sh Metrical Romances_
(1802).]

[Footnote 37: Ellis published his _Specimens of the Early English
Poets_ in 1790, and it was reissued with the addition of the
Introduction in 1801 and 1803. He edited also Way's translations of
the Fabliaux (1796), and _Specimens of Early English Romances in
Metre_ (1805).]

[Footnote 38: Review of Dunlop's _History of Fiction_, July, 1815.]

[Footnote 39: The _Magnum Opus_ of Robert Surtees was his _History of
Durham_, published 1816-1840.]

[Footnote 40: Douce published _Illustrations of Shakespeare_ in 1807.
Later he edited _Arnold's Chronicle; Judicium, a Pageant_; and a
metrical _Life of St. Robert_. The two latter, which appeared in 1822
and 1824, were done for the Roxburghe Club. In 1824 he also wrote some
notes for Warton's _History of English Poetry_.]

[Footnote 41: _Age of Wordsworth_, p. 39.]

[Footnote 42: A number of volumes containing old ballads together with
modern imitations had been published both before and after the
appearance of Percy's _Reliques_, but Ritson's collections were the
first, except Percy's, to treat the material in a scholarly way.]

[Footnote 43: The discussion centered upon the social and literary
position of minstrels. The first edition of the _Reliques of Ancient
English Poetry_, published in 1765, contained an essay on the History
of Minstrelsy, and one on the Origin of the Metrical Romances, which,
taken together, says Mr. Courthope, "may be said to furnish the first
generalized theory of the nature of mediaeval poetry." (_History of
English Poetry_, Vol. I, p. 426.) Percy considered the minstrels as
the authors of the compositions which they sang to the harp, and as
holding a dignified social position similar to that of the Anglo-Saxon
scop or the old Norse scald. This theory was vigorously attacked by
Joseph Ritson in the preface of his _Select Collection of English
Songs_ in 1783, and again in his _Ancient English Metrical Romances_
in 1802, and in his essay On the Ancient English Minstrels in Ancient
Songs and Ballads (1792). Ritson contended that minstrels were musical
performers of a low class, or even acrobats, and that they were not
literary composers. Scott used his knowledge of ballads and romances
and the customs depicted in them to reinforce his own decision that
the truth lay somewhere between the two extremes. He pointed out that
the word may have co