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.