Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mason, Henry Joseph Monck
MASON, HENRY JOSEPH MONCK (1778–1858), miscellaneous writer, born at Powerscourt, co. Wicklow, on 15 July 1778, was son of Lieutenant-colonel Henry Monck Mason of Kildare Street, Dublin, by his second wife, Jane, only daughter of Bartholomew Mosse, M.D. [q. v.] His uncle John Monck [q. v.] and brother William Monck [q. v.] are noticed separately. After attending schools at Portarlington and Dublin he entered Trinity College, Dublin, on 7 Oct. 1793, was elected scholar in 1796, and on graduating B.A. in 1798 was awarded the gold medal (college registers). At college he was contemporary with Thomas Moore the poet, and afterwards met him during visits to Kilkenny. In Trinity term 1800 he was called to the Irish bar, but did not seek practice. Under Judges Radcliffe and Keatinge he held the post of examiner to the prerogative court. About 1810 the record commissioners for Ireland entrusted him with the task of preparing a draft catalogue of the manuscripts of Trinity College, Dublin, but the design was soon relinquished; Mason's incomplete and unrevised work was eventually acquired by the college, and deposited in the manuscript room (Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 588). In Easter term 1814 he was appointed assistant librarian of King's Inns, and became chief librarian in 1815. During a tour in Cumberland in 1814 Mason made the acquaintance of Robert Southey, and maintained a correspondence with him for twenty years. In conjunction with Bishop Daly, Mason founded, in 1818, the Irish society for ‘promoting the scriptural education and religious instruction of the Irish-speaking population chiefly through the medium of their own language,’ which still exists; and he acted as its secretary for many years, besides writing several tracts in furtherance of its objects. The same year he assisted in organising an association for the improvement of prisons and of prison discipline in Ireland, and in 1819 he wrote a pamphlet on the objects of the association. He likewise visited the prisons with a view to reclaiming first offenders.
In 1851 Mason resigned the librarianship of King's Inns, and gave up his house in Henrietta Street, Dublin, to spend the remainder of his days at a charming residence near Bray, co. Wicklow, known as Dargle Cottage. He died there on 14 April 1858 (Gent. Mag. 1858, pt. i. p. 570), and was buried in the old cemetery of Powerscourt Demesne. In 1816 he married Anne, daughter of Sir Robert Langrishe, bart., by whom he had two sons and four daughters.
At Mason's suggestion the committee of the Irish Society founded in 1844 two Bedell scholarships and a premium in Dublin University for encouraging the study of the Irish language. He took a great interest, moreover, and he was mainly instrumental in the establishment there of a professorship of Irish. On 22 June 1812 he was elected member of the Royal Irish Academy, and subsequently contributed four papers to vol. xiii. of the ‘Transactions,’ all of which were reissued separately for private circulation. In the summer session of 1817 the degrees of LL.B. and LL.D. were conferred on him by Dublin University.
Mason possessed much general knowledge and an extremely good opinion of himself. But he wrote on some subjects with which he was imperfectly acquainted, and his want of tact made him many enemies. He was a good musician; he composed several pretty airs, and was a fair violoncellist.
His most valuable work is an ‘Essay on the Antiquity and Constitution of Parliaments in Ireland,’ 8vo, Dublin, 1820, dedicated to Henry Grattan. It is a concise but learned investigation regarding the nature and bearing of the common and statute law, as rationally recognised and defined, with the international adjustments and powers exercised, from the period of the Anglo-Norman invasion to the reign of Charles I, and was originally intended as an introduction to a projected work on the annals of the early Irish parliaments. A continuation to 1782, which Mason contemplated, was apparently never begun. The book having become very scarce was reprinted at Dublin in 1891, with a preface, life of the author, and an introduction by the Very Rev. John Canon O'Hanlon.
In 1830 Mason published a ‘Grammar of the Irish Language,’ 8vo, Dublin (2nd edit. 1839), in the preface of which he acknowledged that he was not acquainted with the Irish as a colloquial but only as a written language. Little notice was taken of the book until he was rash enough to print in the ‘Christian Examiner’ for September 1833 (pp. 618–32) a long letter, signed ‘H. M. M.,’ on ‘The Irish Language,’ ostensibly a critique of Owen Connellan's edition of the Irish prayer-book, but in reality a personal attack upon him and Thaddæus Connellan [q. v.] Owen Connellan replied, as far as the editor of the magazine would allow him, in the October number (pp. 729–32); he showed that Mason's ‘Grammar’ was a mass of errors, and that the pocket edition of Bishop Bedell's Irish Bible, issued by the Irish Society under his supervision, also in 1830, was just as inaccurate. In these strictures Connellan was joined by Dr. Charles Orpen and John O'Donovan [q. v.] Connellan soon afterwards printed his reply in its unmutilated form as ‘A Dissertation on Irish Grammar,’ 1834.
Mason, it seems probable, was also responsible for the editing of an Irish version of the Book of Common Prayer issued at Dublin in 1825. His other works, exclusive of pamphlets written in support of the Irish Society and the Association for the Improvement of Prisons, are: 1. ‘The Catholic Religion of St. Patrick and St. Columbkill, and the other Ancient Saints of Ireland,’ 2nd edit. 8vo, Dublin, 1823; 3rd edit., as ‘Religion of the Ancient Irish Saints,’ 1838. 2. ‘The Lord's Day: a Poem,’ 8vo, Dublin, 1829. 3. ‘The Life of William Bedell, D.D., Lord Bishop of Kilmore,’ 8vo, London, 1843, a very creditable work. 4. ‘Memoir of the Irish Version of the Bible,’ 18mo, Dublin, 1854, a series of papers reprinted from the ‘Christian Examiner.’ In 1836 he addressed a letter to Thomas Moore called ‘Primitive Christianity in Ireland,’ 8vo, Dublin, in refutation of some statements made by Moore in the first volume of his ‘History of Ireland.’
[Life prefixed to Mason's Parliaments in Ireland, ed. O'Hanlon, 1891; Todd's Dublin Graduates, 1869, p. 375; Mason's Works; information from the Rev. John H. Stubbs, D.D., and the Rev. Thomas E. Hackett.]