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MAS the important office of astronomer-royal, vacant by the death of Dr. Bliss; and in 1772 he undertook the famous expedition to Scotland for the purpose of obtaining a measure of the density of the earth from the deviation of the plumb-line, produced by the attraction of a mountain in Perthshire called Shehallien. With the exception of this journey Maskelyne spent the rest of his life in the Royal Observatory, in which he had the merit of introducing that perfect system of astronomical observations which gradually found its way into the other observatories of Europe. His standard table of thirty-six of the principal fixed stars is celebrated in the history of astronomy. Dr. Maskelyne died on the 9th February, 1811, leaving behind him a daughter, the mother of Mr. Story Maskelyne, reader of mineralogy in the university of Oxford. Dr. Maskelyne is the author of several papers in the Philosophical Transactions, and of the "British Mariner's Guide," published in 1763. He edited the Lunar Tables of Tobias Mayer of Göttingen, as improved by Mr. Charles Mason, and he obtained from the board of longitude for the celebrated Euler £300 on account of his lunar tables and theory, and £3000 for the widow of Mayer, whose tables, when compared with the observations of Bradley, gave the moon's place within thirty seconds of the truth. In deciding on the merits of the different chronometers which competed for the great prize for finding the longitude, he gave offence, as might have been expected, to all the candidates. Even Harrison was not pleased with the reward adjudged to him, and Mr. Mudge, junior, the son of another competitor, published a pamphlet charging him with partiality. To this pamphlet the astronomer-royal gave a satisfactory reply, which appeared in 1792. Dr. Maskelyne was succeeded in the office of astronomer-royal by Mr. John Pond.—(See .)—D. B.  MASO FINIGUERRA See.  MASON,, a British astronomer and geodetician, died in Pennsylvania in February, 1787. He was assistant astronomer under Bradley at Greenwich observatory, and was charged by the commissioners of longitude with the duty of testing the accuracy of Mayer's Lunar Tables (see ), which he did by a laborious comparison between their results and those of Bradley's observations of the moon during ten years. In 1764 he was sent along with Jeremiah Dixon to America to lay out on the ground a parallel of latitude, as the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland; and while there these two geodeticians ascertained the length of an arc of the meridian of about a degree, and a half, by direct measurement on the ground with rods, and without the aid of triangulation. This operation and its results are described by Maskelyne in the Philosophical Transactions for 1768.—W. J. M. R.  MASON,, an eminent landscape engraver, was born in 1710. Though wanting the originality and painter-like feeling of his great contemporary Woollett, James Mason was a very able engraver, and did much to raise the estimate of English engraving on the continent, where his prints were in much request. He engraved some excellent plates after Claude, G. Poussin, Hobbema, and others of the old landscape masters, as well as some from the works of his countrymen Wilson, Scott, Smith, and Lambert. He was much employed on the publications of Boydell. He died in 1780.—J. T—e.  MASON,, was born of humble parentage at Abingdon in Berkshire, and was educated by his uncle, who was one of the monks in the abbey of that town. He attracted the notice of Henry VIII., who "knew a man," and rose to be a privy councillor, after giving proofs of his ability in various foreign missions. He preserved the honours he had gained, and was appointed by Elizabeth treasurer of her chamber. He was also elected chancellor of Oxford university. Dying in 1566, he left money for the formation in his native town of a noble hospital, which still exists.—W. J. P.  MASON,, an eminent nonconformist, was born at Dunmow, Essex, in 1706, and was educated in Leicestershire. After filling an engagement as a chaplain and private tutor, he became a minister at Dorking in Surrey, where he continued to reside for seventeen years. In 1745 he published his well-known treatise on "Self-knowledge," which has been translated into many foreign languages, and frequently reprinted in this country, where it still enjoys a certain esteem. In 1751 he published his "Lord's-day Evening Entertainment," containing a course of fifty-two sermons; and amongst his other writings were "The Student and Pastor;" "Fifteen Discourses;" "Christian Morals;" and an essay on elocution. He died in 1763.—W. J. P.  MASON,, an eloquent American divine, was born at New York 19th March, 1770. His father, the Rev. John Mason, on being licensed and ordained in the Scottish Secession, emigrated to America in 1760, and became a popular preacher in New York. His son, the subject of this notice, after studying in America came over to Edinburgh in 1791, and completed his theological course. During the son's absence the father died; but his father's congregation waited his return, and he was ordained over then by the presbytery of Pennsylvania. He took a high place as a preacher at once, gathering great audiences by the brilliant style of his oratory. Anxious for a supply of ministers to America Mason came over to this country in 1801, preached with prodigious popularity in many parts of Scotland, and delivered also the annual discourse for the London Missionary Society, which was published under the title, "Messiah's Throne." He resigned his pastoral charge in 1810, but another church was speedily erected for him. In 1811 he was appointed provost of Columbia college, and held the office for about five years, resigning it on account of dissensions at the board, the half of which by its constitution were episcopalians. He returned to Europe for the sake of his health in 1816, and travelled on the continent as well as in Britain. He renewed acquaintance with his old friends, and also met with Chalmers, who says of him "he had an eloquence which he had rarely known surpassed." He returned to America in 1817, but soon cerebral disease, the effect of his impassioned eloquence, began to show itself. In February, 1822, his mind suddenly failed in the pulpit, and he retired to the presidency of Dickinson college. Domestic trials fell upon him, and incipient paralysis showed itself. "My morn," said he, "was joyous, my noon brilliant; but clouds and shadows now rest upon my days" He resigned the presidency in 1824 and returned to New York, where he died 26th December, 1829, in the sixtieth year of his age. Not a few of Mason's sermons are masterpieces, direct in their appeals and glowing in their imagery. He preached the gospel in its majesty. For the last twenty-five years of his life he wrote no discourses, but threw off his fervid thoughts in irregular profusion. He was a man of impulse, but still self-possessed and unembarassed in his public appearances, in which tones of thunder were often relieved by whispered conversations. It may be added that he broke through the narrowness of his party, and advocated and practised free communion. His works are published in four volumes octavo. A selection of his sermons and orations was published in Edinburgh in 1860, with memoir and introductory essay by Dr. Eadie.—J. E.  MASON,, a poet and satirist of the last century, was a native of Yorkshire, and born in 1725. Proceeding to Cambridge in his eighteenth year, he there formed an enduring friendship with the poet Gray. In 1748 he wrote "Isis," a feeble satire upon Oxford. The tragedy of "Elfrida," composed upon the classic model, was exhibited at Drury Lane in 1753, under the auspices of the elder Colman; but its success did not come up to the author's expectations. In the following year Mason took orders, and was appointed one of the king's chaplains, receiving at the same time from his patron. Lord Holdernesse, the living of Aston. In 1756 he published four bombastic odes on "Independence," "Memory," "Melancholy," and "The Fall of Tyranny," which were amusingly parodied by Colman and Lloyd in the Odes to Obscurity and Oblivion. In 1759 Mason brought out his tragedy of "Caractacus," which, though defective as an acting play, is considered by Campbell to be superior to the play of Beaumont and Fletcher on the same subject. Gray died in 1771, leaving his papers and a legacy of £500 to Mason, who four years later published the "Memoirs and Letters" of his deceased friend. The plan of this biography was followed by Boswell when writing the life of Johnson, who, however, thought meanly of the memoirs, and described the style as "fit for the second table." Of "Elfrida," he would only allow that it contained "now and then some good imitations of Milton's bad manner." But Johnson could not be just to so energetic a whig as Mason was. His connection with the court, where his political principles were held in abhorrence, was terminated about the year 1780; and in 1782 he published the well-known "Heroic Epistle to Sir W. Chambers," with other satirical pieces in the same style, under the assumed name of Malcolm Macgregor. His talents, if not striking, were various. He wrote, between 1772 and his death, a translation of <section end="377Zcontin" />