William Mason, precentor and canon of York, died in 1797. His friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds, painted an impressive portrait of him, which is engraved by Doughty. A masterly copy of this fine portrait is in Mr. Cadell's Contemporary Portraits. A copy is also prefixed to the edition of his works, in 4 vols. 8vo. 1811, published by Mr. Cadell. His portrait was also taken by Vaslet, and engraved by Carter, 1771. It is a large metz etching. He translated Du Fresnoy's Art of Painting, to which Sir Joshua added some notes. Mr. Mason has prefixed an Epistle to Sir Joshua, which thus concludes:
And oh! if ought thy poet can pretend
Beyond his favourite wish, to call thee friend:
Be it that here his tuneful toil has dress'd
The muse of Fresnoy in a modern vest;
And, with what skill his fancy could bestow,
Taught the close folds to take an easier flow;
Be it that here, thy partial smile approv'd
The pains he lavish'd on the art he lov'd.
Mr. Mason's attachment to painting was an early one, is conspicuous in many of his writings, and in his English Garden, is visible throughout:
——feel ye there
What Reynolds felt, when first the Vatican
Unbarr'd her gates, and to his raptur'd eye
Gave all the god-like energy that flow'd
From Michael's pencil; feel what Garrick felt,
When first he breath'd the soul of Shakspeare's page.
Sir Joshua, in his will, bequeaths his then supposed portrait of Milton to Mr. Mason.
Mr. Gray thus observes of Mason, when at Cambridge:—"So ignorant of the world and its ways, that this does not hurt him in one's opinion; so sincere and so undisguised, that no mind with a spark of generosity would ever think of hurting him, he lies so open to injury; but so indolent, that if he cannot overcome this habit, all his good qualities will signify nothing at all."
Mr. Mason, in 1754, found a patron in the Earl of Holderness, who presented him with the living of Aston, in Yorkshire. This sequestred village was favourable to his love of poetry and picturesque scenery; which displayed itself at large in his English Garden, and was the foundation of his lasting friendship with Mr. Gilpin, who to testify his esteem, dedicated to him his Observations on the Wye. A biographer of the late Mr. Shore, of Norton Hall, (the friend of Priestley), thus mentions Aston:—"That truly conscientious, and truly learned and excellent man, Mr. Lindsey, spent a whole week in this neighbourhood. He was during that time the guest of his friend Mr. Mason, who was residing on his rectory at Aston, the biographer of Gray, and one whose taste, gave beauty, and poetry, celebrity, to that cheerful village." His friendship for Mr. Gray, terminated only with the life of the latter. In 1770 Mr. Mason was visited at Aston, for the last time, by him. His last letter to Mr. Mason was from Pembroke-hall, in May, 1771, and on the 31st of the next month, and at that place, this sublime genius paid the debt of nature. The following epitaph was written by Mr. Mason, and inscribed on the monument in Westminster Abbey:
No more the Grecian muse unrivall'd reigns;
To Britain let the nations homage pay:
She felt a Homer's fire in Milton's strains,
A Pindar's rapture in the lyre of Gray.
He farther evinced his attachment to this elegant scholar by publishing his poems and letters, to which he prefixed memoirs of him. He commences the third book of his English Garden with an invocation to his memory, and records, in lofty language, his eye glistening and his accents glowing, when viewing the charms of all-majestic Nature—the heights of Skiddaw and the purple crags of Borrowdale. And on a rustic alcove, in the garden at Aston, which he dedicated to Mr. Gray, he inscribed this stanza from the celebrated elegy:
Here scatter'd oft, the loveliest of the year,
By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;
The red-breast loves to build and warble here,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground.