When Gray first became acquainted with Mason he wrote concerning him thus. “He has much fancy, little judgement, and a good deal of modesty. I take him for a good and well-meaning creature; but then he is really in simplicity a child, and loves every body he meets with: he reads little or nothing, writes abundance, and that with a design to make his fortune by it.” In another letter “Mason grows apace in my good graces; he is very ingenious, with great good-nature and simplicity; a little vain, but in so harmless and so comical a way that it does not offend one at all; a little ambitious, but withal so ignorant in the world and its ways, that this does not hurt him in one's opinion. So sincere and so undisguised, that no mind with a spark of generosity would ever think of hurting him, he lies so open to injury; but so indolent that if he cannot overcome this habit, all his good qualities will signify nothing at all.” This surely is the character of an amiable and very likeable man. Mason said when he printed it, “my friends, I am sure will be much amused at this; my enemies (if they please) may sneer at it, and say (which they will very truly,) that twenty-five years have made a very considerable abatement in my general philanthropy. Men of the world will not blame me for writing from so prudent a motive, as that of making my fortune by it; and yet the truth I believe, at the time was, that I was perfectly well satisfied if my publications furnished me with a few guineas to see a Play, or an Opera.”