William Mason (poet)

William Mason (12 February 1724 – 7 April 1797) was an English poet, editor and gardener.

Life
Mason was born in Kingston upon Hull, and educated at Hull Grammar School and St John's College, Cambridge. 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" was published to acclaim and quickly went through several editions. Summarizing this poem, a threnody, William Lyon Phelps writes:

Musaeus was a monody on the death of Pope, and written in imitation of Milton's Lycidas. Different poets in Musaeus bewail Pope's death; Chaucer speaks in an imitation of old English, and Spenser speaks two stanzas after the metre of the Shepherd's Calendar and three stanzas in the style of the Fairy Queen. There is nothing remarkable about these imitations....

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, 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, a friend who was a great influence on his own work, in 1775. In 1785 he was William Pitt the Younger's choice to succeed William Whitehead as Poet Laureate, but refused the honour.

Memorial inscriptions for Mason may be found at the parsonage he built at Aston near Rotherham, at Poets' Corner  in Westminster Abbey, and in York Minster.