THOMAS PERCY.

THOMAS PERCY, a name musical to all lovers of poetry, was born, April 13, 1728, at Bridgenorth, in Shropshire, where his father was a grocer. He received his early education at the free school of his native town, and was sent an exhibitioner to Christ Church, Oxford, in July, 1746. Having been ordained a priest, he was presented by his College, 1756, to the vicarage of Easton Mauduit, Northamptonshire, which he held with the Rectory of Wilby, given to him afterwards by the Earl of Sussex. A country home afforded ample leisure for literary studies, which he cultivated with assiduity and good taste. In 1759 he married Anne, daughter of Bartin Guthridge, or Goodriche, Esq., in the same county. To this lady he addressed the charming lines, which will live as long as any of the "Reliques." At Ecton House, about five miles from Northampton, is a portrait of Mrs. Percy, holding in her hand a scroll, on which is inscribed the song, "O Nanny." If Madame D'Arblay's account be correct, "the fairest of the fair" borrowed her grace from the poet's pen:-" She is very uncultivated, and ordinary in manners and conversation; but a good creature, and much delighted to talk over the Royal Family, to one of whom she was formerly a nurse." Mrs. Percy was, at this time (1791), in weak health, and declining life. She died at Dromore, December 30, 1806, in the 76th year of her age; and we are assured that "to the last she remained a favourite" with Johnson. Percy was busy in 1761. In that year he received (June 10) fifty pounds for a Chinese Romance called "Hau Kiou

1 See Nichols's " Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century," vii. 252.

1

Choaan;""Chinese Proverbs," and a new version of "Solomon's Songs," brought smaller sums. The Chinese Novel was published in four volumes. Grainger writes:-"You have been at pains in collecting your notes to the Chinese History. They throw much light upon it, and, to deal frankly with you, they constitute the most valuable part of your book." The first Chinese Letter of Goldsmith had appeared in the "Public Ledger," January 24, 1760, and been favourably received. But "Hau Kiou Choaan" was a genuine Chinese story, preserved among the papers of Mr. Wilkinson, a merchant who spent several years in Canton. Percy translated the fourth volume from the Portuguese.

In the same year (1761), he signed an agreement with the Tonsons to edit the works of the Duke of Buckingham, for the sum of fifty-two guineas; and he also undertook (March, 1763), to superintend an edition of Surrey's Poems. Both works were printed, but never published. The whole impression of "Surrey," with the exception of two or three copies previously given to friends, was destroyed by fire in 1808. Mr. Payne Collier has described a copy in his possession. It is a reprint of Tottell's edition, 1557. Percy made no attempt at revising the poems, nor did he write any life of Surrey. The design, however, was extensive, and embraced specimens of all the undramatic blank verse preceding the "Paradise Lost." Mr. Collier says—“ He was guilty of some important omissions, because bibliographical knowledge was not then so far advanced as at present; but he performed good service to letters; and the blank verse productions, which he subjoins, are by Tuberville, Gascoigne, Riche, Peele, James Aske, William Vallans, Nicholas Breton, Chapman, and Christopher Marlowe."

In 1763, Percy published Five Pieces of Runic poetry, ten guineas being the purchase-money.

1 "Notes and Queries," May 18, 1850.

Many years afterwards, Mr. William Herbert, in the first flush of his northern studies, denounced the attempt to render a foreign language through the medium of a Latin prose version, and spoke of Percy with great severity, affirming that his translation of Regner Lodbrog's Ode teemed with errors, scarcely a line of it being properly interpreted. Percy vindicated himself in letters to Dr. Anderson:-"Notwithstanding that he condemns, in the gross, translations like mine, made through the medium of a Latin version, yet I humbly conceive an English reader will form thereby as good a notion of the peculiar images and general subject of the originals as from his own para. phrase in English verse; but in my translation I had an advantage in having it compared with the original by the great master of northern literature, the Rev. Edward Lye, author of the Anglo-Saxon Lexicon.'" The translations are in prose, and admit no comparison with Gray's noble specimens of the Norse-tongue, which, like Percy's, were made from Latin versions of the originals.

In 1764, Percy gave to the Press his "Key to the New Testament;" a well-arranged and useful Introduction, which has been often reprinted, and is still consulted by theological students. During the summer of the same year, Johnson visited him at Easton Mauduit, a dull parsonage in a dull county, and remained through parts of the months of June, July, and August. It was on this occasion that he chose for his regular reading the Spanish Romance of "Felixmarte of Hircania." From boyhood he had a passion for tales of chivalry, and did not lose it in his latest years. The Doctor was in his happiest mood. Mrs. Percy told Cradock, that her husband "looked out all sorts of books to be ready for his amusement after breakfast, and that Johnson was so attentive and polite to her, that, when her husband mentioned the literature prepared in the study, he said-'No, sir, I shall first wait upon Mrs. Percy to feed the ducks.'”

Percy was now occupied, at intervals, in preparing the collection of old Ballads and Poems on which his fame is

built. The first suggestion of the "Reliques" came from Shenstone, who wrote to Graves, March 1, 1761,

"You have heard me speak of Mr. Percy-he was in treaty with Mr. James Dodsley, for the publication of our best old ballads in three volumes. He has a large folio MS. of ballads which he showed me, and which, with his own natural and acquired talents, would qualify him for the purpose as well as any man in England. I proposed the scheme to him myself, wishing to see an elegant edition and good collection of this kind. I was also to have as sisted him in selecting and rejecting, and in fixing upon the best readings; but my illness broke off our corre spondence the beginning of winter."

In the autumn of the same year (September 24), Shenstone relates the progress of the work in a very interesting letter to Mr. M'Gowan of Edinburgh:

'And now, having thanked you for the Scotch snuff, I come to ask, whether you have any old Scotch ballads which you would wish preserved in a neat edition. I have occasioned a friend of mine to publish a fair collection of the best old English and Scotch ballads,- -a work I have long had much at heart. Mr. Percy, the collector and publisher, is a man of learning, taste, and indefatigable industry; is Chaplain to the Earl of Sussex. It so happens that he has himself a folio collection of this kind of MSS. which has many things truly curious, and from which he selects the best. I am only afraid that his fondness for antiquity should tempt him to admit pieces that have no other sort of merit. However, he has offered me a rejecting power, of which I mean to make considerable use. He is encouraged in his undertaking by Samuel Johnson, Garrick, and many persons of note, who lend him such assistance as is within their power. He has brought Mr. Warton (the Poetry Professor), to ransack the Oxford Libraries, and has resided, and employed six amanuenses to transcribe from Pepys's Collection at Cambridge, consisting of five volumes of old ballads, in folio. He says justly, that it is in the remote parts of the kingdom that he has most reason to expect the curiosities he

wants; that in the southern parts fashion and novelty cause such things to be neglected. Accordingly he has settled a correspondence in Wales, in the wilds of Staffordshire and Derbyshire, in the West Indies, in Ireland, and, if he can obtain your assistance, he hopes to draw materials from the whole British Empire. He tells me there is, in the Collection of Magdalen College Library, a very curious collection of ancient Scottish songs and poems, he thinks, not published, or known; many of Dunbar, Maitland of Lethington, and one allegorical poem of Gawain Douglas, too obsolete for his collection; and one yet more obsolete, called 'Peebles in the Play,' mentioned in Christ's Kirk on the Green. He met Mr. Gray in the University Library, who is going to write the history of English Poetry. But, to put an end to this long article, his Collection will be printed in two or three small octavos, with suitable decorations; and if you find an opportunity of sending aught that may be proper for his insertion, I think I can safely answer for his thankfulness, as well as my own. He showed me an old ballad in his folio MS., under the name of 'Adam Carr:' three parts in four coincide so much with your Edom of Gordon,' that the former name appears to me an odd corruption of the latter. His MS. will, however, tend to enrich 'Edom of Gordon' with two of the prettiest stanzas I ever saw, beside many other improvements. He has also a MS. of 'Gill Morice,' called in his copy Childe Morice.' Of this more another time."

This letter shows the zeal of Percy and the liberality of his friends. Few Collectors have had such helpers. The library of Garrick was rich in early English poetry; but he found his most useful correspondent in Birch, whose aid he might have gracefully acknowledged in warmer terms. Birch was not more indefatigable in gathering information than generous in imparting it. Lively in talk, vigorous in body, and endowed with a sleepless curiosity, he amassed large stores of varied learning, and wrote as much as he walked, but with a very inferior ease and freshness. Composition was to him the birdlime which