Percy, THOMAS, editor of the famous Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, was born a grocer's son at Bridgnorth in Shropshire, April 13, 1729. He was educated at the grammar-school there; in 1746 entered Christ Church, Oxford; and in 1753 was presented by his college to the sequestered vicarage of Easton Maudit, Northamptonshire, where he lived for twenty-five years. In 1756 he married happily, and three years after received also the adjacent rectory of Wilby. His leisure soon yielded fruit in Hau Kiou Chooan (4 vols. 1761), a Chinese novel translated from the Portuguese, and Miscellaneous Pieces relating to the Chinese (2 vols. 1762), as well as anonymously in Five Pieces of Runic Poetry translated from Icelandic (1763), prompted by the success of Macpherson, and A New Translation of the Song of Solomon from the Hebrew (1764). In the summer of 1764 Dr Johnson paid him a long visit at Easton Maudit. In later days they sometimes quarrelled, but continued to retain a high regard for each other. 'A man out of whose company I never go without having learned something'—so Johnson described him to Boswell. 'I am sure that he vexes me sometimes, but I am afraid it is by making me feel my own ignorance.' In the February of the following year (1765) Percy published in 3 vols. the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (4th ed. 1794; an excellent edition by H. B. Wheatley, 3 vols. 1886). He had long been engaged in collecting old ballads from every quarter, and a large folio MS. of ballads had fallen accidentally into his hands, having been found 'lying dirty on the floor under a Bureau in the Parlour' of his friend Humphrey Pitt of Shifnal, in Shropshire, 'being used by the maids to light the fire.' This he claimed as the original of his work, but of the 176 pieces in the first edition actually only 45 were taken from the folio MS.; while almost all those actually from it were so touched up and tricked out in false ornament and conventional 18th-century poetic diction as often to bear but little likeness to their originals. For example, the 39 lines of the 'Child of Æll' have been puffed out to 200 in Percy's version, nor do even all the 39 originals themselves appear.
Again, the 'Heir of Lin' has swollen from 125 lines to 216, and these, moreover, polished to death. The antiquary Ritson, in his 'Observations on the Ancient English Minstrels' prefixed to his Ancient Songs from Henry III. to the Revolution (1790), attacked Percy with characteristic acrimony, denied the very existence of the folio MS., and denounced the work as an impudent forgery, and that the worse because by a clergyman. Percy exhibited the MS. in Pall Mall, and had his portrait painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds holding it in his hand. For over a hundred years it lay hid in Ecton Hall, jealously guarded from almost all eyes, until at length Mr Furnivall, instigated by Professor Child, succeeded in getting it printed (3 vols. 1867-68; those deservedly marked by the bishop 'loose and humorous' being printed separately), with Introductions by Professor Hales and himself. The MS. was 15½ inches long by 5½ wide and about 2 inches thick, and was written in a Caroline hand.
The publication of Percy's Reliques was first suggested to him by Shenstone. The work was dedicated to the Countess of Northumberland, and the author was soon rewarded by being made chaplain to her husband, the first duke of the present creation, while he also succeeded in persuading himself that he was a scion of the noble house of Percy. In 1769 he became chaplain to George III., and next year he took his degree of D.D. at Cambridge, and published his translation of the Northern Antiquities of the Swiss historian Paul Henri Mallet (1730-1807). About 1771 his wife was appointed nurse to the Prince Edward, afterwards father of Queen Victoria; it was to her, before their marriage, that Percy addressed the famous ballad, 'O Nancy wilt thou go with me?' first printed in 1758, and happily set to music by an Irishman, Thomas Carter (c. 1735-1804). In 1771 Percy wrote also his pleasing ballad the 'Hermit of Warkworth.' In 1778 he was appointed to the deanery of Carlisle, in 1782 to be Bishop of Dromore, with £2000 a year. His only son died in 1783; his wife in 1806; he himself, after a few years of blindness, 30th September 1811—the only survivor of the original members of Dr Johnson's famous Literary Club. He left two daughters, and was buried in the transept which he himself had added to Dromore Cathedral.
For the literary influence of the Reliques, see the article BALLAD. A good Life by the Rev. J. Pickford is prefixed to vol. i. of Hales and Furnivall's reprint. Many of his letters are given in vol. viii. of J. B. Nichol's Illustrations of the Literary History of the 18th Century. His name was assumed by the Percy Society (94 issues, 1840-52).