For this eminent scholar and excellent man we are indebted to England. The long-established usage of transferring learned men to Irish sees from the English universities, while it has tended much to depress the [373] Church, and suppress many a bright light, has occasionally made amends in men like Bedell and Taylor, Percy and Berkeley men whost names are splendid ornaments to learning, as their lives and actions were examples deserving of record for all that could grace their stations. Of some of those illustrious persons we are far from adequately supplied with any account proportioned to their merits or the places they filled. For those who lived in former periods history itself has afforded the materials, as there were few persons of any eminence who did not, as actors or sufferers enter largely into the current of events. We are now compelled to trust to the gleanings of literary notices and to incidental recollections.

Thomas Percy was descended from the ancient Percies of Northumberland. Boswell asserts that he was the heir of that family. This would, we suspect, be hard to prove; nor was the occasion wanting or unlikely to be suggested, as the heirs of that race appear to have been extinguished with the eleventh Earl, and the honours to have passed with his daughter into another ancient Norman family. He was born in Bridgenorth, in Shropshire, in 1728. The first rudiments of learning he received from the Rev. Samuel Lea, head master of Newport school, in that shire. From this he entered Christchurch, Oxford. Having completed his academical terms, he was preferred by his college to the vicarage of Easton Maudit, in Northamptonshire, in 1756. In 1765 he accepted the office of chaplain to the Duke of Northumber- land; and in 1769 he received the appointment of chaplain to the king. On this latter occasion he took his degree of D.D. at Cambridge, for which purpose he was admitted a member of Emanuel College.

During the interval, of which the main incidents are thus summarily stated, the character of Dr Percy for literary powers and extensive scholarship had been rising into public eminence. In 1761 he had published Han Kion Chonan, a Translation from the Chinese Miscellanies; in the year after, some Runic poems, translated freely from the Icelandic. A version of the Song of Solomon appeared from his pen in 1764, translated from the Hebrew, with a commentary. In 1768 his celebrated work, by which his rank is fixed in literary history, made its appearance.

At the same time, his reputation in the distinguished literary circle of London was extended and established. He was an original member of the celebrated Literary Club, and his name occurs in its annals with those of Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, and Reynolds. With Johnson he had long been on terms of the most friendly intimacy; and in the well-known Memoir of Boswell his name frequently occurs; and his authority is often cited by subsequent editors, as conveying the most accurate and authentic notices of that great and worthy man. Dr Johnson’s opinion of him is handed down in a letter, on which Dr Percy himself has said, “I would rather have this than degrees from all the universities in Europe. It will be for me and my children and grandchildren.” Such a testimony is not to be omitted.

It was in 1778, the same year that Dr Percy obtained the deanery of Carlisle, that he happened to give a dinner to a small party consisting of Boswell, Dr Johnson, and Mrs Williams. In the course of conversation, Pennant was warmly praised by Johnson. Dr Percy [374] who recollected resentfully that Pennant, in his mention of Alnwick Castle, had used language which he considered not sufficiently respectful, eagerly opposed. Johnson retorted; and a colloquy ensued, which was mixed with much sarcasm on the part of Johnson, who at last was violently excited by a very harmless personality. Percy had said that Pennant was a bad describer. Johnson replied, “’I think he describes very well.’ PERCY ‘I travelled after him.’ JOHNSON ‘And I travelled after him.’ PERCY ‘But, my good friend, you are short-sighted, and do not see as well as I do.’ Johnson said nothing at the time; but inflammable particles were collecting for a cloud to burst. In a little while, Dr Percy said something more in disparagement of Pennant. JOHNSON (pointedly) ‘This is the resentment of a narrow mind, because he did not find everything in Northumberland.’ PERCY (feeling the stroke) ‘Sir, you may be as rude as you please.’ JOHNSON ‘Hold, sir ! Don’t talk of rudeness. Remember, sir, you told me’ (puffing hard with passion struggling for a vent) ‘I was short- sighted. We have done with civility. We are to be as rude as we please.’ PERCY ‘Upon my honour, sir, I did mean to be civil.’ JOHNSON ‘Icannot say so, sir; for I did mean to be uncivil, thinking you had been uncivil.’ Dr Percy rose, ran up to him, and, taking him by the hand, assured him, affectionately, that his meaning had been misunderstood; upon which, a reconciliation took place.” (Boswell’s Johnson, Vol. vii. ed. 18-35), We need not stay to point out the amiable and Christian temper shown on this occasion by Dr Percy: it would be still more apparent could we venture to extract the irritating dialogue from the beginning. But it is here quoted only to retain as much as possible the interest of the following letter to Boswell:

Sir, The debate between Dr Percy and me is one of those foolish controversies which begin upon a question of which neither cares how it is decided, and which is, nevertheless, continued to acrimony by the vanity with which every man resists confutation. Dr Percy’s warmth proceeded from a cause which, perhaps, does him more honour than he could have derived from juster criticism. His abhorrence of Pennant proceeded from his opinion that Pennant had wantonly and indecently censured his patron. His anger made him resolve that, for having been once wrong, he never should be right. Pennant has much in his notions that I do not like; but still I think him a very intelligent traveller. If Percy is really offended, I am sorry; for he is a man whom I never knew to offend any one. He is a man very willing to learn, and very able to teach a man out of whose company I never go without having learned something. It is true that he vexes me sometimes; but I am afraid it is by making me feel my own ignorance. So much extension of mind, and so much minute accuracy of inquiry, if you survey your whole circle of acquaintance, you will find so scarce, if you find it at all, that you will value Percy by comparison. Lord Hailes is somewhat like him; but Lord Hailes does not, perhaps, go beyond him in research; and I do not know that he equals him in elegance, Percy’s attention to poetry has given grace and splendour to his studies of antiquity. A mere antiquarian is a rugged being. [375] Upon the whole, you see that what I might say in sport or petulance to him, is very consistent with full conviction of his merit. I am, dear Sir, your most, &c. SAM. JOHNSON.

Among the many notices of Dr Percy which occur in the correspondence of Johnson, we learn that, for some time after his promotion to the deanery of Carlisle, he continued to occupy an apartment in Northumberland House. Here, sometime in March 1780, a fire broke out, by which he sustained some small losses; but his papers and books were preserved.

Some coolness arose between him and Johnson, which has been ascribed to the circumstance of a parody upon the style of his versions of some of the relics of English ballads. [Ftn.: It was a parody on “The Hermit of Warkworth”.] This incident was, however, at the time of its occurrence, far more harmless than it was afterwards made to appear. It was an unpremeditated effusion, in the natural flow of conversation at the tea-table of Miss Reynolds; but having been retailed, circulated, and getting into the newspapers, it assumed a character which was never intended. That, under this point of view, it must have been felt painfully, can be inferred from the way in which it is mentioned by contemporaries who were not aware of all the circumstances; and soon after, Johnson complains that Dr Percy went off to Ireland without taking leave of him.

It was in 1782 that Dr Percy became connected with this country by his promotion to the see of Dromore. Some accounts of his conduct, and of the character he sustained in his diocese, are brought together by Bishop Mant in his history. We cannot offer these more satisfactorily than by extracting the brief account of the bishop: “Bishop Percy resided constantly in his diocese, where he is said to have promoted the instruction and comfort of the poor with unremitting attention, and superintended the sacred and civil interests of the diocese with vigilance and assiduity; revered and beloved for his piety, liberality, benevolence, and hospitality, by persons of every rank and religious denomination.” (The History of the Irish Church, Vol. ii. p.683.)

The retreat of one who held a place so eminent in tne most refined circles of scholarship and cultivated taste could not but be followed by the most kindly recollections; and he still continued to be sought by the gifted and the learned. When Sir Walter Scott was engaged on his Border Minstrelsy, a work similar in material and design to the bishop’s, he constantly consulted and kept up a correspondence with him. His opinion of the bishop’s literary merit we shall presently notice.

Bishop Percy lived to a great age, and saw many changes in Ireland. He was deprived of sight some years before his death; and under this afflicting privation we are told that he showed the most entire and even cheerful resignation; with the true temper of a Christian, always expressing his deep thankfulness for the mercies of which he had, through his long life, been the continual object. His last painful illness was borne with the most exemplary resignation. He died in [376] September 1811, at his episcopal mansion, and was buried in a vault adjoining his cathedral.

Among the most popular literary remains of Bishop Percy may be mentioned the beautiful ballad, “Nannie, wilt thou fly with me,” to a no less beautiful Scottish air. But the fullest justice to the literary recollection of the bishop may be only done by reference to the notices which he has received from one who was the most qualified to appreciate him justly. In his introductory remarks on popular poetry, Scott says “The task of collecting and illustrating ancient popular poetry, whether in England or Scotland, was never executed by a competent person, possessing the necessary powers of selection and annotation, till it was undertaken by Dr Percy, afterwards bishop of Dromore, in Ireland. The reverend gentleman, himself a poet, and ranking high among the literati of the day, commanding access to the individuals and institutions which could best afford him materials, gave the result in a work entitled Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, in three volumes, published in London, 1765, which has since gone through four editions. The taste with which the materials were chosen the extreme felicity with which they were illustrated the display at once of antiquarian knowledge and classical reading which the collection indicated, rendered it difficult to imitate and impossible to excel, a work which must always be held the first of its class in point of merit.” This high praise admits only of the one exception which the modesty of its author would not have admitted.

The bishop was savagely and unfairly attacked by Ritson, who to an irritability not quite clear of the limits of insanity, added the fierce animosity of a fiery polemic. His objections, partially correct, were urged with a fierceness and acrimony quite beyond the utmost delinquencies of literature.