Thomas Percy

Thomas Percy (1729–1811), born in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, was an English clergyman who became Bishop of Dromore in Ireland in 1782. He is remembered above all for Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765), the collection of old ballads and songs that did much to start the Romantic revival of interest in popular poetry.

Besides editing, he composed or reworked pieces of his own for the Reliques. "The Friar of Orders Gray", which weaves together scraps of old songs and lines from Shakespeare into a new ballad, is the best known of them.