"The dragon's wing,
The magic ring,
I shall not covet for my dower."[49]

What he learned from the popular ballad was the power of sincerity and of
direct and homely speech.

As for Scott, he has recorded in an oft-quoted passage the impression
that Percy's volumes made upon him in his school-days: "I remember well
the spot where I read these volumes for the first time. It was beneath a
huge plantain tree in the ruins of what had been intended for an
old-fashioned arbor in the garden I have mentioned. The summer day sped
onward so fast that, notwithstanding the sharp appetite of thirteen, I
forgot the hour of dinner, was sought for with anxiety, and was still
found entranced in my intellectual banquet. To read and to remember was,
in this instance, the same thing; and henceforth I overwhelmed my
school-fellows, and all who would hearken to me, with tragical
recitations from the ballads of Bishop Percy. The first time, too, I
could scrape a few shillings together, I bought unto myself a copy of
these beloved volumes; nor do I believe I ever read a book so frequently,
or with half the enthusiasm."

The "Reliques" worked powerfully in Germany, too. It was received in
Lessing's circle with universal enthusiasm,[50] and fell in with that
newly aroused interest in "Volkslieder" which prompted Herder's "Stimmen
der Völker" (1778-79).[51] Gottfried August Bürger, in particular, was a
poet who may be said to have been made by the English ballad literature,
of which he was an ardent student. His poems were published in 1778, and
included five translations from Percy: "The Child of Elle" ("Die
Entführung"), "The Friar of Orders Grey" ("Graurock"), "The Wanton Wife