As in the development of naturalism, so in this revival of the middle Ages, a powerful influence exerted by the revival of interest in ballad literature.
The most important ballad collection after eighteenth century was Bishop Percy’s Relinquish of Ancient English Poetry. The Relinquish ironed a great power in spreading romantic tastes, and as we shall presently see his first I of them made a epoch in the intellectual development of Scott. Another remarkable |lad collection is that of Thomas Chatterton, known as Rowley, poems, which he gave out she work of a certain Thomas Rowley, a mythical Bristol priest of the fifteenth century.
This medieval revival was accompanied by a further spread of interest in the romantic past, and especially by a revival of interest in the heroic and legendary world of the north the world of Celtic antiquity. This is seen in the popularity of the Oceanic Poems of James Macpherson,) 736-96).