MASSON, Dawn, b. Aberdeen, Scotland, 1822; educated at Marischal college, Aberdeen, and the university of Edinburgh, became editor of a Scottish provincial paper at the age of nineteen; went to London in 1844, remained a year, contributing to Fraser's Magazine and other periodicals. For two or three years he was in Edinburgh, writing for periodicals. In 1847 he returned to London where he remained 18 years, and while there WRS chosen professor of the English language and literature at the Uni. vetsity college, London. He retired from this post in Oct , 1865, having been appointed professor of rhetoric and English literature in the university of Edinburgh. He contributed numerous articles to the Quarterly, British Quarterly, and the North British Ileview, to the Eiwyclopadia Britannica, and the English. Cyclopadia, v.nd in 1859 68, was the editor of Macmillan's Magazine. To this he contrilpted numerous articles_
His best-known papers are on Carlyle's Latter-Day Pamphlets; Dickens and Thackeray; Rabelais; Literature and the Labor Question; Pre-Raphaelism, in Art and Literature, Theories of Poetry,- Shakespeare and Goethe; Hugh. Miller; De Quincey and Prose-writing. He has published Essays, Biographical and Critical, chiefly on English, Poets; Lffe of John _Milton; British, Novelists and their Styles; Recent 13ritish, Philosophy, a Review toith Criti cism, including some Remarks on Mr. Mars Answer to Sir W. Hamilton; Chatterton a. Story of the year 1770; Essays on "Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats. In 1873 he published a biogratphy of the poet Drummond, entitled, Drummond of Hawthornden : the Story of his Life and Writings; The Three Devils—Luther's, Milton's, and Goethe's. His life of 3111ton. is of high authority.