CHAP, x.] THE TEA TELLER AND WHAT FOLLOWED IT.
was charged to Lave copied it from, was a composition by 1765.
Percy of stanzas old and new (much modern writing, I need 2EUJ7
hardly remark, entered into the "ancient" reliques; the
editor publishing among them, for example, Ms friend
Grainger's entirely modern and exquisite ballad of Bryan and
Pereene): and Goldsmith's answer was to the effect that he
did not think there was any great resemblance between the
two pieces in question; but that if any existed, Mr. Percy's
ballad was the imitation, inasmuch as the Edwin and
Angelina had been read to him two years before (in the
present year), and at their next meeting he had observed,
"with his usual good humour," that he had taken the plan
of it to form the fragments of Shakspeare into a ballad of
his own. " He then," added Goldsmith, " read me his little
" cento, if I may so call it, and I highly approved it."*
Out of these circumstances it of course arose that Gold-
smith's ballad was shown to the wife of Percy's patron, who
had some taste for literature, and affected a little notice of
its followers. The countess admired it so much that she
had a few copies privately printed. I have seen the late
Mr. Heber's, with the title-page of " Edwin and Angelina, a
" ballad ; by Mr. Goldsmith. Printed for the amusement of
" the Countess of Northumberland." It is now rare; and
has a value independent of its rarity, in its illustration of
an. old French novel; but the attempt at once called forth an expostulatory comment
from a correspondent, known to be Bishop Percy, in the Monthly Review for Oct. 179 7.
It was afterwards, by another correspondent, elaborately exposed and ridiculed in the
same Review for July 1798; and by the same writer, on its subsequent revival,
in the European Magazine for May 1812. I mention it here only to guard against
any future revival of the slander.
* I subjoin the letter, from the St. James's Chronicle (July 23-25, 1767), at
the commencement of which is an allusion to another ill-natured comment, of
which he had been the subject in the same journal. " SIB, As there is nothing
" I dislike so much as newspaper controversy, particularly upon trifles, permit me
" to be as concise as possible in informing a correspondent of yours, that I recom-
" mended Blainville's travels because I thought the book was a good one ; and I
B D 2