Next in importance to the ‘Seasons’ of Thomson, though at considerable distance from that work in order of time, come the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry; collected, new-modelled, and in many instances (if such a contradiction in terms may be used) composed by the Editor, Dr. Percy. This work did not steal silently into the world, as is evident from the number of legendary tales, that appeared not long after its publication; and had been modelled, as the authors persuaded themselves, after the old Ballad. The Compilation was however ill suited to the then existing taste of city society; and Dr. Johnson, ’mid the little senate to which he gave laws, was not sparing in his exertions to make it an object of contempt. The critic triumphed, the legendary imitators were deservedly disregarded, and, as undeservedly, their ill-imitated models sank, in this country, into temporary neglect; while Buerger, and other able writers of Germany, were translating, or imitating these Reliques, and composing, with the aid of inspiration thence derived, poems which are the delight of the German nation. Dr. Percy was so abashed by the ridicule flung upon his labours from the ignorance and insensibility of the persons with whom he lived, that, though while he was writing under a mask he had not wanted resolution to follow his genius into the regions of true simplicity and genuine pathos (as is evinced by the exquisite ballad of ‘Sir Cauline’ and by many other pieces), yet when he appeared in his own person and character as a poetical writer, he adopted, as in the tale of the ‘Hermit of Warkworth,’ a diction scarcely in any one of its features distinguishable from the vague, the glossy, and unfeeling language of his day. I mention this remarkable fact[16] with regret, esteeming the genius of Dr. Percy in this kind of writing superior to that of any other man by whom in modern times it has been cultivated. That even Buerger (to whom Klopstock gave, in my hearing, a commendation which he denied to Goethe and Schiller, pronouncing him to be a genuine poet, and one of the few among the Germans whose works would last) had not the fine sensibility of Percy, might be shown from many passages, in which he has deserted his original only to go astray. For example,
Now daye was gone, and night
was come,
And all were fast asleepe,
All save the Lady Emeline,
Who sate in her bowre to weepe:
And soone she heard her true
Love’s voice
Low whispering at the walle,
Awake, awake, my clear Ladye,
’Tis I thy true-love
call.
Which is thus tricked out and dilated:
Als nun die Nacht Gebirg’
und Thal
Vermummt in Rabenschatten,
Und Hochburgs Lampen ueberall
Schon ausgeflimmert hatten,
Und alles tief entschlafen
war;
Doch nur das Fraeulein immerdar,
Voll Fieberangst, noch wachte,
Und seinen Ritter dachte:
Da horch! Ein suesser
Liebeston
Kam leis’ empor geflogen.
’Ho, Truedchen, ho!
Da bin ich schon!
Frisch auf! Dich angezogen!’