THOMAS PERCY (1729-1811)

Thomas Percy's interest in the literary antiquity of England had a lasting influence on later poetry. This influence can be seen in Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and it is openly avowed by Wordsworth in Lyrical Ballads. Percy's rediscovery of medieval English poetry also inspired poets of the Romantic revival in Germany. Percy, who became Bishop of Dromore in 1782, drew most of the ballads for Reliques from the Percy Folio, a seventeenth-century manuscript which he acquired from his friend Humphrey Pitt of Shifnal in Shropshire. The manuscript was saved from destruction by Percy when he discovered it "being used by the Maids to light the fire." The manuscript, now in the British Museum, is a collection of materials of all kinds, but most important for its preservation of ballad poetry. The other poems in Reliques were derived from more recent sources.

In addition to the literary and historical appeal of such ballads as "The Ballad of Chevy Chase," "Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne," and the King Arthur cycle, these volumes are also pleasing visually, as shown by the vignettes of the title pages and the frontispiece of the first volume, which depicts a harpist and his audience. Each of the three volumes is divided into three parts, and each part opens with a copperplate engraving illustrating a ballad. The illustrations were designed by Samuel Wale and cngraved by Charles Grignian.

Gift of the University of Delaware Library Associates