Mason sat in the Irish House of Commons as member for Blessington, County Wicklow, in 1761 and 1769, and for St. Canice, County Kilkenny, in 1776, 1783, 1790, and 1798. In parliament he was a frequent speaker. He introduced in 1761 a bill to enable Roman Catholics to invest money in mortgages on land, which was carried, but then rejected by the English privy council. In the next session a similar bill, strongly opposed by the government, was rejected by 138 to 53.
The government made a bid for Mason's support by appointing him in August 1771 a commissioner of barracks and public works, Dublin, and in 1772 a commissioner of revenue, an office which he held until 1793; and Mason deserted the opposition. Again he introduced his mortgage measure in 1772, once more unsuccessfully. When Lord Harcourt's government, in 1773, wished to do something for the Catholics, Mason and Sir Hercules Langrishe were asked to bring in the same bill, together with another permitting Catholics to take leases for lives of lands; but both were suddenly dropped.[1]
During the free trade agitation of 1779 Mason made himself very unpopular: in November of that year he explained to the Speaker that to attend the House would be a danger to his life. He was made a privy councillor, and in the last Irish parliament he voted for the Union with Great Britain.[1]
Mason sold Mason-Brook to Denis Daly. He died in Dublin in 1809.[1]
Works
In 1779 Mason published in London an edition of the Dramatick Works of Philip Massinger (4 vols.) which the Dictionary of National Biography found no improvement on that of Thomas Coxeter (1761); the memoir by Thomas Davies was however praised at the time.[2] He then worked on an edition of Shakespeare; but claimed that his changes were anticipated in Isaac Reed's edition of 1785, and published Comments on the last Edition of Shakespeare's Plays, London, 1785, with an appendix of Additional Comments. Another edition, as Comments on the several Editions of Shakespeare's Plays, extended to those of Malone and Steevens, appeared at Dublin in 1807. George Steevens inserted many of Mason's notes in his own editions of Shakespeare.[1]
Mason also published Comments on the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher; with an Appendix containing some further Observations on Shakespeare, London, 1798, dedicated to George Steevens; and An Oration commemorative of the late Major-General Hamilton, 1804.[1]
