SOURCE: “Introduction,” in The Percy Letters: The Correspondence of Thomas Percy & William Shenstone, Yale University Press, 1977, pp. v-xxvii.

In the following essay, Brooks provides an overview of Percy's correspondence with author William Shenstone, focusing particularly on Shenstone's assistance in the compilation of Percy's Reliques.

I

The first extant letter of this correspondence is dated 24 November 1757. It is from Percy, and on it Shenstone has scribbled a note that reads: “Mr. Percy is domestic chaplain to the Earl of Sussex and has Genius and Learning, accompany'd with great Vivacity.” The note suggests that the correspondence had just begun, for it is the sort of comment that one might jot down on an early letter but not on one received long after correspondence had begun. Percy himself is quite definite that the correspondence began in 1757. When his letters to Shenstone had been returned to him after Shenstone's death, he arranged...