William Mason was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, editor and gardener.

He was born in Hull

Kingston upon Hull

Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...

 and educated at Hull Grammar School

Hull Grammar School

Hull Grammar School was an independent secondary school in Hull, England, founded in 1486 by Dr. John Alcock. The school merged with Hull High School to form Hull Collegiate School in 2005.- History :The seventeenth oldest independent school in the U.K...

 and St John's College, Cambridge

St John's College, Cambridge

St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's alumni include nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, at least two princes, and three Saints....

. He was ordained in 1754 and held a number of posts in the church.

In 1747, his poem "Musaeus, a Monody on the Death of Mr. Pope

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...

" was published to acclaim and quickly went through several editions. Summarizing this poem, William Lyon Phelps

William Lyon Phelps

William Lyon Phelps was an American author, critic and scholar. He taught the first American university course on the modern novel. He was a well-known speaker who drew large crowds...

 writes:
Among his other works are the historical tragedies Elfrida (1752) and Caractacus (1759) (both used in translation as libretti for 18th century operas: Elfrida - Paisiello and LeMoyne

Lemoyne

-People:* Charles le Moyne de Longueuil et de Châteauguay , French settler in Canada* Jacques Le Moyne, French artist* Jean-Louis Lemoyne , French sculptor...

, Caractacus - Sacchini (as Arvire et Evelina )) and a long poem on gardening, The English Garden (three volumes, 1772-82). His garden designs included one for the 2nd Earl of Harcourt. He published the Poems of Mr Gray

Thomas Gray

Thomas Gray was a poet, letter-writer, classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University.-Early life and education:...

, a friend who was a great influence on his own work, in 1775. In 1785 he was William Pitt the Younger

William Pitt the Younger

William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...

's choice to succeed William Whitehead

William Whitehead

__FORCETOC__William Whitehead was an English poet and playwright. He became Poet Laureate in 1757 after Thomas Gray declined the position.-Life:...

 as Poet Laureate

Poet Laureate

A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...

 but refused the honour.

Memorial inscriptions for Mason may be found at Aston

Aston

Aston is an area of the City of Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England. Lying to the north-east of the Birmingham city centre, Aston constitutes an electoral ward within the council constituency of Ladywood.-History:...

, at Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey and in York Minster

York Minster

York Minster is a Gothic cathedral in York, England and is one of the largest of its kind in Northern Europe alongside Cologne Cathedral. The minster is the seat of the Archbishop of York, the second-highest office of the Church of England, and is the cathedral for the Diocese of York; it is run by...

.

External links