Chapter XIV: Part 14

MASCHERONI, LORENZO (1750-1800), Italian geometer, was professor of mathematics at the university of Pavia, and published a variety of mathematical works, the best known of which is his _Geometria del compasso_ (Pavia, 1797), a collection of geometrical constructions in which the use of the circle alone is postulated. Many of the solutions are most ingenious, and some of the constructions of considerable practical importance.

There is a French translation by A. M. Carette (Paris, 1798), who also
wrote a biography of Mascheroni. See Poggendorff, _Biog. Lit.
Handwörterbuch_.

MASCOT (Fr. slang: perhaps from Port. _mascotto_, "witchcraft"), the term for any person, animal, or thing supposed to bring luck. The word was first popularized by Edmond Audran through his comic opera _La Mascotte_ (1880), but it had been common in France long before among gamblers. It has been traced back to a dialectic use in Provence and Gascony, where it meant something which brought luck to a household. The suggestion that it is from _masqué_ (masked or concealed), the provincial French for a child born with a caul, in allusion to the lucky destiny of such children, is improbable.

MASDEU, JUAN FRANCISCO (1744-1817), Spanish historian, was born at Palermo on the 4th of October 1744. He joined the Company of Jesus on the 19th of December 1759, and became professor in the Jesuit seminaries at Ferrara and Ascoli. He visited Spain in 1799, was exiled, and returned in 1815, dying at Valencia on the 11th of April 1817. His _Storia critica di Spagna e della cultura spagnuola in ogni genere_ (2 vols., 1781-1784) was finally expanded into the _Historia critica de España y de la cultura española_ (1783-1805), which, though it consists of twenty volumes, was left unfinished; had it been continued on the same scale, the work would have consisted of fifty volumes. Masdeu wrote in a critical spirit and with a regard for accuracy rare in his time; but he is more concerned with small details than with the philosophy of history. Still, his narrative is lucid, and later researches have not yet rendered his work obsolete.

MASERU, the capital of Basutoland, British South Africa. It is pleasantly situated on the left bank of the Caledon river, 90 m. by rail E. by S. of Bloemfontein, and 40 m. N.E. of Wepener. It is in the centre of a fertile grain-growing district. Pop. (1904), 862, of whom 99 were Europeans. The principal buildings are Government House, the church of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society, the hospital, and the railway station. (See BASUTOLAND.)

MASHAM, ABIGAIL, LADY (d. 1734), favourite of Anne, queen of England, was the daughter of Francis Hill, a London merchant, her mother being an aunt of Sarah Jennings, duchess of Marlborough. The family being reduced to poor circumstances through Hill's speculations, Lady Churchill (as she then was), lady of the bedchamber to the Princess Anne, befriended her cousin Abigail, whom she took into her own household at St Albans, and for whom after the accession of the princess to the throne she procured an appointment in the queen's household about the year 1704. It was not long before Abigail Hill began to supplant her powerful and imperious kinswoman in the favour of Queen Anne. Whether she was guilty of the deliberate ingratitude charged against her by the duchess of Marlborough is uncertain. It is not unlikely that, in the first instance at all events, Abigail's influence over the queen was not so much due to subtle scheming on her part as to the pleasing contrast between her gentle and genial character and the dictatorial temper of the duchess, which after many years of undisputed sway had at last become intolerable to Anne. The first intimation of her protégé's growing favour with the queen came to the duchess in the summer of 1707, when she learned that Abigail Hill had been privately married to a gentleman of the queen's household named Samuel Masham, and that the queen herself had been present at the marriage. Inquiry then elicited the information that Abigail had for some time enjoyed considerable intimacy with her royal mistress, no hint of which had previously reached the duchess. Abigail was said to be a cousin of Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, and after the latter's dismissal from office in February 1708 she assisted him in maintaining confidential relations with the queen. The completeness of her ascendancy was seen in 1710 when the queen compelled Marlborough, much against his will, to give an important command to Colonel John Hill, Abigail's brother; and when Sunderland, Godolphin, and the other Whig ministers were dismissed from office, largely owing to her influence, to make way for Oxford and Bolingbroke. In the following year the duchess of Marlborough was also dismissed from her appointment at court, Mrs Masham taking her place as keeper of the privy purse. In 1711 the ministers, intent on bringing about the disgrace of Marlborough and arranging the Peace of Utrecht, found it necessary to secure their position in the House of Lords by creating twelve new peers; one of these was Samuel Masham, the favourite's husband, though Anne showed some reluctance to raise her bedchamber woman to a position in which she might show herself less ready to give her personal services to the queen. Lady Masham soon quarrelled with Oxford, and set herself to foster by all the means in her power the queen's growing personal distaste for her minister. Oxford's vacillation between the Jacobites and the adherents of the Hanoverian succession to the Crown probably strengthened the opposition of Lady Masham, who now warmly favoured the Jacobite party led by Bolingbroke and Atterbury. Altercations took place in the queen's presence between Lady Masham and the minister; and finally, on the 27th of July 1714, Anne dismissed Oxford from his office of lord high treasurer, and three days later gave the staff to the duke of Shrewsbury. Anne died on the 1st of August, and Lady Masham then retired into private life. She died on the 6th of December 1734.

Lady Masham was by no means the vulgar, ill-educated person she was represented to have been by her defeated rival, the duchess of Marlborough; her extant letters, showing not a little refinement of literary style, prove the reverse. Swift, with whom both she and her husband were intimate, describes Lady Masham as "a person of a plain sound understanding, of great truth and sincerity, without the least mixture of falsehood or disguise." The barony of Masham became extinct when Lady Masham's son, Samuel, the 2nd baron, died in June 1776.

AUTHORITIES.--Gilbert Burnet, _History of My Own Time_, vol. vi. (2nd
ed., 6 vols., Oxford, 1833); F. W. Wyon, _History of Great Britain
during the Reign of Queen Anne_ (2 vols., London, 1876); Earl
Stanhope, _History of England, comprising the Reign of Queen Anne
until the Peace of Utrecht_ (London, 1870), and _History of England
from the Peace of Utrecht_, vol. i. (7 vols., London, 1836-1854);
Justin McCarthy, _The Reign of Queen Anne_ (2 vols., London, 1902);
_An Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough from
first coming to Court to 1710_, edited by Nathaniel Hooke, with an
anonymous reply entitled _A Review of a Late Treatise_ (London, 1842);
_Private Correspondence of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough_ (2 vols.,
London, 1838); _Letters of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough_ (London,
1875); Mrs Arthur Colville, _Duchess Sarah_ (London, 1904). Numerous
references to Lady Masham will also be found scattered through Swift's
_Works_ (2nd ed., 19 vols., Edinburgh, 1824). (R. J. M.)

MASHAM, SAMUEL CUNLIFFE LISTER, 1ST BARON (1815-1906), English inventor, born at Calverley Hall, near Bradford, on the 1st of January 1815, was the fourth son of Ellis Cunliffe (1774-1853), who successively took the names of Lister and Lister-Kay, and was the first member of parliament elected for Bradford after the Reform Act of 1832. It was at first proposed that he should take orders, but he preferred a business career and became a clerk at Liverpool. In 1838 he and his elder brother John started as worsted spinners and manufacturers in a new mill which their father built for them at Manningham, and about five years later he turned his attention to the problem of mechanical wool-combing, which, in spite of the efforts of E. Cartwright and numerous other inventors, still awaited a satisfactory solution. Two years of hard work spent in modifying and improving existing devices enabled him to produce a machine which worked well, and subsequently he consolidated his position by buying up rival patents, as well as by taking out additional ones of his own. His combing machines came into such demand that though they were made for only £200 apiece he was able to sell them for £1200, and the saving they effected in the cost of production not only brought about a reduction in the price of clothing, but in consequence of the increase in the sales created the necessity for new supplies of wool, and thus contributed to the development of Australian sheep-farming. In 1855 he was sent a sample of silk waste (the refuse left in reeling silk from the cocoons) and asked whether he could find a way of utilizing the fibre it contained. The task occupied his time for many years and brought him to the verge of bankruptcy, but at last he succeeded in perfecting silk-combing appliances which enabled him to make yarn that in one year sold for 23s. a pound, though produced from raw material costing only 6d. or 1s. a pound. Another important and lucrative invention in connexion with silk manufacture was his velvet loom for piled fabrics; and this, with the silk comb worked at his Manningham mill, yielded him an annual income of £200,000 for many years. But the business was seriously affected by the prohibitory duties imposed by America, and this was one reason why he was an early and determined critic of the British policy of free imports. In 1891 he was made a peer; he took his title from the little Yorkshire town of Masham, close to which is Swinton Park, purchased by him in 1888. In 1886 an Albert medal was awarded him for his inventions, which were mostly related to the textile industries, though he occasionally diverged to other subjects, such as an air-brake for railways. He was fond of outdoor sports, especially coursing and shooting, and was a keen patron of the fine arts. He died at Swinton Park on the 2nd of February 1906, and was succeeded in the title by his son.

MASHONA, a Bantu-negro people, inhabitants of Mashonaland, Southern Rhodesia. The name Mashona has been derived from the contemptuous term _Amashuina_ applied by the Matabele to the aborigines owing to the habit of the latter of taking refuge in the rocky hills with which the country abounds. Before the Matabele invasion about 1840 most of Southern Rhodesia was occupied by the Makalanga, the Makorikori and the Banyai, all closely related. Most of them became subject to the Matabele, but although they suffered severely from their attacks, the Mashona preserved a certain national unity. In 1890 the Mashona came under British protection (see RHODESIA). They are in general a peaceful, mild-mannered people, industrious and successful farmers, skilful potters, and weavers of bark cloth.

The crafts, however, in which they excel are the smelting and forging of iron and wood-carving. They are also great hunters; and they are very fond of music, the most usual instrument being the "piano" with iron keys. Bows and arrows, assegais and axes are the native weapons, but all who can get them now use guns. Up to their conquest by the Matabele the Mashona worked the gold diggings which are scattered over their country; indeed as late as 1870 certain Mashona were still extracting gold from quartz (_Geog. Jour._ April 1906).

For the possible connexion of these people with the builders of the
ruins at Zimbabwe and elsewhere, see RHODESIA: _Archaeology_; and
ZIMBABWE.

MASK (Fr. _masque_, apparently from med. Lat. _mascus, masca_, spectre, through Ital. _maschera_, Span. _mascara_), a covering for the face, taking various forms, used either as a protective screen or as a disguise. In the latter sense masks are mostly associated with the artificial faces worn by actors in dramatic representations, or assumed for exciting terror (e.g. in savage rites). The spelling "masque," representing the same word, is now in English used more specially for certain varieties of drama in which masks were originally worn (see DRAMA); so also "masquerade," particularly in the sense of a masked ball or an entertainment where the personages arc disguised. Both "mask" and "masquerade" have naturally passed into figurative and technical meanings, the former especially for various senses of face and head (head of a fox, grotesque faces in sculpture), or as equivalent to "cloak" or "screen" (as in fortification or other military uses, fencing, &c.). And in the case of "death-masks" the term is employed for the portrait-casts, generally of plaster or metallic foil, taken from the face of a dead person (also similarly from the living), an ancient practice of considerable interest in art. An interesting collection made by Laurence Hutton (see his _Portraits in Plaster_, 1894), is at Princeton University in the United States. (For the historical mystery of the "man in the iron mask," see IRON MASK.)

The ancient Greek and Roman masks worn by their actors--hollow figures of heads--had the double object of identifying the performers with the characters assumed, and of increasing the power of the voice by means of metallic mouthpieces. They were derived like the drama from the rural religious festivities, the wearing of mock faces or beards being a primitive custom, connected no doubt with many early types of folk-lore and religion. The use of the dramatic mask was evolved in the later theatre through the mimes and the Italian popular comedy into pantomime; and the masquerade similarly came from Italy, where the _domino_ was introduced from Venice. The _domino_ (originally apparently an ecclesiastical garment) was a loose cloak with a small half-mask worn at masquerades and costume-balls by persons not otherwise dressed in character; and the word is applied also to the person wearing it.

See generally Altmann, _Die Masken der Schauspieler_ (1875; new ed.,
1896); and Dale, _Masks, Labrets and Certain Aboriginal Customs_
(1885); also DRAMA.

MASKELYNE, NEVIL (1732-1811), English astronomer-royal, was born in London on the 6th of October 1732. The solar eclipse of 1748 made a deep impression upon him; and having graduated as seventh wrangler from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1754, he determined to devote himself wholly to astronomy. He became intimate with James Bradley in 1755, and in 1761 was deputed by the Royal Society to make observations of the transit of Venus at St Helena. During the voyage he experimented upon the determination of longitude by lunar distances, and ultimately effected the introduction of the method into navigation (q.v.). In 1765 he succeeded Nathaniel Bliss as astronomer-royal. Having energetically discharged the duties of his office during forty-six years, he died on the 9th of February 1811.

Maskelyne's first contribution to astronomical literature was "A
Proposal for Discovering the Annual Parallax of Sirius," published in
1760 (_Phil. Trans._ li. 889). Subsequent volumes of the same series
contained his observations of the transits of Venus (1761 and 1769),
on the tides at St Helena (1762), and on various astronomical
phenomena at St Helena (1764) and at Barbados (1764). In 1763 he
published the _British Mariner's Guide_, which includes the suggestion
that in order to facilitate the finding of longitude at sea lunar
distances should be calculated beforehand for each year and published
in a form accessible to navigators. This important proposal, the germ
of the _Nautical Almanac_, was approved of by the government, and
under the care of Maskelyne the _Nautical Almanac_ for 1767 was
published in 1766. He continued during the remainder of his life the
superintendence of this invaluable annual. He further induced the
government to print his observations annually, thereby securing the
prompt dissemination of a large mass of data inestimable from their
continuity and accuracy. Maskelyne had but one assistant, yet the work
of the observatory was perfectly organized and methodically executed.
He introduced several practical improvements, such as the measurement
of time to tenths of a second; and he prevailed upon the government to
replace Bird's mural quadrant by a repeating circle 6 ft. in diameter.
The new instrument was constructed by E. Troughton; but Maskelyne did
not live to see it completed. In 1772 he suggested to the Royal
Society the famous Schehallion experiment for the determination of the
earth's density and carried out his plan in 1774 (_Phil. Trans._ 1.
495), the apparent difference of latitude between two stations on
opposite sides of the mountain being compared with the real difference
of latitude obtained by triangulation. From Maskelyne's observations
Charles Hutton deduced a density for the earth 4.5 times that of water
(ib. lxviii. 782). Maskelyne also took a great interest in various
geodetical operations, notably the measurement of the length of a
degree of latitude in Maryland and Pennsylvania (ibid. lviii. 323),
executed by Mason and Dixon in 1766-1768, and later the determination
of the relative longitude of Greenwich and Paris (ib. lxxvii. 151). On
the French side the work was conducted by Count Cassini, Legendre, and
Méchain; on the English side by General Roy. This triangulation was
the beginning of the great trigonometrical survey which has since been
extended all over the country. His observations appeared in four large
folio volumes (1776-1811). Some of them were reprinted in S. Vince's
_Astronomy_ (vol. iii.). (A. M. C.)

MASOLINO DA PANICALE (1383-c. 1445), Florentine painter, was said to have been born at Panicale di Valdelsa, near Florence. It is more probable, however, that he was born in Florence itself, his father, Cristoforo Fini, who was an "imbiancatore," or whitewasher, having been domiciled in the Florentine quarter of S. Croce. There is reason to believe that Tommaso, nicknamed Masolino, was a pupil of the painter Starnina, and was principally influenced in style by Antonio Veneziano; he may probably enough have become in the sequel the master of Masaccio. He was born in 1383; he died later than 1429, perhaps as late as 1440 or even 1447. Towards 1423 he entered the service of Filippo Scolari, the Florentine-born _obergespann_ of Temeswar in Hungary, and stayed some time in that country, returning towards 1427 to Italy. The only works which can with certainty be assigned to him are a series of wall paintings executed towards 1428, commissioned by Cardinal Branda Castiglione, in the church of Castiglione d'Olona, not far from Milan, and another series in the adjoining baptistery. The first set is signed as painted by "Masolinus de Florentia." It was recovered in 1843 from a coating of whitewash, considerably damaged; its subject matter is taken from the lives of the Virgin and of SS Lawrence and Stephen. The series in the baptistery relates to the life and death of John the Baptist. The reputation of Masolino had previously rested almost entirely upon the considerable share which he was supposed to have had in the celebrated frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel, in the Church of the Carmine in Florence; he was regarded as the precursor of Masaccio, and by many years the predecessor of Filippino Lippi, in the execution of a large proportion of these works. But from a comparison of the Castiglione with the Brancacci frescoes, and from other data, it is very doubtful whether Masolino had any hand at all in the latter series. Possibly he painted in the Brancacci Chapel certain specified subjects which are now either destroyed or worked over. Several paintings assigned to Masolino on the authority of Vasari are now ascribed to Masaccio. (W. M. R.)

MASON, FRANCIS (1799-1874), American missionary, was born in York, England, on the 2nd of April 1799. His grandfather, Francis Mason, was the founder of the Baptist Society in York, and his father, a shoemaker by trade, was a Baptist lay preacher there. After working with his father as a shoemaker for several years, he emigrated in 1818 to the United States, and in Massachusetts was licensed to preach as a Baptist in 1827. In 1830 he was sent by the American Baptist Missionary Convention to labour among the Karens in Burma. Besides conducting a training college for native preachers and teachers at Tavoy, he translated the Bible into the two principal dialects of the Karens, the Sgaw and the Pwo (his translation being published in 1853), and Matthew, Genesis, and the Psalms into the Bghai dialect. He also published _A Pali Grammar on the Basis of Kachchayano, with Chrestomathy and Vocabulary_ (1868). In 1852 he published a book of great value on the fauna and flora of British Burma, of which an improved edition appeared in 1860 under the title _Burmah, its People and Natural Productions_, and a third edition (2 vols.) revised and enlarged by W. Theobald in 1882-1883. He died at Rangoon on the 3rd of March 1874.

See his autobiography, _The Story of a Working Man's Life, with
Sketches of Travel in Europe, Asia, Africa and America_ (New York,
1870).

MASON, GEORGE (1725-1792), American statesman, was born in Stafford county (the part which is now Fairfax county), Virginia, in 1725. His family was of Royalist descent and emigrated to America after the execution of Charles I. His colonial ancestors held official positions in the civil and military service of Virginia. Mason was a near neighbour and a lifelong friend of George Washington, though in later years they disagreed in politics. His large estates and high social standing, together with his personal ability, gave Mason great influence among the Virginia planters, and he became identified with many enterprises, such as the organization of the Ohio Company and the founding of Alexandria (1749). He was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1759-1760. In 1769 he drew up for Washington a series of non-importation resolutions, which were adopted by the Virginia legislature. In July 1774 he wrote for a convention in Fairfax county a series of resolutions known as the Fairfax Resolves, in which he advocated a congress of the colonies and suggested non-intercourse with Great Britain, a policy subsequently adopted by Virginia and later by the Continental Congress. He was a member of the Virginia Committee of Safety from August to December 1775, and of the Virginia Convention in 1775 and 1776; and in 1776 he drew up the Virginia Constitution and the famous Bill of Rights, a radically democratic document which had great influence on American political institutions. In 1780 he outlined the plan which was subsequently adopted by Virginia for ceding to the Federal government her claim to the "back lands," i.e. to territory north and north-west of the Ohio river. From 1776 to 1788 he represented Fairfax county in the Virginia Assembly. He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1776-1780 and again in 1787-1788, and in 1787 was a member of the convention that framed the Federal Constitution, and as one of its ablest debaters took an active part in the work. Particularly notable was his opposition to the compromises in regard to slavery and the slave-trade. Indeed, like most of the prominent Virginians of the time, Mason was strongly in favour of the gradual abolition of slavery. He objected to the large and indefinite powers given by the completed Constitution to Congress, so he joined with Patrick Henry in opposing its ratification in the Virginia Convention (1788). Failing in this he suggested amendments, the substance of several of which was afterwards embodied in the present Bill of Rights. Declining an appointment as a United States Senator from Virginia, he retired to his home, Gunston Hall (built by him about 1758 and named after the family home in Staffordshire, England), where he died on the 7th of October 1792. With James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, Mason carried through the Virginia legislature measures disestablishing the Episcopal Church and protecting all forms of worship. In politics he was a radical republican, who believed that local government should be kept strong and central government weak; his democratic theories had much influence in Virginia and other southern and western states.

See Kate Mason Rowland, _Life and Writings of George Mason_ (2 vols.,
New York, 1892).

MASON, GEORGE HEMMING (1818-1872), English painter, was born at Wetley Abbey, the eldest son of a Staffordshire county gentleman. He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and studied for the medical profession for five years under Dr Watt of that city. But all his thoughts being given to art, he abandoned medicine in 1844 and travelled for a time on the Continent, finally settling in Rome, where he remained for some years and sought to make a living as an artist. During this period he underwent many privations which permanently affected his health; but he continued to labour assiduously, making studies of the picturesque scenery that surrounded him, and with hardly any instruction except that received from Nature and from the Italian pictures he gradually acquired the painter's skill. At least two important works are referable to this period: "Ploughing in the Campagna," shown in the Royal Academy of 1857, and "In the Salt Marshes, Campagna," exhibited in the following year. After Mason's return from the continent, in 1858, when he settled at Wetley Abbey, he continued for a while to paint Italian subjects from studies made during his stay abroad, and then his art began to touch in a wonderfully tender and poetic way the peasant life of England, especially of his native Staffordshire, and the homely landscape in the midst of which that life was set. The first picture of this class was "Wind on the Wold," and it was followed--along with much else of admirable quality--by the painter's three greatest works: The "Evening Hymn" (1868), a band of Staffordshire mill-girls returning from their work; "Girls dancing by the Sea" (1869); and the "Harvest Moon" (1872). He left Staffordshire in 1865 and went to live at Hammersmith; and he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1869. By that time he had fully established his position as an artist of unusual power and individuality. Mason died on the 22nd of October 1872. In his work he laboured under the double disadvantage of feeble and uncertain health, and a want of thorough art-training, so that his pictures were never produced easily, or without strenuous and long-continued effort. His art is great in virtue of the solemn pathos which pervades it, of the dignity and beauty in rustic life which it reveals, of its keen perception of noble form and graceful motion, and of rich effects of colour and subdued light. In _motif_ and treatment it has something in common with the art of Millet and Jules Breton, as with that of Frederick Walker among Englishmen; though he had neither the occasional uncouth robustness of Millet nor the firm actuality of Jules Breton. His pictures "Wind on the Wold" and "The Cast Shoe" are in the National Gallery of British Art.

MASON, JAMES MURRAY (1798-1871), American political leader, was born in Fairfax county, Virginia, on the 3rd of November 1798, the grandson of George Mason (1723-1792). Educated at the university of Pennsylvania and the college of William and Mary, he was admitted to the bar in 1820. He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1826-1827 and 1828-1831, of the state Constitutional Convention of 1829, of the National House of Representatives (1837-1839), of the United States Senate from 1847 until July 1861 (when, with other Southern senators he was formally expelled--he had previously withdrawn), and of the Virginia Secession Convention in April 1861. Entering politics as a Jacksonian Democrat, Mason was throughout his career a consistent strict constructionist, opposing protective tariffs, internal improvements by the national government, and all attempts to restrict or control the spread of slavery, which he sincerely believed to be essential to the social and political welfare of the South. He was the author of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and in 1860 was chairman of the Senate committee which investigated the John Brown raid. After Lincoln's election as President he was one of the strongest advocates of secession in Virginia. He was appointed in August 1861 commissioner of the Confederate States to Great Britain. The British ship "Trent," upon which he and John Slidell, the commissioner to France, sailed, was intercepted (Nov. 8, 1861) by a United States ship-of-war (the "San Jacinto," Captain Charles Wilkes), and the two commissioners were seized and carried as prisoners to Boston. Great Britain immediately demanded their release, and war for a time seemed imminent; but owing mainly to the tactful diplomacy of the prince consort, Lincoln acknowledged that the seizure of Mason and Slidell was a violation of the rights of Great Britain as a neutral, and on the 1st of January 1862 released the commissioners. The incident has become known in history as the "Trent Affair." Mason at once proceeded to London, where, however, he was unable to secure official recognition, and his commission to Great Britain was withdrawn late in 1863. He remained in Europe, spending most of his time at Paris and holding blank commissions which he was authorized to fill in at his discretion in case the presence of a Confederate commissioner should seem desirable at any particular European court. These commissions, however, he did not use. After the war he lived for several years in Canada, but returned in 1869 to Virginia, and on the 28th of April 1871 died at Alexandria.

See _The Public Life and Diplomatic Correspondence of James M. Mason,
with some Personal History_ (Roanoke, Va., 1903), by his daughter,
Virginia Mason; Sir Theodore Martin, _Life of the Prince Consort_.

MASON, SIR JOHN (1503-1566), English diplomatist, was born of humble parentage at Abingdon in 1503, and was educated at Oxford, where he became Fellow of All Souls in 1521. He was ordained before 1531. Most of his early years were spent on the Continent, where he witnessed the meeting between Henry VIII. and Francis I. at Calais in 1532, and where he was employed in collecting information for the English government, gaining in this work the reputation of a capable diplomatist. By his never-failing caution, moderation and pliancy, Mason succeeded in keeping himself in favour with four successive sovereigns of the Tudor monarchy. In 1537 he became secretary to the English ambassador at Madrid, Sir Thomas Wyat; but when the latter was put on his trial for treason in 1541 Mason was unmolested, and soon afterwards was appointed clerk of the privy council, and procured for himself sundry other posts and privileges. Mason was knighted and made dean of Winchester by Edward VI. He was one of the commissioners to negotiate the treaty by which Boulogne was restored to France in 1550, and in the same year he became English ambassador in Paris, where he helped to arrange the bethrothal of Edward VI. to the princess Elizabeth of France. He returned to England at the end of 1551, became clerk of parliament, received extensive grants of land, and in 1552 was made chancellor of Oxford University. He was elected member of parliament in the same year. On the death of Edward VI., he at first joined the party of Northumberland and the Lady Jane Grey; but quickly perceiving his mistake he took an active part in procuring the proclamation of Mary as queen. Mason now received fresh tokens of royal favour, being confirmed in all his secular, though not in his ecclesiastical, offices; and in 1553 he was appointed English ambassador at the court of the emperor Charles V., of whose abdication at Brussels in October 1555 he wrote a vivid account. He took a prominent share in the administrative business of the government in the first years of Elizabeth's reign, and largely influenced her foreign policy until his death, which occurred on the 20th of April 1566. Sir John Mason married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Isley of Sundridge, Kent, and widow of Richard Hill. He had no children, and his heir was Anthony Wyckes, whom he had adopted, and who assumed the name of Mason and left a large family.

See J. A. Froude, _History of England_ (12 vols., London, 1856-1870);
Charles Wriothesley, _Chronicle of England during the Reigns of the
Tudors_, edited by W. D. Hamilton (Camden Soc., 2 vols., London,
1875); P. F. Tytler, _England under the Reigns of Edward VI. and Mary_
(2 vols., London, 1839); John Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_ (3
vols., Oxford, 1824) and _Memorials of Thomas Cranmer_ (3 vols.,
Oxford, 1848); _Acts of the Privy Council of England_ (new series),
edited by J. R. Dasent, vols. i.-vii.

MASON, JOHN (1586-1635), founder of New Hampshire, U.S.A., was born in King's Lynn, Norfolk, England. In 1610 he commanded a small naval force sent by James I. to assist in subduing the Hebrides Islands. From 1615 to 1621 he was governor of the English colony on the north side of Conception Bay in Newfoundland; he explored the island, made the first English map of it (published in 1625), and wrote a descriptive tract entitled _A Briefe Discourse of the Newfoundland_ (Edinburgh, 1620) to promote the colonization of the island by Scotsmen. Here he was brought into official relations with Sir Ferdinando Gorges, then a commissioner to regulate the Newfoundland fisheries. In March 1622 Mason obtained from the Council for New England, of which Gorges was the most influential member, a grant of the territory (which he named Mariana) between the Naumkeag or Salem river and the Merrimac, and in the following August he and Gorges together received a grant of the region between the Merrimac and Kennebec rivers, and extending 60 m. inland. From 1625 to 1629 Mason was engaged as treasurer and paymaster of the English army in the wars which England was waging against Spain and France. Towards the close of 1629 Mason and Gorges agreed upon a division of the territory held jointly by them, and on the 7th of November 1629 Mason received from the Council a separate grant of the tract between the Merrimac and the Piscataqua, which he now named New Hampshire. Thinking that the Piscataqua river had its source in Lake Champlain, Mason with Gorges and a few other associates secured, on the 17th of November 1629, a grant of a region which was named Laconia (apparently from the number of lakes it was supposed to contain), and was described as bordering on Lake Champlain, extending 10 m. east and south from it and far to the west and north-west, together with 1000 acres to be located along some convenient harbour, presumably near the mouth of the Piscataqua. In November 1631 Mason and his associates obtained, under the name of the Pescataway Grant, a tract on both sides of the Piscataqua river, extending 30 m. inland and including also the Isles of Shoals. Mason became a member of the Council for New England in June 1632, and its vice-president in the following November; and in 1635, when the members decided to divide their territory among themselves and surrender their charter, he was allotted as his share all the region between the Naumkeag and Piscataqua rivers extending 60 m. inland, the southern half of the Isles of Shoals, and a ten-thousand acre tract, called Masonia, on the west side of the Kennebec river. In October 1635 he was appointed vice-admiral of New England, but he died early in December, before crossing the Atlantic. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. Forty-four years after his death New Hampshire was made a royal province.

See _Captain John Mason, the Founder of New Hampshire_ (Boston, 1887;
published by the Prince Society), which contains a memoir by C. W.
Tuttle and historical papers relating to Mason's career, edited by J.
W. Dean.

MASON, JOHN YOUNG (1799-1859), American political leader and diplomatist, was born in Greenesville county, Virginia, on the 18th of April 1799. Graduating at the university of North Carolina in 1816, he studied law in the famous Litchfield (Connecticut) law school, and in 1819 was admitted to practice in Southampton county, Virginia. He served in the Virginia house of delegates in 1823-1827, in the state constitutional convention of 1829-1830, and from 1831 to 1837 in the National House of Representatives, being chairman of the committee on foreign affairs in 1835-1836. He was secretary of the navy in President Tyler's cabinet (1844-1845), and was attorney-general (1845-1846) and secretary of the navy (1846-1849), succeeding George Bancroft, under President Polk. He was president of the Virginia constitutional convention of 1851, and from 1853 until his death at Paris on the 3rd of October 1859, was United States minister to France. In this capacity he attracted attention by wearing at the court of Napoleon III. a simple diplomatic uniform (for this he was rebuked by Secretary of State W. L. Marcy, who had ordered American ministers to wear a plain civilian costume), and by joining with James Buchanan and Pierre Soulé, ministers to Great Britain and Spain respectively, in drawing up (Oct. 1854) the famous Ostend Manifesto. Hawthorne called him a "fat-brained, good-hearted, sensible old man"; and in politics he was a typical Virginian of the old school, a state's rights Democrat, upholding slavery and hating abolitionism.

MASON, SIR JOSIAH (1795-1881), English pen-manufacturer, was born in Kidderminster on the 23rd of February 1795, the son of a carpet-weaver. He began life as a street hawker of cakes, fruits and vegetables. After trying his hand in his native town at shoemaking, baking, carpentering, blacksmithing, house-painting and carpet-weaving, he moved in 1814 to Birmingham. Here he found employment in the gilt-toy trade. In 1824 he set up on his own account as a manufacturer of split-rings by machinery, to which he subsequently added the making of steel pens. Owing to the circumstance of his pens being supplied through James Perry, the London stationer whose name they bore, he was less well known than Joseph Gillott and other makers, although he was really the largest producer in England. In 1874 the business was converted into a limited liability company. Besides his steel-pen trade Mason carried on for many years the business of electro-plating, copper-smelting, and india-rubber ring making, in conjunction with George R. Elkington. Mason was almost entirely self-educated, having taught himself to write when a shoemaker's apprentice, and in later life he felt his deficiencies keenly. It was this which led him in 1860 to establish his great orphanage at Erdington, near Birmingham. Upon it he expended about £300,000, and for this munificent endowment he was knighted in 1872. He had previously given a dispensary to his native town and an almshouse to Erdington. In 1880 Mason College, since incorporated in the university of Birmingham, was opened, the total value of the endowment being about £250,000. Mason died on the 16th of June 1881.

See J. T. Bunce, _Josiah Mason_ (1882).

MASON, LOWELL (1792-1872), American musician, was born at Medfield, Massachusetts. For some years he led a business life, but was always studying music; and in 1827, as the result of his work in forming the collection of church music published in 1821 at Boston by the Handel and Haydn Society, he moved to Boston and there first became president of the society and then founder of the Boston Academy of Music (1832). He published some successful educational books, and was a pioneer of musical instruction in the public schools, adopted in 1838. He received the degree of doctor of music from New York University in 1855. He died at Orange, New Jersey, on the 11th of August 1872.

His son William Mason (1829-1908), an accomplished pianist and
composer, published an interesting volume of reminiscences, _Memoirs
of a Musical Life_, in 1901.

MASON, WILLIAM (1725-1797), English poet, son of William Mason, vicar of Holy Trinity, Hull, was born on the 12th of February 1725, was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, and took holy orders. In 1744 he wrote _Musaeus_, a lament for Pope in imitation of _Lycidas_, and in 1749 through the 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] These surveyors also surveyed and marked the boundary between
Maryland and Delaware.

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,[1] 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 stones were used in much smaller sizes. As time went on the art of masonry advanced till in England, in point of execution, it at length rivalled that of any country.

_Tools._--The mason's tools may be grouped under five heads--hammers
and mallets, saws, chisels, setting-out and setting tools, and
hoisting appliances.

Hammers and Mallets.

There are several different kinds of iron hammers used by the stone
worker; the mash hammer has a short handle and heavy head for use with
chisels; the iron hammer, used in carving, in shape resembles a
carpenter's mallet but is smaller; the waller's hammer is used for
roughly shaping stones in rubble work; the spalling hammer for roughly
dressing stones in the quarry; the scabbling-hammer, for the same
purpose, has one end pointed for use on hard stone; the pick has a
long head pointed at both ends, weighs from 14 to 20 lb., and is used
for rough dressing and splitting; the axe has a double wedge-shaped
head and is used to bring stones to a fairly level face preparatory to
their being worked smooth; the patent axe, or patent hammer, is formed
with a number of plates with sharpened edges bolted together to form a
head; the mallet of hard wood is used for the finishing chisel work
and carving; and the dummy is of similar shape but smaller.

Saws.

A hand saw similar to that used by the carpenter is used for cutting
small soft stones. Larger blocks are cut with the two-handed saw
worked by two men. For the largest blocks the frame saw is used, and
is slung by a rope and pulleys fitted with balance weights to relieve
the operator of its weight. The blade is of plain steel, the cutting
action being supplied by sand with water as a lubricant constantly
applied.

Chisels.

There are perhaps even more varieties of chisels than of hammers. The
point and the punch have very small cutting edges, a quarter of an
inch or less in width. The former is used on the harder and the latter
on the softer varieties of stone after the rough hammer dressing. The
pitching tool has a wide thick edge and is used in rough dressing.
Jumpers are shafts of steel having a widened edge, and are used for
boring holes in hard stone. Chisels are made with edges from a
quarter-inch to one and a half inches wide; those that exceed this
width are termed boasters. The claw chisel has a number of teeth from
one-eighth to three-eighths wide, and is used on the surface of hard
stones after the point has been used. The drag is a semi-circular
steel plate, the straight edge having teeth cut on it. It is used to
level down the surfaces of soft stones. Cockscombs are used for the
same purpose on mouldings and are shaped to various curves. Wedges of
various sizes are used in splitting stones and are inserted either in
holes made with the jumper or in chases cut with the stone-pick.

Setting-out and Setting Tools.

The implements for setting out the work are similar to those used, by
the bricklayer and other tradesmen, comprising the rule, square, set
square, the bevel capable of being set to any required angle,
compasses, spirit level, plumb-rule and bob and mortar trowels. Gauges
and moulds are required in sinking moulds to the proper section.

Hoisting Appliances.

The _nippers_ (fig. 1), or _scissors_, as they are sometimes termed,
have two hooked arms fitting into notches in the opposite sides of the
block to be lifted. These arms are riveted together in the same way as
a pair of scissors, the upper ends having rings attached for the
insertion of a rope or chain which when pulled tight in the operation
of lifting causes the hooked ends to grip the stone. _Lewises_ (fig.
2.) are wedge-shaped pieces of steel which are fitted into a
dovetailed mortise in the stone to be hoisted. They are also used for
setting blocks too large to be set by hand, and are made in several
forms. These are the usual methods of securing the stone to the
hoisting rope or chain, the hoisting being effected by a pulley and
fall, by a crane, or by other means.

_Scaffolding._--For rubble walls single scaffolds, resting partly on
the walls, similar to those used for brickwork (q.v.), are employed;
for ashlar and other gauged stonework (see below) self-supporting
scaffolds are used with a second set of standards and ledgers erected
close to the wall, the whole standing entirely independent. The reason
for the use of this double scaffold is that otherwise holes for the
putlogs to rest in would have to be left in the wall, and obviously in
an ashlar stone wall it would be impossible properly to make these
good on the removal of the scaffold (see further SCAFFOLD).