Reliques of Ancient English Poetry

Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, first edition (1765). Courtesy Internet Archive.

The Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (sometimes known as Reliques of Ancient Poetry or simply Percy's Reliques) is a collection of ballads and popular songs collected by Thomas Percy and published in 1765.

History

For some time Percy had possessed an old folio manuscript containing copies, in an early 17th-century handwriting, of many old poems of various dates. He had found it one day "lying dirty on the floor in a bureau in the parlour" of his friend Humphrey Pitt of Shifnall in Shropshire, "being used by the maids to light the fire," and had begged it of its careless owner.

Thomas Percy (1729-1811)

The suggestion that he should turn this treasure to some account seems to have come from William Shenstone — though he did not live to see the ripe fruit of his advice — and was entertained as early as 1761. "You have heard me speak of Mr. Percy," runs a letter from Shenstone to Graves, dated 1 March 1761. "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." A few months later Shenstone wrote to a Mr. McGowan of Edinburgh to ask if he could send any Scottish ballad for Percy's use.

Many others lent their assistance; among them Thomas Warton (the younger), Grainger, Birch, Farmer, Garrick, and Oliver Goldsmith. Warton "ransacked the Oxford libraries" for him; Percy himself visited Cambridge and explored Pepys's collection, besides receiving help from "two ingenious and learned friends" there; he secured correspondents in Wales, in Ireland, in "the wilds of Staffordshire and Derbyshire."

At last, in 1765, appeared Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (3 vols. sm. 8vo). The book made an epoch in the history of English literature. It promoted with lasting effect the revival of interest in our older poetry.

Percy had serious misgivings as to whether he was employing his energies profitably, but expressed the hope that "the names of so many men of learning and character" among his patrons and subscribers would "serve as an amulet to guard him from every unfavourable censure for having bestowed any attention on a parcel of Old Ballads." He occasionally tampered with his texts and inserted at the end of each volume, in conformity with current sentiment, a "few modern attempts in the same kind of writing to atone for the rudeness of the more obsolete poems." Dr. Johnson, Warburton, and other contemporary authorities were not sparing in their condemnation and contempt.

A second edition of the ‘Reliques’ was, however, called for in 1767, a third in 1775, and a fourth, revised by his nephew, Thomas Percy (1768–1808), in 1794. In 1867–1868 the original folio from which Percy drew his materials was edited by Prof. John W. Hales and Dr. F.J. Furnivall, and published in three volumes.

Sources

The purported basis of the work was the manuscript which became known as the Percy Folio. found the folio in the house of his friend Humphrey Pitt, which Pitt's maid had been using to light fires. Percy would use 45 of the ballads in the folio for his book despite claiming the bulk of it came from this folio. Other sources were the Pepys Library of broadside ballads collected by Samuel Pepys and Collection of Old Ballads published in 1723, possibly by Ambrose Philips. Bishop Percy was encouraged to publish the work by his friends Samuel Johnson and William Shenstone who also found and contributed ballads.

Percy did not treat the folio nor the work in them with scrupulous care. He wrote his own notes on the folio pages, emended the rhymes and even pulled pages out of the document. He was criticised for these actions even at the time, most notably by Joseph Ritson a fellow antiquary. The folio he worked from seems to have been written by a single copyist and errors such as pan and wale for wan and pale needed correcting.

Content

Reliques of Ancient English Poetry

The Reliques contained 180 ballads in three volumes with three sections in each. It contains such important ballads as The Ballad of Chevy Chase, The Battle of Otterburn, Lillibullero, The Dragon of Wantley, The Nut-Brown Maid and Sir Patrick Spens along with ballads mentioned by or possibly inspiring Shakespeare, several ballads about Robin Hood and one of The Wandering Jew.

The claim that the book contained samples of ancient poetry was only partially correct. The last part of each volume was given over to more contemporary works—often less than a hundred years old—included to stress the continuing tradition of the balladeer. The collection draws on the Folio and on other manuscript and printed sources, but in at least three cases anonymous informants, "ladies" in each case, contributed oral poetry known to them. He made substantial amendments to the Folio text in collaboration with his friend the poet William Shenstone.

The work was dedicated to Elizabeth Seymour, Duchess of Northumberland, who was married to Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland. Elizabeth was part of the Percy family and a descendant of Henry PercyTemplate:Dn, a protagonist of some of the early ballads. Bishop Thomas Percy also claimed to be connected to the family and although this may have been fanciful on his part, it did seem to help him secure his preferment.

The dedication to the duchess meant that Thomas Percy arranged the work to give prominence to the border ballads which were composed in and about the Scottish and English borders, specifically Northumberland, home county of the Percies. Percy also omitted some of the racier ballads from the Folio for fear of offending his noble patron: these were first published by F. J. Furnivall in 1868.

Reception

Ballad collections had appeared before but Percy's Reliques seemed to capture the public imagination like no other. Not only would it inspire poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth to compose their own ballads in imitation, it also made the collecting and study of ballads a popular pastime. Sir Walter Scott was another writer inspired by reading the Reliques in his youth, and he published some of the ballads he collected in The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. The more rigorous scholarship of folklorists would eventually supersede Percy's work, most notably Francis James Child's Child Ballads, but Percy gave impetus to the whole subject.

The book is also credited, in part, with changing the prevailing art movement of the 18th century, Neo-Classicism, into Romanticism. The neo-classicists based their art on the perceived purity of classical antiquity and took as their models the art of ancient Rome and Greece. The Reliques highlighted the traditions and folklore of England seen as simpler and less artificial. It would inspire folklore collections and movements in other parts of Europe and beyond, such as the Brothers Grimm, and such movements would act as the foundation of romantic nationalism. The Percy Society was founded in 1840 to continue the work of publishing rare ballads, poems and early texts.

Publication history

• Reliques of ancient English poetry: consisting of old heroic ballads, songs, and other pieces of our earlier poets, (chiefly of the lyric kind.) Together with some few of later date. London: J. Dodsley, 1765. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III.
  • second edition, 1767. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III
  • third edition, 1775. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III.
  • fourth edition, 1794. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III.
  • fifth edition, London: Rivington, 1812. Volume I
  • (3 volumes), Philadelphia: James C. Moore, 1823. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III
  • (3 volumes), London: A Lewis, 1839. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III
  • (3 volumes), London: Henry Washborne, 1844. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III.
  • (1 volume), Philadelphia: C. DeSilver / Boston: Phillips, Sampson, 1855.
  • (edited by Charles Cowden Clarke; memoir and critical discussion by George Gilfillan). (3 volumes), Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1858, 1864. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III
  • (edited by Henry B. Wheatley). (3 volumes), London: Bickers & Son, 1876. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III
  • (edited by Edward Walford). (1 volume), London & New York: Frederick Warne (Chandos Classics), 1887.
  • (edited by J.V. Pritchard). (2 volumes), London: George Bell, 1876, 1892, 1906. Volume I, Volume II.
• Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript: Ballads and romances (edited by John W. Hales & Frederick J. Furnivall). London: N. Trubner, 1868. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III
• Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript: Loose and humorous songs (edited by Frederick J. Furnival). London: privately printed, 1868.
• The Boy's Percy: Being old songs of war (edited by Sidney Lanier). New York: Scribner, 1882.
• The Percy Folio of Old English Ballads and Romances. London: De La More, 1905..Volume I, Volume II, Volume III, Volume IV.
• Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. London J.M. Dent / New York: E.P. Dutton, 1906, 1910. Volume I, Volume II.

See also

• List of poetry anthologies

External links

Text

• Percy's Reliques Vol. 1 at Internet Archive (1910 edition).
• Percy's Reliques Vol. 2 at Internet Archive (1910 edition).
• multiple versions at Internet Archive.
• Multiple formats at Ex-classics

About

• Reliques of Ancient English Poetry at ExClassics.

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