influence of Thomas Gray he was elected a fellow of Pembroke College. He became a devoted friend and admirer of Gray, who addressed him as “Skroddles,” and corrected the worst solecisms in his verses. In 1748 he published Isis, a poem directed against the supposed Jacobitism of the university of Oxford, which provoked Thomas Warton’s Triumph of Isis. Mason conceived the ambition of reconciling modern drama with ancient forms by strict observance of the unities and the restoration of the chorus. These ideas were exemplified in Elfrida (1752) and Caractacus (1759), two frigid performances no doubt intended to be read rather than acted, but produced with some alterations at Covent Garden in 1772 and 1776 respectively. Horace Walpole described Caractacus as “laboured, uninteresting, and no more resembling the manners of Britons than of Japanese”; while Gray declared he had read the manuscript “not with pleasure only, but with emotion.” In 1754 Mason was presented to the rectory of Aston, near Rotherham, Yorkshire, and in 1757 through the influence of the duke of Devonshire he became one of the king’s chaplains. He also received the prebend of Holme in York Minster (1756), was made canon residentiary in 1762, and in 1763 became precentor and prebendary of Driffield. He married in 1764 Mary Sherman, who died three years later. When Gray died in 1771 he made Mason his literary executor. In the preparation of the Life and Letters of Gray, which appeared in 1774, he had much help from Horace Walpole, with whom he corresponded regularly until 1784 when Mason opposed Fox’s India Bill, and offended Walpole by thrusting on him political advice unasked. Twelve years of silence followed, but in the year before his death the correspondence was renewed on friendly terms. Mason died at Aston on the 7th of April 1797.
His correspondence with Gray and Walpole shows him to have been a man of cultivated tastes. He was something of an antiquarian, a good musician, and an amateur of painting. He is said to have invented an instrument called the celestina, a modified pianoforte. Gray rewarded his faithful admiration with good-humoured kindness. He warned him against confounding Mona with the Isle of Man, or the Goths with the Celts, corrected his grammar, pointed out his plagiarisms, and laughed gently at his superficial learning. His powers show to better advantage in the unacknowledged satirical poems which he produced under the pseudonym of Malcolm Macgregor. In editing Gray’s letters he took considerable liberties with his originals, and did not print all that related to himself.
Mason’s other works included Odes (1756); The English Garden, a didactic poem in blank verse, the four books of which appeared in 1772, 1777, 1779 and 1782; An Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers (1774); an Ode to Mr Pinchbeck (1776) and an Epistle to Dr Shebbeare (1777)—all these by “Malcolm Macgregor”; Essay, Historical and Critical, of Church Music (1795), and a lyrical drama, Sappho (1797).
His poems were collected in 1764 and 1774, and an edition of his Works appeared in 1811. His poems with a Life are included in Alexander Chalmers’s English Poets. His correspondence with Walpole was edited by J. Mitford in 1851; and his correspondence with Gray by the same editor in 1853. See also the standard editions of the letters of Gray and of Walpole. There is a very pleasant picture of Mason’s character in Southey’s Doctor (ch. cxxvi.).
MASON AND DIXON LINE, in America, the boundary line (lat. 39° 43′ 26.3″ N.) between Maryland and Pennsylvania,
U.S.A.; popularly the line separating “free” states and “slave”
states before the Civil War. The line derives its name from
Charles Mason (1730–1787) and Jeremiah Dixon, two English
astronomers, whose survey of it to a point about 244 m. west
of the Delaware between 1763 and 1767[1] marked the close of
the protracted boundary dispute (arising upon the grant of
Pennsylvania to William Penn in 1681) between the Baltimores
and Penns, proprietors respectively of Maryland and
Pennsylvania. The dispute arose from the designation, in the
grant to Penn, of the southern boundary of Pennsylvania mainly
as the parallel marking the “beginning of the fortieth degree
of Northerne Latitude,” after the northern boundary of Maryland
had been defined as a line “which lieth under the fortieth
degree of north latitude from the equinoctial.” The eastern
part of the line as far as Sideling Hill in the western part of the
present Washington county, was originally marked with milestones
brought from England, every fifth of which bore on one
side the arms of Baltimore and on the opposite side those of
Penn; but the difficulties in transporting them to the westward
were so great that many of them were not set up. Owing to the
removal of the stone marking the north-east corner of Maryland,
this point was again determined and marked in 1849–1850 by
Lieut.-Colonel J. D. Graham of the U.S. topographical engineers;
and as the western part of the boundary was not marked by
stones, and local disputes arose, the line was again surveyed
between 1901 and 1903 under the direction of a commission
appointed by Pennsylvania and Maryland.
The use of the term “Mason and Dixon Line” to designate the boundary between the free and the slave states (and in general between the North and the South) dates from the debates in Congress over the Missouri Compromise in 1819–1820. As so used it may be defined as not only the Mason and Dixon Line proper, but also the line formed by the Ohio River from its intersection with the Pennsylvania boundary to its mouth, thence the eastern, northern and western boundaries of Missouri, and thence westward the parallel 36° 30′—the line established by the Missouri Compromise to separate free and slave territory in the “Louisiana Purchase,” except as regards Missouri. It is to be noted, however, that the Missouri Compromise did not affect the territory later acquired from Mexico.
MASON CITY, a city and the county-seat of Cerro Gordo
county, Iowa, U.S.A., on Lime Creek, in the northern part
of the state. Pop. (1905, state census), 8357 (929 foreign-born);
(1910) 11,230. It is served by the Chicago Milwaukee &
St Paul, the Chicago & North-Western, the Chicago Great
Western, the Iowa Central and the St Paul & Des Moines
railways, and also by the Mason City & Clear Lake (electric)
railway, which connects Mason City with Clear Lake, a pleasure
resort, 10 m. west of the city. At Mason City is Memorial
University (co-educational; founded in 1900 by the National
Encampment of the Sons of Veterans, and opened in 1902),
dedicated to the Grand Army of the Republic, the special
aim of which is to teach American history. The city is
situated in a good agricultural region, and there are valuable
stone quarries in the vicinity. The manufactures include
lime, Portland cement, brick and tile. Mason City was
settled in 1853, laid out in 1855, incorporated as a town in 1870
and chartered as a city in 1881.
MASONRY,[2] the art of building in stone. The earliest remains
(apart from the primitive work in rude stone—see Stone Monuments;
Archaeology, &c.) are those of the ancient temples of
India and Egypt. Many of these early works were constructed
of stones of huge size, and it still remains a mystery how the
ancients were able to quarry and raise to a considerable height
above the ground blocks seven or eight hundred tons in weight.
Many of the early buildings of the middle ages were entirely
constructed of masses of concrete, often faced with a species of
rough cast. The early masonry seems to have been for the most
part worked with the axe and not with the chisel. A very excellent
example of the contrast between the earlier and later
Norman masonry may be seen in the choir of Canterbury Cathedral.
In those times the groining was frequently filled in with a
light tufa stone, said by some to have been brought from Italy,
but more probably from the Rhine. The Normans imported a
great quantity of stone from Caen, it being easily worked, and
particularly fit for carving. The freestones of England were
also much used; and in the first Pointed period, Purbeck and
Bethersden marbles were employed for column shafts, &c. The
methods of working and setting stone were much the same as
at present, except that owing to difficulties of conveyance the
- ↑ These surveyors also surveyed and marked the boundary between Maryland and Delaware.
- ↑ The English word “mason” is from the French, which appears in the two forms, machun and masson (from the last comes the modern Fr. form maçon, which means indifferently a bricklayer or mason). In O. H. Ger. the word is mezzo, which survives in the German for a stone-mason, Steinmetz. The med. Lat. form, machio, was connected with machina—obviously a guess. The Low Lat., macheria or maceria (see Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. macio), a wall, has been suggested as showing some connexion. Some popular Lat. form as macio or mattio is probably the origin. No Teut. word, according to the New English Dictionary, except that which appears in “mattock,” seems to have any bearing on the ultimate origin.
