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dale. 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. 



Mr. Mason married in 1765 a most amiable woman ; she 

 fell at length into a rapid consumption, and at Bristol hot- 

 wells she died. Gray's letter to Mr. Mason while at that 

 place, is full of eloquence; upon which the latter observes, 

 " I opened it almost at the precise moment when it would be 

 necessarily most affecting. His epitaph on the monument 

 he erected on this lady, in the Bristol cathedral, breathes 

 such tender feeling and chaste simplicity, that it can need no 

 apology for being noticed here : 



Take, holy earth ! all that my soul holds dear ; 



Take that best gift which heav'n so lately gave : 

 To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care 



Her faded form : she bow'd to taste the wave 

 And died. Does youth, does beauty, read the line ? 



Does sympathetic fears their breasts alarm ? 

 Speak, dead Maria ! breathe a strain divine : 



E'en from the grave thou shalt have power to charm. 

 Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee ; 



Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move ; 

 And if so fair, from vanity as free ; 



As firm in friendship, and as fond in love. 

 Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die, 



('Twas e'en to thee) yet the dread path once trod, 

 Heav'n lifts its everlasting portals high, 



And bids " the pure in heart behold their God." 



A very short time after Mrs. Mason's death, he began his 



