Mason wished to join what he considered the correctness of Pope with the high imaginative power of Milton, and the lavish colouring of Spenser. In the attempt to unite qualities so heterogeneous, the effect of each is in a great measure lost, and little better than a caput mortuum remains. With all his praises of simplicity, he is generally much afraid of saying any thing in a plain and natural manner. He often expresses the commonest thoughts in a studied periphrasis. He is like a man, who being admitted into better company than his birth and education have fitted him for, is under continual apprehension, lest his attitude and motions should betray his origin. Even his negligence is studied. His muse resembles the Prioresse in Chaucer, That pained her to counterfete chere, Of court and be stateliche of manere, And to been holden digne of reverence. Yet there were happier moments in which he delivered himself up to the ruling inspiration. So it was when he composed the choruses in the Caractacus, beginning, Mona on Snowdon calls-- Hail, thou harp of Phrygian frame-- and Hark! heard ye not yon footstep dread-- of which it is scarcely too much to say that in some parts they remind us of the ancient tragedians. In each of his two Tragedies, the incidents are conducted with so much skill, and there is so much power of moving the affections, that one is tempted to wish he had pursued this line, though he perhaps would never have done any thing much better in it. One great fault is, that the dramatis personae are too much employed in pointing out the Claudes and Salvator Rosas, with which they are surrounded. They seem to want nothing but long poles in their hands to make them very good conductors over a gallery of pictures. When Earl Orgar, on seeing the habitation of his daughter, begins-- How nobly does this venerable wood, Gilt with the glories of the orient sun, Embosom yon fair mansion! The soft air Salutes me with most cool and temperate breath And, as I tread, the flower-besprinkled lawn Sends up a cloud of fragance-- and Aulus Didius opens the other play with a description somewhat more appropriate: This is the secret centre of the isle: Here, Romans, pause, and let the eye of wonder Gaze on the solemn scene; behold yon oak, How stern he frowns, and with his broad brown arms Chills the pale plain beneath him: mark yon altar, The dark stream brawling round its rugged base, These cliffs, these yawning caverns, this wide circus, Skirted with unhewn stone: they awe my soul, As if the very genius of the place Himself appear'd, and with terrific tread Stalk'd through his drear domain--