Reliques of ancient English poetry

First of 3 volumes in 8vo. ff. [2] (blank), pp. xxiii, [v], 344, f. [1] (blank). Calf. Gilt, with contrasting morocco labels. Contains illustrations, music, engraved head- and tailpieces, and title vignettes. Full-page engraving as frontispiece , signed "S. Wale del., C. Grignion Sculp." 

First edition. At vol. II, pp. 87-102 Bishop Percy includes the ballad imitation ‘Hardyknute,’ but as a modern, skilful pastiche, presented for comparison with ‘other pieces of genuine antiquity,’ and attributed (for the first time in print?) to Elizabeth Halket (1677-1727), Lady Wardlaw. Previously, the poem was first printed on a single duodecimo leaf in 1719 (D.F. Foxon, English Verse, 1701-1750, W 213, known in only three copies) as an ancient poem discovered in a vault at Dumferline by Lady Wardlaw. See Bib# 4103137/Fr# 483 in this collection for Allan Ramsay’s edition of the poem and Bib# 7138287/Fr# 483.1 for a forged ‘Second Part’ of the poem by John Pinkerton, which deceived Percy. See M.G. Robinson & L. Dennis, ‘The Percy Letters’ (Vol. 4: The correspondence of T. Percy and T. Warton, Baton Rouge, 1951), pp. 17-18. In the 1767 second edition of the ‘Reliques’ Percy identifies his Scottish correspondent as Lord Hailes, but otherwise the note is the same (pace Robert Chambers (see Bib# 4103139/Fr# 485). See also ESTC, T84936.

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