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Mr. Mason, in 1 7 56 published four Odes. "It would be 

 difficult to say, (says the biographer of the annual Necrology 

 of 1797,) which is most to be admired, the vividness of the 

 conception, or the spirit of liberty, and the ardent love of 

 independance throughout. The address to Milton in his 

 Ode to Memory, and to Andrew Marvel, in that to Inde- 

 pendance, cannot be too much admired. At the period when 

 the Middlesex election was so much agitated, he united with 

 those independant freeholders, who, by their declarations 

 and petitions, throughout the nation, opposed corruption, 

 and claimed a reform in parliament ; and when the county 

 of York assembled in 1779, he was of the committee, and 

 had a great share in drawing up their spirited resolutions. 

 The animated vindication of the conduct of the freeholders, 

 and other papers, though printed anoniinously in the news- 

 papers, and so printed in Mr. Wyvill's collection of political 

 tracts, in 3 vols, are well known to be Mr. Mason's produc- 

 tion. This conduct rendered him obnoxious to the court 

 party. He was at this time one of the king's chaplains, but 

 when it became his turn to preach before the royal family, 

 the queen appointed another person to supply his place. 

 It has been observed, that his sentiments in a later period 

 of his life, took a colour less favourable to liberty. Whe- 

 ther alarmed at the march of the French revolution, or from 

 the timiJity of age, we know not. His friend Horace Wal- 

 pole, charges him with flat apostacy :" The Heroic Epistle 

 to Sir W. Chambers, and the Heroic Postscript, are now 

 positively said to have been written by Mr. Mason. Mr. 

 Thomas Warton observed, " they may have been written by 

 Walpole, and buckramed by Mason." 



The late Sir U. Price, in the generous and patriotic con- 

 clusion of his letter to Mr. R'epton, pays a delicate compli- 

 ment to the genius of Mr. Mason in whatever concerns rural 

 scenery ; and his respect for Mr. Mason, and his high 



