36.	1786  Robert Potter to Edward Jerningham, April 1786; Lewis Bettany, Edward Jerningham and his Friends (1919) 353.
37.	1788  Nassovius, "Impromptu, written upon reading Mr. Mason's Secular Ode" Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser (8 November 1788).
38.	1788  Anonymous, "The Progress of Pride" Morning Post and Daily Advertiser (27 May 1788).
39.	1788  Anonymous, "On Mr. Mason's Abuse of the late Dr. Samuel Johnson, in the Memoirs of Billy Whitehead" Gentleman's Magazine 58 (January 1788) 62.
40.	1788  Robert Greville to Richard Polwhele, 28 July 1788; Polwhele, Traditions and Recollections (1826) 1:217-23.
41.	1790  Bryan Waller, "To Mr. Mason, A.M. Precentor of York" 1790; Waller, Poems (1796) 123.
42.	1790  Andrew Macdonald, "New Probationary Odes for the Laureatship VI. By William Mason M.A." Macdonald, Miscellaneous Works (1791) 89-90.
43.	1791  James Boswell, in Life of Johnson, 1791; ed. G. B. Hill (1891) 1:34.
44.	1791  Francis Garden, in "On Poetry" Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (1791) 201.
45.	1792  John Bennet, in "Letters to a young Lady" American Museum [Philadelphia] 11 (January 1792) 10.
46.	1792  Academicus, "Spenser's University" Gentleman's Magazine 62 (February 1792) 135.
47.	1794  Thomas James Mathias, in Pursuits of Literature (1794) 12-13 & n.
48.	1796  Anonymous, in Lounger's Common-Place Book (1796) 2:29.
49.	1797  Thomas Park, "To the Rev. Mr. Mason" Sonnets, and other small Poems (1797) 22.
50.	1797  Anonymous, "To William Mason, M.A. on the 72d Anniversary of his Birth-Day" Monthly Chronicle (20 March 1797).
51.	1797  Hannah More, 1797; Memoirs of Hannah More (1835) 3:16.
52.	1797  John Aikin?, in "Retrospect of Domestic Literature" The Monthly Magazine 4 (August 1797) 120.
53.	1797  Dr. J. Crane, "On the late Rev. William Mason, A.M." Gentleman's Magazine 67 (April 1797) 328.
54.	1797  Brooke Boothby, "To the Memory of the Rev. William Mason, written in the late Lord Harcourt's Flower Garden at Nuneham" Poetical Register for 1808-09 (1812) 287-88.
55.	1797  Richard Hurd, "Mason" 1797; Commonplace Book in Kilvert, Memoir of the Life and Writings of Richard Hurd (1860) 246.
56.	1797  Thomas Gisborne, Elegy to the Memory of William Mason (1797) 5-15.
57.	1797  Anna Seward to Mrs. Stokes, 15 June 1797; Letters, ed. Scott (1811) 4:363-66.
58.	1797  Henry Francis Cary, "Epitaph on the Reverend William Mason" 1797; Anna Seward, Letters, ed. Scott (1811) 5:54n.
59.	1798  J. K. to Richard Polwhele, 18 December 1798; Polwhele, Traditions and Recollections (1826) 2:494-95.
60.	1798  Thomas James Mathias, in Pursuits of Literature (1798) 358-59.
61.	1798  Michael Wodhull, in "The Use of Poetry" 1798; Poetical Register for 1806-07 (1811) 371 & n.
62.	1800 ca.  George Hardinge, in "Miscellaneous Observations" 1800 ca.; Miscellaneous Works (1818) 3:134-36.
63.	1800  Thomas Dermody, "Abbey Effustions. On Seeing Mason's Monument" Poems Moral and Descriptive (1800) 91-93.
64.	1801  Erasmus Darwin, "Inscription for the Monument of the Rev. W. Mason" Poetical Register for 1801 (1802) 139.
65.	1801  John Penn, in Poems (1801) 2:239-40.
66.	1802  George Dyer, in Poems (1802) 1:xxx.
67.	1803  Elizabeth, Countess Harcourt, "Inscription on the Urn erected to the Memory of Mr. Mason, in the Flower-Garden, at Nuneham" Daily Advertiser and Oracle (8 March 1803).
68.	1806  Richard Cumberland, in Memoirs (1806-07; 1856) 64-65.
69.	1806  William Hayley to Samuel Egerton Brydges, 25 October 1806; Brydges, Autobiography (1834) 2:287-88.
70.	1815  Mary Russell Mitford to Sir William Elford, 24 December 1815; L'Estrange, Life of Mary Russell Mitford (1870) 1:248.
71.	1815  Richard Nares to Richard Polwhele, 25 January 1815; in Reminiscences in Prose and Verse (1836) 1:130 &n.
72.	1822  Anonymous, in Chiswick British Poets (1822) 77:17.
73.	1824  Bryan Waller Procter, in Effigies Poeticae, or, the Portraits of the British Poets (1824) 105.
74.	1825 ca.  Joseph Cradock, 1825 ca.; Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs (1828) 4:226-28.
75.	1826  Herbert Barton, in Mirror of Poesy (1826) 392.
76.	1827  Robert Southey, in "Sayers's Works" Quarterly Review 35 (1827) 195-97.
77.	1830  Richard Warner, in Literary Recollections of the Rev. Richard Warner (1830) 1:309-11.
78.	1833  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 3 January 1833; in Table Talk (1884) 184.
79.	1845  John Holland, "Rev. William Mason" Poets of Yorkshire; comprising Sketches of the Lives, and Specimens of the Writings of those Children of Song (1845) 80-82.
80.	1853  John Mitford, in Correspondence of Thomas Gray and William Mason, ed. John Mitford (1853) ix-xiv.
81.	1860  George Gilfillan, in Specimens with Memoirs of the less-known British Poets (1860) 3:304.
82.	1882  Epes Sargent, in Harper's Cyclopaedia of British and American Poetry (1882) 193.
83.	1891  Samuel Smiles, "Murray's Pamphlet on Mason" A Publisher and his Friends: Memoir of John Murray (1891) 1:15-17.
84.	1910  Ralph Straus, in Robert Dodsley, Poet, Publisher, and Playwright (1910) 114-15.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Rev. William Mason:

1.	1762  William Rider, in Living Authors of Great Britain (1762) 24.
2.	1780 ca.  William Cole, Collectanea for Athenae Cantabridgienses; in Restituta or ... English Literature Revived 3 (1815) 75.
3.	1783  Anonymous, "Account of the Life and Writings of William Mason" European Magazine 4 (December 1783) 410-13.
4.	1792  Anonymous, "Biographical List of Living English Poets" Gentleman's Magazine 62 (June 1792) 504.
5.	1797  Anonymous, Obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 67 (April 1797) 359.
6.	1807  M., "William Mason, A.M." Censura Literaria 5 (1807) 299-308.
7.	1808  Samuel Jackson Pratt, in Cabinet of Poetry (1808) 6:411-12.
8.	1810  Alexander Chalmers, in Works of the English Poets (1810) 18:307-17.
9.	1819  Thomas Campbell, in Specimens of the British Poets (1819; 1845) 652-56.
10.	1820  John Aikin, in Select Works of the British Poets (1820) 720.
11.	1822  Henry Francis Cary, "Lives of the Poets: William Mason" London Magazine 6 (July 1822) 10-20.
12.	1822  Anonymous, in Chiswick British Poets (1822) 78:5-17.
13.	1832  William Clarke and Robert Shelton Mackenzie, in The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most eminent Persons who have flourished in Great Britain (1832-34) 3:347-49.
14.	1836  Hartley Coleridge, "The Rev. William Mason" Worthies of Yorkshire and Lancashire (1836) 397-462.
15.	1844  Robert Chambers, in Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844; 1850) 2:57-58.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1747  Rev. Thomas Fry:   William Mason to Jacob Bryant, 13 November 1747, Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the XVIII Century (1812-15) 2:712].
2.	1755  Rev. John Duncombe:   William Mason to Thomas Gray, 25 December 1755; Correspondence of Thomas Gray and William Mason (1853) 45.
3.	1755  Thomas Gray:   William Mason to Thomas Gray, 26 November 1755; Correspondence of Thomas Gray and William Mason (1853) 40-41.
4.	1755  Rev. Thomas Seward:   William Mason to Thomas Gray, 26 November 1755; Correspondence of Thomas Gray and William Mason ed. John Mitford (1853) 37-39.
5.	1755  William Whitehead:   William Mason to Thomas Gray, 27 June 1755; Correspondence of Thomas Gray and William Mason, ed. John Mitford (1853) 33-34.
6.	1756  Andrew Marvell:   William Mason, in "To Independency" Odes (1756) 9-11.
7.	1759  Bp. Richard Hurd:   William Mason, "To the Rev. Mr. Hurd. An Elegy" Annual Register (1759) 450-51.
8.	1760 ca.  Thomas Gray:   William Mason, in "To Fancy" 1760 ca.; Bell's Fugitive Poets (1798-97) 12:145.
9.	1763  Christopher Smart:   William Mason to Thomas Gray, 28 June 1763; Correspondence of Gray and Mason ed. John Mitford (1853) 309-10.
10.	1771  James Beattie:   William Mason to James Beattie, 27 October 1771; Forbes, Life and Writings of James Beattie (1806) 1:214-15.
11.	1773  David Hume:   William Mason, in An Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers (1773); Coleridge, Worthies of Yorkshire and Lancashire (1836) 461.
12.	1774  Rev. Francis Hoyland:   William Mason to Horace Walpole, 3 February 1774; Horace Walpole's Correspondence with William Mason, ed. W. S. Lewis et. al. (1955) 1:132-33.
13.	1776  Bp. Richard Hurd:   William Mason, "To the Right Rev. the Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry, Preceptor to their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and Bishop of Osnaburg" Morning Chronicle (14 December 1776).
14.	1777  Rev. Thomas Warton:   William Mason to Joseph Warton, 24 April 1777, Warton, Poems, ed. Mant (1802) 1:xviii.
15.	1779  Rev. James Scott:   William Mason to Horace Walpole, 18 September 1779; Walpole, Letters, ed. Cunningham (1906) 7:252.
16.	1782  Thomas Gray:   William Mason, in An Archaeological Epistle to Dean Milles (1782) 14.
17.	1782  William Hayley:   William Mason to William Hayley, 1782; Memoirs of William Hayley (1823) 1:274-75.
18.	1782  Rev. Thomas Warton:   William Mason, in Archaeological Epistle to Jeremiah Milles (1782) 12.
19.	1788  Rev. Charles Churchill:   William Mason, in Memoirs of Whitehead (1788) 109.
20.	1788  William Whitehead:   William Mason, in Memoir, Whitehead, Poems (1788) 3:10-12.
21.	1792  Joseph Ritson:   William Mason to Edmond Malone, 26 May 1792; Sir James Prior, Life of Edmond Malone (1860) 184.