The Press. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1911. A FAMOUS IRISH BISHOP.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 14162, 30 September 1911, Page 8

The Press. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1911. A FAMOUS IRISH BISHOP.

Just one hundred years ago to-day the Right Reverend (The Lord Bishop of Dromore posted to h« well-earned rest. A man who can mako good hie claim aft a pioneer in the three deportments of Linguistics, Literature, And Archa»ology, and of whom the groat Doctor Johnson wrote "he vexes mo sometimes, "but I am afraid it is by making mc '* feel my own ignorance," is, we submit, wety entitled to the honours of centenary celebration. And all these distinctions fell to the share of the fortunate THomce Percy who passed the first twenty-nine year* of his professional life as vicar of Enston-Maudit, in Northamptonshire, the second trrentyuine as Bishop of Dromore, in tho County of Down* Bis praiee in reoorded in the pagoe of Boewell, And we have Samuel Johnson's own word for it that "he was.a man very willing to " leant, And Tery Able to t«ach; a man "out of whoso company I never ge "-without 'iaVinK learned something." After co oandaCHne a testimony as this, we need not ;be .surprised to team ttat on one occasion there wee a very pretty quarrel between then, when Sii* Infi&mmablo parti"eles having collected for a cloud to "baret," ebobk' Olympus with the wo4ful Bold, airl We have •-'dott witk oitflitjr. W«i», to bo v

" rude as w« please I" -fcnt this, as Mr - Kudyard Kipling -was once iond of saying, is another etory. Born at Bridgnorth, Shropshire, tho eon of an hereditary grocer, and spelling his name at different epochs -with fine impartiality "Pearcy," "Piercy," and "Percy," Dr. Percy was educated at the local grammar school, and graduated without distinction at Christ Church, Oxford. Early in his clerical career he claimed to be the heir male of tho ancient and honourable house of Percy, and fully satisfied Boswell, " both as a " lawyer accustomed to the considera- " tion of evidence, and as a genealogist "versed in the study of pedigrees," of the justice of his claim. Later authorities have proved more sceptical. But no doubt it was this amiable foible of - the good parson's that first turned his attention to those old world Tecords and remains of antiquity which he was to do so much towards restoring to the d light of day. And he was lucky in having in a neighbouring parish—the 18th century clergy had a larger leisure v than their successors in the twentieth— the Rev. Edward Lye, tho foremost Anglo-Saxon and Gothic scholar in tho England of hie day, to quickon his interest in tho past. Jt was with Lye's assistance, and under the stimulus of "Ossian" Maopherson's recent studies in Erse and Gaelic poetry,* that he published in 1763 " Five Pieces of Runic " Poetry, translated from the Islandic " (sic) Language." This work he followed up in later years with tho first English translation of tho Eddas, to which he prefixed an interesting and discriminating essay on tho early Celtic - and Germanic races and languages. In 1768 he explored another field. For in that year he published " Tho HouseL "hold Book of the Earl of Xorthum- ** "berland in 1512, and his Castles in A "Yorkshire," tho first of the long £ series of eimilar publications which JJ havo thrown such intimate light on ' tho life of the past. But his "magnum opus," and that 35 on which his fame rests unassailable, - was "Tho Reliques of Ancient English "Poetry," published in three volumes, small octavo, in the year 1765. For *• this publication, as Professor Hales affirms, marks an epoch in the history of English Literature, ■ and promoted j, with lasting effect a revival of interest in our older poetry. It is one cf •thoso happy achievements in which '' luck pl»y3 a leading part. For in the course of his parish visiting, Percy one day found "lying dirty on tho " floor in a bureau in the parlour" of one Humphrey Pitt, an old folio MS 5 containing copies in an early soven- . teenth century handwriting of many old poems of various dates. The curious may see it for themselves in tho edition published by Hales and Furniv'al in 1867-8. Those wore days before the modern newspaper discharged its varied.functions in domestic economy, and the maids woro using the unique treasure not "to bottom " tarte and cheese-cakes nice," but—■ wo shudder at tho desecration—to light the fires. Tho vicar bore it off s in triumph, and wa* persuaded by his *• friend Shonstono, tho author of "The "Schoolmistress," for we love k> be particular, to preparo it for publication. This not without much inward trepidation, and it ie amusing , to find.him ensconcing himself in his Pre- * face behind » bulwark of learned friende. "The names of so many men " of learning and character the editor V hopes will eervo ac an amulet to * " guard him from evfcry unfavourable *" " censure for having bestowed any I •• attention on a parcel of old Ballade." .. No doubfc ho felt his name would go * down to poetwity as th* author of a "A New Translation of Solomon's * "Song," and "A Key to tho New TeetaJ " men V books -Which won him his Koyal j chaplaincy, hi« deanery of Carlisle, and £ ultimately hia bishopric. But it was c tho work of "now and then a vacant a "hour amid the leisure and retirer j <r meat of rural life/ the casual roil creation from graver studies, which in tho irony of fate wae destined to confer £ bis meed of immortality. For the c labours ©if tho scholarly divine, and r * the zealous -bishop, useful as'they were * in their day, have passed into forgefcfulnese, but the "Reliques" have proved the inspiration of generations of workers in. the delightful field of ballad poetry. Poor man, hie reward in his own generation came in a sentence of banishment. Tho vioar of EustonMftudit was a familiar figure in the. ~ learned -world of London, but the '_ Bishop of Dromoro, like Swift in an earlier age. found himself clean cut off. Tho county of Down, as ho bitter'y a complains, wae a place where oven leti tors frequently failed to reach their . destination, and where, like some public a libraries that we hare known, the good c bishop was "months in arrears with >- "the latest magazines!"