Thomas Percy

“The study of antiquity is not every man’s taste.”

“It has been a favourite subject of complaint, that poetry is now-a-days exhausted.”

“He that would form a real-life character must not content himself with the general nature of man.”

“A late editor of these old English poems has well observed, that in a polished age, like the present, they are apt to be received with neglect and contempt.”

“In a polished age, like the present, it is not easy to make new songs and ballads on ancient subjects, which shall be approved.”