[2] Percy attended Oxford University where he studied logic under the Aristotelian scholar John Case, along with Italian and Latin, although his growing interest was contemporary English literature, including the works of Gabriel Harvey, Sidney and Spenser.
He therefore added an epistle in which he urged the reader of the sonnets "to account of them as of toyes," promising that "ere long, I will impart vnto the world another Poeme which shall be both more fruitfull and ponderous.
The Faery Pastoral, or, Forest of Elves may have been written for the visit of James I to Syon House (London home of Percy's brother the Earl) on 8 June 1603.
Although none of his plays have attracted praise for literary merit, Arabia sitiens, more recently known by the alternate title Mahomet and His Heaven, is of interest because it gives some insight into contemporary English attitudes to Islam.
[7] He finally settled in Oxford where, according to Anthony Wood, he died in reduced circumstances: "an aged Bachelour in Pennyfarthingstreet, after he had lived a melancholy & retired life many yeares" and was "buried in the Cathedrall of Ch[rist] Church neare to the grave of Sir Hen.