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Updated: June 14, 2025
To Percy, bishop of the Irish church, in Dromore, we are indebted for the first attempt at a systematic collection of the folk songs and ballads which are counted among the treasures of a nation's literature. In 1765 he published, in three volumes, his famous Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.
And being with the companies of the Bishop seuen thousand persons sufficiently prouided for such an expedition, we passed prosperously through many prouinces, and at length attained vnto Constantinople. Where doing reuerence vnto the Emperor Alexius, we sawe the Church of Sancta Sophia, and kissed diuers sacred reliques.
As to the body, I can assure you that it has not only been deposited in a burying-place at Utragan, -but immediately afterwards dispersed as holy reliques all over the country: and no saint's reliques in Christendom will meet with more honour and attention. As to what brought the crowd together, if you come to that, my young friend, what brought you thither?
Such an epitaph resembles the conversation of a foreigner, who tells part of his meaning by words, and conveys part by signs. Intended for Mr. ROWE, in Westminster Abbey. Thy reliques, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust, And sacred, place by Dryden's awful dust; Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies, To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes. Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest!
This when I saw, and being sure that in many Chinish Cities the reliques of Mahomet are kept, as soone as we came to the City where these fellowes be, I enfourmed my selfe of them, and learned the trueth. When that Loutea with all his family was become Moorish, the rest began likewise to doe the same.
And so, with this terrible vision of waters seen on every side, the enclosed persons, with the reliques, crosses, and other ecclesiastical ornaments, which remained secretly in their possession and accompanied by the viaticum of the body of Christ in the hands of the priest, flocking together, mournfully imploring grace, warded off at that time their destruction.
This excellent philosophical song appears to have been famous in the sixteenth century. Percy's Reliques, vol. i. 307. See June 2. June 1. Yesterday I also finished a few trifling memoranda on a book called The Omen, at Blackwood's request. There is something in the work which pleases me, and the style is good, though the story is not artfully conducted.
The most ambitious of these lighter efforts is a pasquinade occasioned by some local scandal, entitled "Childe Hugh and the labourer, a pathetic ballad." The "Childe" of the story was a neighbouring baronet, and the "Abbot" a neighbouring rector, and the whole performance, intended, as it was, to mimic the spirit of Percy's Reliques, irresistibly suggests a reminiscence of John Gilpin.
The squire must needs have something of the old ceremonies observed on the occasion; so at the gate of the churchyard, several little girls of the village, dressed in white, were in readiness with baskets of flowers, which they strewed before the bride; and the butler bore before her the bride-cup, a great silver embossed bowl, one of the family reliques from the days of the hard drinkers.
He even seems to fear that his subject may be considered trivial, and that he may possibly receive 'the censure of being one who busies himself with the mere playthings of antiquity. Dr Percy, when he compiled his invaluable Reliques, had similar apprehensions, which were then not altogether groundless; but it may reasonably be hoped, that the race of pedants, who wondered how a man of learning could be interested in a bundle of old ballads, is now extinct.
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