PERCY'S RELIQUES.• IT may be questioned whether any poetical work
published during the last century has had so strong an influence on the literature of our own age as the Reliques of Bishop Percy. The book effected a revolution, and men of the highest genius and the most striking originality have confessed how much they owe to it, The seed sown by Percy has grown up and spread so widely that it may be said to have produced a forest. Volumes upon volumes have appeared since his day illustrating our ballad literature, and the old ballad has been also revived in a modern dress by many poets and versemakers. Scott and Wordsworth have ex- pressed very frankly theirindebtedness to these "beloved volumes," as Sir Walter called them, and we can well believe his assertion that he never read a book half so frequently or with half the enthusiasm. The publication of the Reliques was also felt in Germany, where they stimulated and directed the poetical genius of Burger. That poet,showed his admiration of the ballads by translating several, but their influence on his taste was not strong enough to prevent
• Relfquea of Ancient English Poetry. Consisting of old Heroic Ballads. Songs, and other Pieces of our Earlier Poets, together ts,th some few of later date. By Thomas Percy, D.D., Bishop of Dromore. Edited, with a general Introduction, additional Prefaces, Notes, si , by Henry B. Wheat'ey, P.S.A. London : Bickers and Son. 2 vols. 1876.
hint from rendering them in the conventional diction of the period. In England as well as in Germany there are signs that Percy's book not only bad a powerful influence on the poetry of the next half-century, but that it was itself the fruit of a growing protest against the artificial style prevailing in both countries. Several of our eighteenth-century poets had tried their hands, with partial success, at the ballad, and Prior and Mallet, the one by his " Henry and Emma," the other by "Margaret's Ghost," had gained more praise than they deserved. Goldsmith under- stood better than either of them the simplicity and directness of expression required in the ballad, and it is noteworthy that his " Hermit," published in the same year with the Reliques, was written before Percy's " Friar of Orders Grey."
But if the instinct of the age was to some extent in favour of ballad literature, the criticism of the period, as represented by Dr. Johnson, could find nothing to say in favour of the Reliques, and Percy's collection had to wait until a new and higher school of poetical criticism gave it the position it deserved. But the praise thus awarded was not given without some reservation, and the Bishop's habit of tinkering or improving many of the old ballads was very justly condemned. his own skill as a balladist was of no common order, and the temptation he must have felt to give colour to one ballad, finish to another, and fuller meaning to a third, was perhaps well-nigh irresistible. Wordsworth thought that Percy's genius as a ballad-writer was superior to that of any modern poet, and this was probably the case when Wordsworth wrote. Since that time this kind of poetry has been largely cul- tivated, and almost every poet of high mark in our time has written in the ballad style. Many of these attempts to produce the simplicity of the old ballad grafted on the high culture of the nineteenth century have been eminently successful, and the names of Tennyson, Browning, Rossetti, Meredith, Kingsley, and Swinburne will recall work in this style of a noble order. It is noteworthy, however, that in several modern ballads the effort of the writers to be archaic and to follow closely the old models leads to tricks of style that arc sometimes offensive and sometimes ludicrous. The simplicity of the ballad-poet is gone, his gro- tesqueness remains, patches of antique ornament are fastened on a modern garment, the attention is too much attracted to acces- sories, and occasionally the burden of the ballad, instead of ringing like music or sounding like sense, tempts us to indulge wickedly in a hearty burst of laughter.
Perhaps there is no form of composition that gives more scope for literary imposture than the ballad. It is a curious point in ethics how far an author is justified in deceiving the public. Certain frauds or forgeries will, of course, be universally de- nounced as dishonourable. Ireland's fabrication of the Shake- speare MSS. is regarded as a despicable fraud. Chatterton's mystifications are pardoned solely in consideration of the youth and genius and tragic end of the writer ; Macpherson was stigmatised by Dr. Johnson as a cheat, and the Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, which contains a number of modern ballads with old faces, written by Allan Cunningham, is denounced by Mr. Wheatley as "one of the most bare-faced of literary deceptions." Among the ballad-forgers was the well-known Robert Surtees, in whose honour the Surtees Society was founded. "In Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," writes Mr. Wheatley, " will be found three ballads,—" The Death of Featherstonhaugh," "Lord Ewrie," and " Bartram's Dirge," which are treated by Sir Walter as true antiques, and of the genuine character of which he never had a doubt. They are all three, however, mere figments of Surtees's imagination. Each of the ballads was accompanied by fictitious historical incidents to give it an extraappearance of authen- ticity. " Featherstonhaugh " was said to be taken down from the recitation of a woman eighty years of age, mother of one of the miners in Alston Moor;' "Lord Ewrie" was obtained from ' Rose Smith, of Bishop Middleham, a woman aged upwards of ninety- one ;' and "Bartram's Dirge " from 'Anne Douglas, an old woman who weeded in his (Surtees's) garden." Scott never discovered this forgery, but lived and died in the belief that these ballads were veritable antiques. The editor terms this imposition "a crime against letters which fouls the very wells of truth." But of all writers who have succeeded in palming off a modern for an ancient ballad, Lady Wardlaw is, perhaps, the moat conspicuous, for her poem, " Hardyknute," created an excitement and a controversy among the experts in ballad-literature which is probably unprecedented. " Hardyknute," "a fine morsel of heroic poetry," as it is termed by Percy, was first published in 1719, at the expense of two well- known Scotchmen, who believed it to be a "piece of genuine antiquity," and although doubts were expressed as to its authenticity, many years passed before the question of the
authorship was settled. For a time it deceived Thomas Warton, and it was not until after the publication of the Reliques that it was certainly known to be a modern work, the production of Lady Wardlaw, who died in 1727. " Hardyknute,' " said Scott, " was the first poem I ever learnt,—the last that i shall forget;" and he terms it, in another place, "a most spirited and beautiful imita- tion of the ancient ballad." Other and adverse opinions have been expressed by some competent authorities, but the poem, whatever judgment may be formed of its merits or defects, was for a long time regarded as an original,—a fact which contradicts Alexander Smith's statement that you read the date upon a ballad "as legibly as upon the letter you received yesterday." The success- ful deception of Lady Wardlaw induced Dr. Robert Chambers to argue that that lady was the writer of a large number of our best ballads, and amongst others of " Gil Morrice " and " Sir Patrick Spens ;" but his argument will not bear examination, and has' been effectually disposed of by Mr. Norval Clyne, as well as by the present editor of the Reliques.
We have mentioned some of the most prominent instances of modern forgeries or imitations of the old ballad. Are such literary artifices, it may be asked, permissible, or do the authors of these poems deserve reprobation for the deceit? No general answer, it seems to us can be given to this question. Each case must rest upon its own merits. Literary deceptions of a certain kind are allowable enough, and have been practised by men and women whose moral rectitude is unimpeachable. The most scrupulous critic will not find fault with Mrs. Browning for calling her exquisite love-sonnets, "From the Portuguese," and Sir Walter Scott was no doubt justified in preserving his incognito as the author of the Waverley Novels. The innumerable manuscripts hidden in old chests have been discovered in many instances by very worthy people, and some of the beat books in our language would have been lost, if it had been deemed neces- sary publicly to register their birth and parentage. In the case of ballads, it is easy to imagine the wrath of antiquaries who, after expending much learning upon a poem, and pointing out the indubitable signs of its antiquity, discover suddenly that some clever woman, like Lady Wardlaw, has been making fools of them. Many a hearty laugh must this lady have had at the expense of the critics, and if she was not quite justified in allowing Lord President Forbes and Sir Gilbert Elliot to be at the expense of publishing " Hardyknute," believing it to be ancient, it must be remembered that having had her fun, she did not maintain the deception, but " in a manner" acknowledged the piece to be her own, by producing an additional stanza. indeed, as Mr. Wheatley justly observes, " She seems to have been quite contented with the success which attended the mysti- fication, and does not appear to have taken any particular pains to keep her secret close." On the other hand, we cannot quite forgive Surtees for the imposition practised on Sir Walter, which seems to us too barefaced and too persistent. A man may mystify the public and his friends by some literary puzzle, but he is hardly justified in steadily maintaining his imposition through a number of years, so as to delude friends who do not question his veracity. An author is at liberty to keep his secret, as Lady Anne Barnard did, but he is not at liberty to support it, as Surtees did, by a number of minute and absolutely false state- ments. We agree also with the editor of the volumes before us that it is wrong to foist in a forgery among genuine works, as Pinkerton did in his Select Scottish Ballads, "because when a discovery is made of its untrustworthiness, the reputation of the true work is injured by this association with the false."
Of the beautiful edition of Bishop Percy's Reliques which has suggested these remarks a few words must be said. Mr. Wheatley has, we think, done his task well, and has brought to bear upon the work the knowledge that has been acquired since the days of Percy. His ample introduction gives as much infor- mation as the general reader will require, and the brief memoir of Percy contains, perhaps, all the facts worth recording about him. Of course, a full account is given of the famous folio MS., and of the way in which, thanks to the good offices of Mr. Furnivall and Professor Child, its owners, after many refusals, were induced to surrender it for publication. Of the one hundred and eighty pieces contained in the Reliques, only forty-five are taken from the MS.,1 but the Bishop intended to publish a fourth volume of his work, a resolution that was never fulfilled. If there are any readers still unacquainted with the treasures amassed by Percy, they cannot do better than make their first acquaintance with them under Mr. Wheatley's guidance, and all readers who like a fine edition of a really valuable book will be amply rewarded by the purchase of these volumes, which do credit alike to editor and publishers.
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