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Table of Contents
  • Audiet Pugnas vitio Parentum / Rara Juventus. Hor: Young men—the few who are left after the crimes of their fathers—will hear of battles. [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Bonae leges ex malis moribus proveniunt: Good laws spring from bad habits [School and College Latin Exercises]
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  • Adjecere bonae paulo plus artis Athenae: Kind Athens Added a Little More Skill [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Mea nec Falernae Temperant Vites, neque Formiani Pocula Colles: Neither Falernian vines nor Formian hills mellow my cups [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Scheme for the Classes of a Grammar School
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  • Dedication for Robert James's Medicinal Dictionary
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  • "Dedication to John Lindsay, Evangelical History of Our Lord Jesus Christ Harmonized
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  • Review of William Tytler, Historical and Critical Enquiry into the Evidence Produced … Against Mary Queen of Scots
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  • Dedication to Jerusalem Delivered (1763)
  • Dedication to The Works of Metastasio (1767)
  • Dedication to Cyrus: A Tragedy (1768)
  • Review of Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller
  • Dedication for Thomas Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
  • 23 Sept. 1765 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 1–4 Oct. 1765. [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 20 Nov. 1765. [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 19 Dec. 1765. [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
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  • Dedication for George Adams, A Treatise Describing and Explaining the Construction and Use of New Celestial and Terrestrial Globes
  • Dedication to John Gwynn, London and Westminster Improved
  • Preface to Alexander MacBean, A Dictionary of Ancient Geography
  • Meditation on a Pudding
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  • Dedication for A General History of Music (1776)
  • From A General History of Music, Vol. II (1782)
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  • Dedication to Zachary Pearce, A Commentary, with Notes, on the Four Evangelists and the Acts of the Apostles
  • Letter of 16 May 1777
  • The Petition of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London, in Common Council Assembled, Friday 6 June 1777
  • Letter to Lord Bathurst, the Lord Chancellor, 8 June 1777
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  • Petition of Mrs. Mary Dodd to the Queen
  • Dodd’s Letter to the King, Sunday, 22 June 1777
  • Petition of William Dodd to the King, Monday, 23 June 1777
  • Dodd’s Last Solemn Declaration, Wednesday, 25 June 1777
  • Johnson’s Observations on the Propriety of Pardoning William Dodd, Wednesday, 25 June 1777
  • Introduction and Conclusion to Occasional Papers (1777)
  • Proposal for Printing William Shaw, An Analysis of the Scotch Celtic Language
  • Dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds, Seven Discourses
  • Preface to Thomas Maurice, Oedipus Tyrannus
  • The Case of Collier v. Flint
  • Translation of Sallust, De Bello Catilinario
  • General Rules of the Essex Head Club
  • On the Character and Duty of an Academick
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© 2023
Dedication for Thomas Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
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By Johnson, Samuel

Samuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand

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DEDICATION FOR THOMAS PERCY, RELIQUES OF ANCIENT ENGLISH POETRY (1765)
[Editorial Introduction]
Reporting on Johnson’s visit to Percy in the summer of 1764 when he was, as he says in his diary, working on the dedication to his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Boswell suggested that he got help from Johnson, just as Reynolds, Boswell said, would later get help from Johnson on the dedication to his Discourses. Reynolds, however, obliged Boswell to cancel that passage in the Life, and in doing so Boswell also canceled the part about Percy’s indebtedness to Johnson. He replaced the passage with general remarks about Johnson’s assistance to his friends in writing or rewriting dedications, but the indexer, who apparently used uncanceled copy, listed the new passage under “Percy, Dr., his Reliques of English Poetry,” thus revealing his indebtedness to Johnson. Percy was evidently unhappy about this because, like Reynolds, he wished to be thought capable of writing his own dedication. In the event, Malone mollified Percy,1 who was not too proud to acknowledge in writing to Robert Anderson on 18 June 1800 that Johnson contributed the “finest strokes” in his original dedication to the Countess of Northumberland and that he rewrote the dedication for a later edition because he no longer wished “to strut in borrowed feathers.”2 Proof-sheets of the first edition of Percy’s Reliques now at the Houghton Library (MS Eng 893 [275]) show even more conclusively that Johnson contributed to Percy’s original dedication.3 The Countess of Northumberland was also the dedicatee of Lennox’s translation of the Memoirs for the History of Madame de Maintenon and of the Last Age (1757), and it is possible that Johnson wrote or rewrote this dedication, too (see p. 204, n. 3 above). The performance for Percy, even if only the “finest strokes” are Johnson’s,


Page 503

is more energetic, however, and more worthy of inclusion in this volume than the dubiously attributed dedication to the same person for Lennox.
To the Right Honourable
Elizabeth
Countess of Northumberland:
In her own right
Baroness Percy, Lucy, Poynings, Fitz-Payne,
Bryan, and Latimer.1
Madam,
Those writers, who solicit the protection of the noble and the great, are often exposed to censure by the impropriety of their addresses: a remark that will perhaps be too readily applied to him, who having nothing better to offer than the rude songs of ancient minstrels, aspires to the patronage of the Countess of Northumberland, and hopes that the barbarous productions of unpolished ages can obtain the approbation or the notice of her, who adorns courts by her presence, and diffuses elegance by her example.
But this impropriety, it is presumed, will disappear, when it is declared that these poems are presented to your Ladyship, not as labours of art, but as effusions of nature, shewing the first efforts of ancient genius, and exhibiting the customs and opinions of remote ages: of ages that had been almost lost to memory, had not the gallant deeds of your illustrious ancestors preserved them from oblivion.2
No active or comprehensive mind can forbear some attention to the reliques of antiquity: it is prompted by natural curiosity to survey the progress of life and manners, and to inquire by what gradations barbarity was civilized, grossness refined, and ignorance instructed: but this curiosity, Madam,


Page 504

must be stronger in those, who, like your Ladyship, can remark in every period the influence of some great progenitor, and who still feel in their effects the transactions and events of distant centuries.
By such bards, Madam, as I am now introducing to your presence, was the infancy of genius nurtured and advanced, by such were the minds of unlettered warriors softened and enlarged, by such was the memory of illustrious actions preserved and propagated, by such were the heroic deeds of the earls of Northumberland sung at festivals in the hall of Alnwick:3 and those songs, which the bounty of your ancestors rewarded, now return to your Ladyship by a kind of hereditary right; and, I flatter myself, will find such reception, as is usually shewn to poets and historians, by those whose consciousness of merit makes it their interest to be long remembered.
I am, Madam, Your Ladyship’s Most humble And most devoted servant,
Thomas Percy.


Page 505

Editorial Notes
1 See Redford, Life MS, II.1–2 and n. 3; we rely on Redford’s recent, clear account of this complicated matter, but Hazen’s account is also accurate (pp. 161–62). Cf. Life, IV.555–56.
2 The Correspondence of Thomas Percy and Robert Anderson, ed. W. E. K. Anderson (1988), p. 26.
3 See Rodney M. Baine, “Percy’s Own Copies of the Reliques,” Harvard Library Bulletin, V (1951), 246–51.
1 Elizabeth Percy (née Lady Elizabeth Seymour), Duchess of Northumberland (1716–76), a patroness of the arts and one of the highest-ranking noblewomen in England; no relation to Thomas Percy.
2 William de Percy (d. 1096x9) may have come to England with William I in 1066; he and his descendants fought for many English kings against various foes, most of them Scots.
3 Henry Percy, first Lord Percy (1273–1314), acquired the barony and castle of Alnwick in Northumberland in 1309. Richard II created his great-grandson, Henry Percy (1341–1408), the first Earl of Northumberland in 1377.
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Document Details
Document TitleDedication for Thomas Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
AuthorJohnson, Samuel
Creation Date1764
Publ. DateN/A
Alt. TitleN/A
Contrib. AuthorN/A
ClassificationSubject: Thomas Percy; Subject: Antiquarian; Subject: Countess of Northumberland; Subject: Medieval English; Genre: Dedication
PrinterN/A
PublisherN/A
Publ. PlaceN/A
VolumeSamuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand
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DEDICATION FOR THOMAS ...
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To the Right Honourabl...
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