The Reliques of Ancient English Poetry is a collection of ballads and popular songs collected by Bishop Thomas Percy and published in 1765.
Title page of the third edition of Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1775).
Joseph Wright of Derby – William and Margaret from Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, c. 1785
Walter Scott
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Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature. He is known for his Waverley novels, which were, for
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
…and William Wordsworth to compose their own literary ballads in imitation, it also made the collecting and study of oral poetry a popular pastime. Sir Walter Scott was another writer inspired by reading the Reliques in his youth, and he published some of the ballads he collected in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border…
Sir Walter Scott by Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1826
Scott's childhood at Sandyknowes, in the shadow of Smailholm Tower, introduced him to the tales and folklore of the Scottish Borders
The Scott family's home in George Square, Edinburgh, from about 1778
Sketch of Scott c.1800 by an unknown artist