He had already noted, in his account of Bürger's poems,[1] that the German poet had transferred to Germany the scene of all English poems he had used. Thus in his Lenore, which is based upon the English ballad of Sweet William's Ghost, Bürger had transferred the scene to the German wars of Frederick and the Queen of Austria. Taylor's modification merely returned the story to the country from which it had been originally taken.
The references to Taylor's translation in the reviews of the other versions are proof that it was appreciated. Other evidence is furnished by letters of literary people of the time. One of the earliest I have found is by Anna Seward, often called the Swan of Lichfield. In a letter of June 1, 1796, she asks:
Have you read any of the translations of a short German poem, called William and Lenora? I hear there are several, but that the one which was shown to me is the best, and it is printed entire in the Monthly Magazine of March last. It is the wildest and oddest of all terrible things, and has made considerable noise amongst our few poetic readers. [She notes the relation of Lenore to the English Sweet William's Ghost, and thinks Bürger was also influenced by the Scripture 'Death on his white horse.'] The short abrupt measure of the translation before mentioned, suits the rapidity of a midnight journey of a thousand miles. The German poet has given a great accession of sublimity, in spite of the vulgarness of cant phrases, used for the purpose of picturesque sound. The pale steed, on which the lover mounts with his mistress—the flying backward to right and left of woods, rocks, mountains, plains, and towns, by the speed of travel, and overhead the scudding back of the moon and stars—the creeping train of the swarthy funeral, chanting the death-psalm, like toads croaking from the dark and lonely moors—the transformation of the knight to a bony and eyeless skeleton—the vanishing of the death-horse, breathing charnel-fires, then thinning to smoke, and paling and bleaching away to nothing—are grand additions to the terrific graces of the ancient song.[2]
Yet this literary judgment of the Swan of Lichfield was soon to be surprisingly transformed. In July she received from Lord Bagot a copy of Mr. Spencer's Leonora with the designs of Lady Beauclerk, and ever after she was a fervent admirer of that version of the German ballad. Yet she does occasionally have a lingering appreciation of the Taylor translation. In a letter of July 19, announcing the gift of Lord Bagot, she writes:
