SOURCE: “The Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,” in Thomas Percy, Twayne, 1981, pp. 72-108.

In the following excerpt, Davis examines Percy's Reliques, analyzing the text's sources and providing an overview of its contents and a brief survey of its various editions.

The eighteenth-century ballad revival has been so intimately associated with the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry that it has been easy to overlook the fact that Percy's compilation marks the end of an era of ballad interest as well as a beginning.¹ Most students of the period are familiar with Joseph Addison's 1711 Spectator papers, numbers 70 and 74, which dignified “Chevy Chase” with both high praise and serious critical analysis. Fewer are aware of the published volumes of verse that Percy, assisted by William Shenstone, turned over page by page in search of the gems that would help to distinguish his collection. Without them the Reliques would not merely have...