to Mr. Blakeway, late fellow of Magdalen College, he owes all the assistance received from the Pepysian Library: and Mr. Farmer, fellow of Emanuel, often exerted, in favour of this little work, that extensive knowledge of ancient English literature for which he is so distinguished.*

Many extracts from ancient MSS. in the British Museum and other respositories, were owing to the kind services of Thomas Astle, Esq., to whom the public is indebted for the curious preface and index annexed to the Harleian Catalogue.+ The worthy Librarian of the Society of Antiquaries, Mr. Norris, deserved acknowledgment for the obliging manner in which he gave the Editor access to the volumes under his care. In Mr. Garrack's curious collection of old plays are many scarce pieces of ancient poetry, with the free use of which he indulged the Editor in the politest manner. Το the Rev. Dr. Birch he is indebted for the use of several ancient and valuable tracts. To the friendship of Dr. Samuel Johnson he owes many valuable hints for the conduct of the work. And, if the Glossary is more exact and curious than might be expected in so slight a publication, it is to be ascribed to the supervisal of a friend, who stands at this time the first in the world for northern literature, and whose learning is even better known and respected in foreign nations than in his own country. It is perhaps needless to name the Rev. Mr. Lye, editor of Junius's Etymologicum, and of the Gothic Gospels.

The names of so many men of learning and character the Editor hopes will serve as an amulet, to guard him from every unfavourable censure for having bestowed any attention on a parcel of Old Ballads. It was at the request of many of these gentlemen, and of others eminent for their genius and taste, that this little work was undertaken. To prepare it for the press has been the amusement of now and then a vacant hour amid the leisure and retirement of rural life, and hath only served as a relaxation

* To the same learned and ingenious friend, since Master of Emanuel College, the Editor is obliged for many corrections and improvements in his second and subsequent editions; as also to the Rev. Mr. Bowle, of Idmistone, near Salisbury, editor of the curious edition of Don Quixote, with annotations in Spanish, in six vols. 4to; to the Rev. Mr. Cole, formerly of Bletchley, near Fenny-Stratford, Bucks; to the Rev. Mr. Lambe, of Norham, in Northumberland (author of a learned History of Chess, 1764, 8vo, and editor of a curious poem on the Battle of Flodden Field, with learned notes, 1774, 8vo); and to G. Paton, Esq., of Edinburgh. He is particularly indebted to two friends, to whom the public, as well as himself, are under the greatest obligations; to the Honourable Daines Barrington, for his very learned and curious Observations on the Statutes, 4to; and to Thomas Tyrwhitt, Esq., whose most correct and elegant edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, five vols. 8vo, is a standard book, and shows how an ancient English classic should be published. The Editor was also favoured with many valuable remarks and corrections from the Rev. Geo. Ashby, late Fellow of St. John's College, in Cambridge, which are not particularly pointed out, because they occur so often. He was no less obliged to Thomas Butler, Esq., F.A.S., agent to the Duke of Northumberland, and clerk of the peace for the county of Middlesex, whose extensive knowledge of ancient writings, records, and history, has been of great use to the Editor in his attempts to illustrate the literature or manners of our ancestors. Some valuable remarks were procured by Samuel Pegge, Esq., author of that curious work the Curialia, 4to; but this impression was too far advanced to profit by them all; which hath also been the case with a series of learned and ingenious annotations inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine for August 1793, April, June, July, and October 1794.

† Since Keeper of the Records in the Tower.

from graver studies. It has been taken up at different times, and often thrown aside for many months, during an interval of four or five years. This has occasioned some inconsistencies and repetitions, which the candid reader will pardon. As great care has been taken to admit nothing immoral and indecent, the Editor hopes he need not be ashamed of having bestowed some of his idle hours in the ancient literature of our own country, or in rescuing from oblivion some pieces (though but the amusements of our ancestors) which tend to place in a striking light their taste, genius, sentiments,

or manners.

Except in one paragraph, and in the notes subjoined, this Preface is given with little variation from the first edition in MDCCLXV.

LIFE OF BISHOP PERCY.

BY THE PRESENT EDITOR.

Dr. Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore, and the author of Reliques of Ancient Poetry, was, according to his own account, of an old Worcestershire family, a branch of the noble house of Percy. He was born in April 1729, in an old-fashioned timber house, in a street called the Cartway in Bridgenorth, Shropshire, where his father, Mr. Arthur Lowe Percy, was in business as a grocer. He received his early education at the Grammar School of his native town, and, having obtained an exhibition, went in due course to Christ Church, Oxford, where he was entered as a commoner. His name appears in the books as "Thomas Piercy," and the same orthography occurs in the list of Oxford graduates, from which it appears that he took his Bachelor's degree in May 1750, and proceeded Master of Arts in July 1753. It is uncertain by what bishop he was ordained, or what curacy he served; but in the same year in which he put on his Master's gown at Oxford, he was presented by Christ Church with the small living of Easton Maundit, near Northampton. In the register of this parish he writes his name Percy, probably for the first time-the result, doubtless, of those poetical and antiquarian studies to which he had already devoted himself from childhood, like his greater and far more celebrated disciple, Sir Walter Scott. In the little vicarage of this rural village he lived for more than a quarter of a century; there he married his wife, Nancy Gutteridge, and there all his children were born. The squire of his parish was the Earl of Sussex, whilst Castle Ashby, the seat of successive Earls of Northampton, was only a mile and a half distant. In these great houses Percy met with society through whom he was kept better acquainted than most country parsons of his time with what was passing in the world of letters and of fashion in London. Here in the summer of 1764, Dr. Johnson spent several months as his guest, when doubtless the parlour and little library were the scenes of literary discussions at which more than one of the Muses would have wished to have been present unseen. A terrace in the vicarage garden is still traditionally called Dr. Johnson's Walk.

Whilst living at Easton Maundit, namely, in 1761, Percy published in four volumes a Chinese novel, translated from the Portuguese, and dedicated to the Countess of Sussex; this he followed up by Miscellaneous Pieces from the Chinese, dedicated to Lady Longueville, as also a Translation of the Song of Solomon from the

Hebrew, with a Commentary and Notes, and his Key to the New Testament. He also undertook to re-edit the Works of the Duke of Buckingham, and the Spectator, the Guardian, and the Tatler, with notes and a key to the names of the writers; but the project fell through, on account of Percy's nomination, through the influence and introduction of Lord Sussex, as chaplain and secretary to the Duke of Northumberland, which took him to London. In this capacity he occupied apartments in Northumberland House, in the Strand, to which he brought a portion, at least, of his books; but these were destroyed by a fire along with his rooms in March 1780. Here he was visited by many literary friends, amongst others by Dr. Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith.

In 1763, his patron, the Duke of Northumberland, was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and Percy went over to Dublin along with him as his chaplain. He had already in 1778 been appointed Dean of Carlisle; and in 1782, on the Duke's recommendation, he was nominated and consecrated as Bishop of Dromore, the see which had once been held by Jeremy Taylor. On this occasion he resigned his Northamp tonshire living, in which he was succeeded by another man of letters, Dr. Nares.

He now divided his attention between his duties to his flock, and his attendance in the Irish Parliament at Dublin, and his literary studies. The latter he carried on continuously until visited by partial blindness in 1805. He lost his beloved "Nancy " in 1807, and lived on till September 1811, when he quietly and calmly passed away, leaving behind the memory of a blameless life. He was buried at Dromore. His only son died long before him, in fact only a year after his appointment as Bishop. His two surviving daughters married respectively the Honourable and Venerable Pierce Meade, Archdeacon of Dromore, fourth son of the first Lord Clanwilliam, and Ambrose Isted, Esq. of Ecton, Northamptonshire.

It is perhaps worthy of note that the bishop's wife in early life had been employed as nurse to the young Prince Edward, afterwards Duke of Kent, and the father of our most gracious Queen. It was to her that he addressed those tender and touching lines,

"Oh! Nancy, wilt thou go with me?"

which will be found in this collection.

The Reliques themselves were first published in 1765, twelve years after his appointment to Easton Maundit; they were the result of long and patient labour employed in collecting and gleaning old ballads from literary friends, such as Garrick, Goldsmith, Gray, and especially Shenstone, who first suggested to him the idea of such a publication, and who had at one time intended to be associated with him in his work, though prevented by the stroke of death. No doubt, as the book appeared in the very year after Dr. Johnson's visit to Easton Maundit, its compilation was the subject of much animated discussion in the vicarage library, between the enthusiastic gleaner and the burly doctor, whose appreciation of the simple ballad style, we happen to know, was not very high.

But still, though Dr. Percy "touched up," and in fact tampered with the text of the ballads extensively-for which he was criticised pretty severely by a rival gleaner in the same field, Ritson-yet there can be little doubt that his Reliques have proved, if not a well of pure Saxon undefiled, at all events a cover to such a well. And with all their faults, they will always be popular with the multitude in their

present shape, though the learned student and scholar will prefer to read them in their original form as they stand in the folio Manuscript. And it may be added, in proof of the high estimation in which the name of Dr. Percy is held even by such scholars, that in the edition of the said folio Manuscript, issued by Messrs. Hales and Furnivall, under the auspices of the Early English Text Society, the Reliques are styled "a book destined not only to raise him (the author) to eminence in his profession, but to render his name a 'household word' wherever the English language is spoken." Sir Walter Scott tells us that as soon as he became in his boyhood acquainted with Percy's Reliques, the first time he could scrape a few shillings together, he bought himself a copy of these beloved volumes; nor (he adds) do I believe that I ever read a book half so frequently or with half the enthusiasm." It was probably at a later period of life that he made himself acquainted with the three volumes of Old English Ballads which had been given to the learned world in 1723-25. Sir Henry Ellis, too, expresses his mature opinion that "the Reliques are the most agreeable selection perhaps which exists in any language."

A Percy Society was established in 1840, in honour of the Bishop, by Mr. William Chappell, F.S.A., and some other enthusiasts in the cause; but it was not adequately supported by the British public, and it died out in 1851, having given to the world nearly a hundred publications.

Percy's folio Manuscript is styled by Mr. F. J. Furnivall "the foundation document of English balladry, the basis of that structure which Percy raised." Mr. Furnivall writes: "By his emendations and by his taste, public attention was first drawn to the ballad literature of our country; and so far am I from condemning him, that I hold him to have been a benefactor to literature." It was printed and published by Messrs. J. W. Hales and F. J. Furnivall, 1867-68, uniform with, though not actually as part of, the publications of the Early English Text Society.

It adds a very great many ballads to the stock already known, for not above a sixth or seventh part of its bulk was selected by Percy for publication in his Reliques; and its editors boast, without wishing to depreciate the Bishop's memory, that now for the first time many of the most important ballads "can be read without Percy's tawdry touches."

Percy found the Manuscript lying about on the floor at the house of a friend named Pitt, at Shifnall, where the maid-servants had begun to use it for lighting the fire. He rescued it, and after some time had it bound, in order to preserve it, or rather such part of it as remained; ultimately it found its way into the library of Mr. Isted, at Ecton, Northamptonshire, who had married one of Percy's daughters. It was pur-. chased from the family in 1868, by the Trustees of the British Museum, where it is now to be seen. The date of the writing is probably that of Charles I., and it is said to be in the handwriting of Thomas Blount, the well-known author of Jocular Tenures, etc.

There can be little doubt that the change of his name from Piercy to Percy was a piece of affectation, which was probably smiled at and good-humouredly pardoned by the Duke of Northumberland, who, though Percy by favour of the Herald's College,

*The first edition of the Reliques contained 176 pieces, and Fercy says that "the greater part of them are extracted from a folio Manuscript in his possession," but of these only 45 are derived from that source.

B

and by royal licence, and the owner of Sion House and of the proud Castle of Alnwick, was himself not a Percy but a "Smithson" by birth. In the same spirit Dr. Percy, when he erected a monument to his wife at Dromore, designates her maiden name as Goodriche in lieu of Gutteridge. It is true also that he placed the lion rampant, the Percy cognizance, over his family monument in Dromore Cathedral. But this, if it proves anything, proves too much; for if he was a genuine Percy by legitimate descent, at all events the ancient earldom, and probably the dukedom also, of Northumberland would not have become extinct, but would have come to him by right, instead of being re-granted to the Smithsons, one of whom had married the female heir of that ancient and noble house.

BALLADS.

He was a wise man, that friend of Fletcher of Saltoun, who said that if a man were allowed to make the ballads of a people, he cared not who made its laws. For there can be no doubt that the ballads of an infant nation are a great factor in the formation of the national character, and help to mould the minds of its future citizens. But if he had been a little more far-sighted, he would have seen that in truth it would be utterly impossible to "make" the ballads of any people whatever, for the simple reason that they are the natural outcome and product of its infancy.

The word ballad is akin to ballet, both being derived from the Greek Bädde, to cast, throw, or move forcibly; the former coming from the French balade, as the latter comes from the Italian ballata, which means a song accompanied by or accompanying a dance.

A ballad poetry more or less rude has been in almost all countries the earliest memorial of public events; and where the infancy of a tribe is savage and warlike, it has always been applied, consciously or unconsciously, to the work of fostering a martial spirit. Tacitus tells us in his Annals* that long after his death, Arminius was remembered in the rude songs of his country; and that ballads were the chief, if not the only annals amongst the ancient German tribes. "They have a tradition," he adds, "that Hercules once visited those parts, and when they rush to battle, they sing his praises above those of other heroes."† A mediaval author, referring to the northern writers of a subsequent date, tells us that they drew the materials of their history from Runic songs. The Scandinavian tribes, as we know, had their "Scalds," whose office and duty it was to compose ballads, in which they also celebrated the warlike exploits of their forefathers.

It is equally certain that in our own islands there existed at an early date a race of bards whose work was substantially the same; and it is on record in our history, that when Edward I. set himself seriously to the task of subduing the Welsh to his sway, one of the first measures which he adopted was to destroy their bards-with no other object, we must believe, except that of getting rid of those ballads which fostered their nationality. In spite of the king's arms, however, their poetry survived; and a writer of the age of Elizabeth, in his description of North Wales, tells us that "upon the Sunday and holy days the multitude of all sort of men, women, and children of every parish do meet in sundry places, either on some hill ↑ Germania, ii. sect. 3.

* Tacitus, Ann. ii. 88.

Ellis, Original Letters of English History, Second Series, vol. iii. p. 49.