or with half the enthusiasm."

The "Reliques" worked powerfully in Germany, too. It was received in
Lessing's circle with universal enthusiasm,[50] and fell in with that
newly aroused interest in "Volkslieder" which prompted Herder's "Stimmen
der Voelker" (1778-79).[51] Gottfried August Buerger, in particular, was a
poet who may be said to have been made by the English ballad literature,
of which he was an ardent student. His poems were published in 1778, and
included five translations from Percy: "The Child of Elle" ("Die
Entfuehrung"), "The Friar of Orders Grey" ("Graurock"), "The Wanton Wife
of Bath" ("Frau Schnips"), "King John and the Abbot of Canterbury" ("Der
Kaiser und der Abt"), and "Child Waters" ("Graf Walter"). A. W. Schlegel
says that Burger did not select the more ancient and genuine pieces in
the "Reliques"; and, moreover, that he spoiled the simplicity of the
originals in his translations. It was doubtless in part the success of
the "Reliques" that is answerable for many collections of old English
poetry put forth in the last years of the century. Tyrwhitt's "Chaucer"
and Ritson's publications have been already mentioned. George Ellis, a
friend and correspondent of Walter Scott, and a fellow of the Society of
Antiquaries, who was sometimes called "the Sainte Palaye of England,"
issued his "Specimens of Early English Poets" in 1790; edited in 1796 G.
L. Way's translations from French _fabliaux_ of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries; and printed in 1805 three volumes of "Early English
Metrical Romances."

It is pleasant to record that Percy's labors brought him public
recognition and the patronage of those whom Dr. Johnson used to call "the
great." He had dedicated the "Reliques" to Elizabeth Percy, Countess of
Northumberland. Himself the son of a grocer, he liked to think that he
was connected by blood with the great northern house whose exploits had
been sung by the ancient minstrels that he loved. He became chaplain to
the Duke of Northumberland, and to King George III.; and, in 1782, Bishop
of Dromore in Ireland, in which see he died in 1811.

This may be as fit a place as any to introduce some mention of "The
Minstrel, or the Progress of Genius," by James Beattie; a poem once
widely popular, in which several strands of romantic influence are seen
twisted together. The first book was published in 1771, the second in
1774, and the work was never completed. It was in the Spenserian stanza,