This ballad, usually known as _The Hermit_, was written in or before 1765, and printed privately in that year ‘for the amusement of the Countess of Northumberland,’ whose acquaintance Goldsmith had recently made through Mr. Nugent. (See the prefatory note to _The Haunch of Venison_.) Its title was ‘_Edwin and Angelina. A Ballad_. By Mr. Goldsmith.’ It was first published in _The Vicar of Wakefield_, 1766, where it appears at pp. 70–7, vol. i. In July, 1767, Goldsmith was accused [by Dr. Kenrick] in the _St. James’s Chronicle_ of having taken it from Percy’s _ Friar of Orders Gray_. Thereupon he addressed a letter to the paper, of which the following is the material portion:—‘Another Correspondent of yours accuses me of having taken a Ballad, I published some Time ago, from one by the ingenious Mr. Percy. I do not think there is any great Resemblance between the two Pieces in Question. If there be any, his Ballad is taken from mine. I read it to Mr. Percy some Years ago, and he (as we both considered these Things as Trifles at best) told me, with his usual Good Humour, the next Time I saw him, that he had taken my Plan to form the fragments of Shakespeare into a Ballad of his own. He then read me his little Cento, if I may so call it, and I highly approved it. Such petty Anecdotes as these are scarce worth printing, and were it not for the busy Disposition of some of your Correspondents, the Publick should never have known that he owes me the Hint of his Ballad, or that I am obliged to his Friendship and Learning for Communications of a much more important Nature.—I am, Sir, your’s etc. OLIVER GOLDSMITH.’ (_St. James’s Chronicle_, July 23–5, 1767.) No contradiction of this statement appears to have been offered by Percy; but in re-editing his _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_ in 1775, shortly after Goldsmith’s death, he affixed this note to _The Friar of Orders Gray_:—‘As the foregoing song has been thought to have suggested to our late excellent poet, Dr. Goldsmith, the plan of his beautiful ballad of _Edwin and Emma_ [_Angelina_], first printed [published?] in his _ Vicar of Wakefield_, it is but justice to his memory to declare, that his poem was written first, and that if there is any imitation in the case, they will be found both to be indebted to the beautiful old ballad, _Gentle Herdsman, etc._, printed in the second volume of this work, which the doctor had much admired in manuscript, and has finely improved’ (vol. i. p. 250). The same story is told, in slightly different terms, at pp. 74–5 of the _Memoir_ of Goldsmith drawn up under Percy’s superintendence for the _Miscellaneous Works_ of 1801, and a few stanzas of _Gentle Herdsman_,