Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T23:39:41.089Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

XXXII: Further Notes on Thomas Percy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Vincent H. Ogburn
Vincent H. Ogburn*
Affiliation:
Coe College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The recent notes by Mr. Churchill on the Percy-Warton correspondence are as valuable as they are concise. However, some points raised by him stimulate further consideration. These are: (1) the projected edition of Buckingham's Works, (2) Percy's initial plans for the Reliques, and (3) his introductory relations with the Northumberland family.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , June 1936 , pp. 449 - 458
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1936

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Irving L. Churchill, “The Percy-Warton Letters—Additions and Corrections,” PMLA, xlviii (1933), 301–303.

2 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 32333, fol. 5.

3 It should be borne in mind that Percy had now been in rather close connection with Lord Sussex for nearly three years. On Oct. 15, 1753, Percy was presented to the living at Easton Maudit while in attendance at Convocation at Oxford. The next day he returned to Easton Maudit and on the following day dined with Lord Sussex. (See Brit. Mus. Add MS. 32336, i, fols. 4–5.)

4 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 28222, fol. 19.

5 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 32336, i, fol. 33, Oct. 26, 1761.

6 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 32331, fol. 7. Dec. 2, 1762.

7 Hecht, Percy-Shenstone Correspondence, p. 5.

8 Idem, pp. 43–44.

9 For example, see Hecht, op. cit., p. 51; April, 1761.

10 Ibid., p. 54; May 22, 1761.

11 Shenstone “Billets,” fol. 4; Harvard Percy Papers, folder 273.

12 Hecht, op. cit., pp. 65–66.

13 Idem., p. 88; Nov. 14, 1762.

14 Mr. Churchill, who has seen the manuscript of this article, says, “If the wisdom of three volumes was still open to question as late as the end of 1762, I think it was only in Shenstone's mind and not in Percy's.” The appearance of doubt, he thinks, was given by the “curious blend of timidity and obstinacy” in Percy's character; and “his flexible arrangement with Dodsley shrewdly protected him in case pressure from Shenstone forced him to change his plan.”

15 See L. F. Powell, “Percy's Reliques,” Library (Sept., 1928), 114–136.

15 a B. M. Add. MS. 28,222, fol. 46, Undated, but evidently about Nov. 11.

16 Letters from Thomas Percy … and Others, to George Paton, p. 2.

17 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 32331, fol. 60. June 2, 1764.

18 Mr. Churchill calls attention to two other explanations of the mode of Percy's introduction to the Northumberlands: “The less convincing is that Goldsmith had something to do with it. Robert Nugent at about this period introduced Goldsmith to the Earl of Northumberland, according to Percy's Memoir of Goldsmith in Goldsmith's Miscellaneous Works (1801), i, 66. And Gerald Brenan, in A History of the House of Percy (London, 1902), pp. 452–453, says that 'Through Goldsmith's introduction, he (i.e., the Earl of Northumberland) became the patron and fast friend of Thomas Percy.' The other and somewhat more plausible suggestion is found in a statement of the Rev. Hannington Elgee Boyd, in the last years of Percy's life his domestic chaplain, who said that 'through the kindness of the Earl of Sussex, he [i.e., Percy] was introduced to the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland.' This statement appears in Boyd's account of Percy's life to be found in George Bellett, The Antiquities of Bridgenorth (Bridgenorth, 1856), p. 240.”

19 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 32334, fol. 2.

20 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 32336, i, fol. 52.

21 Idem, i, fols. 57, 58, 59.

22 Idem, fol. 60.—This Byron was great uncle of the poet. He had killed his friend Chaworth in a duel after a dispute as to the best way to preserve game.

23 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 32331, fol. 78.

24 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 35230, fol. 25. July 30, 1765.

25 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 32336, i, fol. 75.

26 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 28222, fol. 57.

27 Hales and Furnivall, Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript, i, lx.

28 Gaussen, A. C. C., Percy: Prelate and Poet, 73.

29 Nichols, Illustrations, vii, 288. March 25, 1765.

30 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 32331, fols. 74–75.

31 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 32329. fols. 101–102.

32 Ibid., fol. 105.

33 Harvard Percy Papers, folder 130.

34 Nichols, op. cit., viii, 71.

35 Idem, vii, 439; viii, 191.