Blount, author of the Jocular Tenures (1679), Boscobel (1660), Academie of Eloquence (1654), Glossographia (1656), a Law Dictionary (1670), Journey to Jerusalem, &c., a native of Bardesley, Worcestershire, and a barrister of the Middle Temple, whose date is 1618-79 (Alibone). The Keeper of the MSS. in the British Museum could not find any of Blount's writing to compare with that of the MS.; but if any one can believe that a man of Blount's training copied this MS. when he was in full power, at the age of 30 or 32, I cannot. The photolithograph of Bell my Wiffe represents the copier's hand, though coarsened, as in all such cases, by the giving of the soft paper when pressure was put on its back to transfer the photograph to the stone. The ink-spots from the writing on the other side, which all the pages of the MS. show, are not represented in the photolithograph, as they came out as deep in tint as the letters of Bell itself, and made the page so blotchy that it could hardly be read. Percy's little notes are seen in the margin."
6. Since Percy and his nephew printed their fourth edition of the Reliques from the MS. in 1794, no one has printed any piece from it except Robert Jamieson,[1] to whom Percy supplied a copy of Child Maurice and Robin Hood & the Old Man (or Robin Hood, a Beggar, & the Three Squires, as we call it,
- ↑ To the original editor of the Reliques of Antient English Poetry I owe the very curious copy of "Child Maurice,"* and the fragment of "Robin Hood and the Old Man."† Nothing could be more liberal than the conduct of the present possessor of the Folio MS. from which these fragments are extracted; and if this miscellany has been enriched with fewer pieces from that valuable repository than was at first expected,‡ the world have no reason to be sorry for it, as the Rev. Dr. Percy of St. John's College, Oxford, the editor of the last edition of the Reliques,§ is collecting for a fourth volume of that work. Popular Ballads and Songs, $c., by Robert Jamieson, Edin., 1806 v. i. p. vi.-vii. In 1800, Percy gave an account of Eger & Grime for Walter Scott's use. See i. 342 here.
*Jamieson, i. 8-15. †ib. u. 49.
‡See a notice of him in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, viii., 147-8, notes: "He was the ostensible Editor of the fourth Edition of the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry." On this see i. xxxix. and ii. 264, note, here.
§See Jamieson's letter to Percy in Nichols's Illust., viii. 337-41: "Those which I am at present more solicitous to have are the 'Fragments of Robin Hood and the Beggar,' and any other Sherwood ballads that may be found in it worth preserving and the fragments of the 'Child of Elle.' Every person that I have met with, fond of such things, has expressed a wish that you had done yourself the justice to publish the scraps of that beautiful ballad."
(For Percy's answer see p. Ivii. below.)
