LIFE OF THOMAS PERCY,

BISHOP OF DROMORE;

WITH REMARKS ON BALLAD POETRY.

THOMAS PERCY, the indefatigable and ingenious author of the "Reliques of Ancient Poetry," was born on the 13th of April 1728, at Bridgenorth, in Shropshire. His father was a grocer. He was educated at the free school in that town, and entered Christ Church, Oxford, in July 1746, as an exhibitioner. Ten years after, he was presented to the vicarage of Easton-Mauduit, Northamptonshire, and the Earl of Sussex, about the same time, gifted him with the rectory of Wilby. Here, besides being diligent in pastoral work, he found time to cultivate literature. In 1759 he married Anne, daughter of Barton Goodriche, Esq., of Northamptonshire. This lady had acted as nurse to one of the royal family. She is described as a "good creature," but ordinary both in appearance and manners, and indebted for her charms to her husband's imagination. In 1761 Percy published a Chinese novel, entitled "Hau Kiou Choaan," in four volumes. This was a translation of a real Chinese story, which a merchant named Wilkinson had brought from Canton. Percy sold it for £50. He published also "Chinese Proverbs," and a new version of "Solomon's Song." In the rotes to the novel he discovered that painstaking research which became characteristic, and qualified him to annotate the "Ancient Minstrelsy." In 1761

he undertook, at the instance of the Tonsons, to edit an edition of the works of the Duke of Buckingham; and two years after, he superintended an edition of Surrey's poems. Neither of these works was ever published, although both were printed. He proposed, besides, to have republished all the undramatic blank verse preceding the "Paradise Lost," including Tuberville, Gascoigne, Chapman, Christopher Marlowe, &c.

In 1763 he published five pieces of Runic poetry, with translations into Latin prose, which met with only moderate success. In 1764 appeared a "Key to the New Testament" -a work which proved that he was not neglecting his professional studies, and which became popular. This year Johnson visited him at his vicarage, and remained most part of three months in the highest enjoyment-now poring over the old Spanish romance of "Felixmarte of Hyrcania," now helping Mrs Percy to "feed her ducks," and now talking learnedly to her learned lord. Percy had before this commenced the work which was destined to make him immortal-the collection of old ballads. He had himself a large folio. MS. of ballads, and he set to work to procure others from every part of the British empire-from Derbyshire, Wales, Ireland, and even the West Indies. In these researches he was either aided or encouraged by the most eminent men of his day-by Goldsmith, Garrick, Thomas Warton, Shenstone, and Gray, as well as by such professed antiquarians as Birch, Farmer, and Stevens. Percy seems to have been personally popular with all of these; and most of them, besides, admired old poetry. Grainger, too, author of the forgotten "Sugar Cane,” and of the beautiful ode to "Solitude," was a warm friend and an efficient ally to Percy.

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In February 1765 the "Reliques" received 100 guineas for the first edition. first was not specially flattering. Johnson, Warburton, and Hurd coalesced for once in treating contemptuously a style of poetry which, not from weakness, but from strong prejudice and want of imagination, they were unable to appreciate. Warburton, with his usual fertility of coarse figure, spoke of antiquarian ballads, as "specious funguses, compared to the

oak." No expression could be more unlike the reality. These ballads, in their hirsute strength and rich native tang, may be compared rather to oak or beech mast, containing in them the germ of a thousand forests. Think of the "grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence" as a "specious fungus?" It is rather strange how scholars like Warburton, Hurd, and Johnson did not descry in some of these old strains the genuine spirit of Homer and the ancient rhapsodists. It is probable that Johnson never took the trouble of reading them, partly from indolence, and partly from the foregone conclusion to which he had come against their class. When, six years later, the "Hermit of Warkworth "-which was a feeble imitation, by Percy, of the old ballad-appeared, Johnson did read it, and, by a ludicrous parody on one of its verses, turned the laugh of the literary world against the author. Our readers will remember the incidents connected with the quarrel between Percy and Johnson about Pennant, recorded in Boswell, and how it was soldered up by the sage exclaiming, "I am willing you shall hang Pennant!" Johnson had a sincere regard for Percy, although very little sympathy with his special literary path.

In a letter dated March 1765, Grainger wrote Percy, "I hope you will sing yourself at least into a stall, if not into a throne." Promotion was not very long in following this prediction. In 1769 Percy, who had previously been appointed chaplain to the Duke of Northumberland, was made chaplain in ordinary to the King. In 1778 he became Dean of Carlisle; and in 1782 Bishop of Dromore, in Ireland-a bishopric which, a century before, had been administered by Jeremy Taylor, who held the reighbouring see of Down and Connor.

This was the triumph-the slave in the chariot was now to succeed. An adversary to the ingenious bishop appeared in the shape of the notorious Joseph Ritson. He was one of those Ishmaelites who stand up ever and anon in the world of letters, and are distinguished still more by their fierce passions and ungovernable temper than by their powers. Such an one in criticism was Dennis in England; such in Scotland were Gilbert Stuart and Whitaker, in history; such, more lately,

and with a higher range of talent, was Cobbett, in politics, and such, in antiquarianism, was Ritson. This furious author fell foul of Percy, for what he chose to call "forgery," by which he meant the emendations he, as editor, judged it proper to make upon some of the ancient ballads. These Ritson regarded as so many acts of fraud, which he thought he had a right to treat more severely, because perpetrated by a clergyman and bishop. He charged him, besides, with misrepresenting the character of the "Ancient Minstrel." Percy bowed to this accusation, and afterwards modified his statement; but indignantly repelled the charge of fraud, asserting that his "emendations of old and mutilated ballads were open and avowed." Ritson practised a peculiar style of spelling, and had a violent horror at the use of flesh, fish, or fowl. Our readers will find, in one of the first volumes of the Edinburgh Review, a severe and pungent attack on his vegetarianism. He ultimately crossed the slender line which existed in his brain between talent and derangement, and died insane in 1803. Leyden-who delighted in tormenting him, and once in his presence ate a beefsteak raw, to deepen his disgust at the use of animal food-thus ludicrously describes him in an imitation ballad:

"That dwarfe, he ben beardless and bare,
And weasel flowen ben al his hair

Like an ympe or elfe.

And in this world beth al and hale,

Ben nothing that he loveth and dele
Safe his owen selfe."

Scott looked on Ritson with a more generous eye, and did justice to his indomitable perseverance, his courage, and the vast stores of recondite lore discovered in his "Life of Arthur” and his "Essay on Romance and Minstrelsy."

In his Irish retreat, Percy, although under considerable disadvantages, prosecuted his literary studies. Sometimes his letters, or those of his friends, were lost in their passage; sometimes he was, through the miscarriage of the Gentleman's Magazine, visited for months with a famine of literary news,