Page:Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript. Ballads and Romances.djvu/38

 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, 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,