The Earliest English Translations of Bürger's Lenore: a Study in English and German Romanticism/Chapter 5

by Oliver Farrar Emerson

V. The Leonora of W. R. Spencer.

The fourth translator of Bürger's Lenore in 1796 has already been mentioned in connection with Mr. Stanley. The translation to be published next after Pye's, and Taylor's first version in the Monthly Magazine, was that of Mr. W. R. Spencer. The circumstances of its inception have also been made clear from the letter of Maria Josepha Holroyd, quoted on page 11. As already noted, also, Mr. Stanley's lending of his translation to Lady Diana Beauclerk probably occurred in the latter part of 1795, and this sufficiently dates the beginning of Mr. Spencer's undertaking.^[1]

The nephew of Lady Diana, who was to "improve" Stanley's translation for her designs, was William Robert Spencer, son of Charles Spencer, second son of the third Duke of Marlborough. Educated at Harrow and Oxford he lived without taking part in public life, or distinguishing himself in any way except as a social favorite. As such he was the friend of statesmen like Pitt and Fox and Sheridan, as he was later to be the friend of Byron and Moore and the London representatives of the new literature. Beginning with his translation of Bürger, too, he was to be something of a minor poet, as well as a wit and popular member of society. His "occasional verse" was to be warmly praised by Scott, Byron, and Christopher North. Hogg, quoted by Christopher North in Blackwood's, said of his Beth Gelert or the Grave of a Greyhound: "That chiel's a poet; those verses hae muckle o the auld ballart pathos and simplicity.^[2]

It was this Spencer who, about a decade later, lent Moore his pistols for the duel with Jeffrey.^[3] Spencer's friendship with Byron was also intimate. Byron, Moore, and he were the only literary men admitted to Watier's Club, which was anything but literary. Yet long before this hobnobbing with the later generation of poets, Spencer had ceased to admire German romanticism, for in 1802 he burlesqued the German ghost literature in a play called Urania, which was performed at Drury Lane theatre. He published volumes of poems in 1804 and 1811, while a collected edition appeared in 1835, a year after his death.^[4]

Lady Diana Beauclerk, who had become interested in Mr. Stanley's translation because it furnished subjects for her pencil, was the eldest daughter of Charles Spencer, third Duke of Marlborough,^[5] and was thus Mr. W. R. Spencer's aunt. She married first Frederick St. John, second Viscount Bolingbroke, from whom she was divorced by act of parliament in 1768. Two days later she was married to Topham Beauclerk, "the hero of the piece," as Walpole calls him,^[6] the friend of Johnson, and as such known to fame. Besides the drawings for Spencer's Leonora she made seven large designs for Horace Walpole's Mysterious Mother, and others for Spencer's edition of the Fables of Dryden (1797). She was an interesting as well as beautiful woman, though Johnson pronounced a very severe judgment upon her at her second marriage.^[7]

The Leonora of Spencer bore the following title-page:

Leonora/Translated from/the German/of/Gottfried Augustus Bürgher/by/W. R. Spencer, Esq./with/Designs/by/the Right Honourable/Lady Diana Beauclerc/London/Printed by T. Bensley/For J. Edwards, and E. and S. Harding, Pall Mall/1796.

Spencer's edition also included the German of Bürger, printed on pages opposite those of the English version, as was also done later in the collected edition of Spencer's Poems. Like Pye he seems to have striven to make the impression of a closer translation than that of Stanley. According to Mrs. Erskine, Mr. Spencer's wife, the beautiful Countess Spreti, had posed for Lady Diana's Leonora.^[8]

There is no reference in Spencer's Preface to the occasion of his translating Bürger, or Burgher as he regularly spells the name, nor to the previous version of Mr. Stanley, unless perhaps in a single sentence which may convey a slight:

To this merit [simplicity] Mr. Burgher has an undoubted claim, a claim our countrymen would be the first to allow, could they enjoy his expressions in their original purity, or his ideas in a faithful translation.

The allusion to Pye's version of Lenore is more direct, although Spencer's words "long entered the field" are probably not to be taken too seriously:

Between the completion of this poem and its publication, which has been unavoidably delayed, as much time was required by the artists to do justice to those exquisite designs which are its brightest ornament; an elegant version of the same ballad has been published by Mr. Pye. Had the author of this translation foreseen the intentions of the Laureat, he would not probably have risked a contest with such a distinguished competitor; but, as he had long entered the field before Mr. Pye appeared as his adversary, he will not now shrink from a combat where doubtful victory must ensure applause, and even complete failure allow the consolation of "Æneae magni dextra cadet."

In addition, Mr. Spencer's Preface gives a somewhat accurate estimate of Bürger and his poem. He speaks of him as "universally esteemed wherever the German language prevails as a national idiom, or is cultivated as a branch of education." He mentions "simplicity" as "the characteristic of his composition." Especially does he call supernaturalism the most important element of his power, and recognizes its relation to the new romanticism in England, as it had shown itself in fiction. Thus he writes:

One of the most powerful causes of Mr. Burgher's literary popularity is the deep tinge of superstition that shades all his compositions. Supernatural incidents are the darling subjects of his countrymen. Their minds vigorously conceive, and their language nobly expresses the terrible and majestic: and it must be allowed, that in this species of writing they would force from our nation the palm of excellence, were it not secured by the impregnable towers of Otranto.

Finally Mr. Spencer sums up the excellences of the particular poem he was presenting to his English readers. It will be noticed, too, that he emphasizes, much as Mr. Stanley had done, the moral of the piece. In this he seems as peculiarly English as his predecessor:

Of all their productions of this kind, Leonora is perhaps the most perfect. The story in a narrow compass unites tragic event, poetical surprise, and epic regularity. The admonitions of the Mother are just, although ill-timed. The despair of the Daughter at once natural and criminal; her punishment dreadful, but equitable. Few objections can be made to a subject new, simple, and striking; and none to a moral which cannot be too frequently or too awfully enforced.

Spencer's translation, which appeared on the first of July, 1796,^[9] was well received, especially as compared with Pye's. The Critical Review of July, 1796, says:

Turning to the translation itself [as distinct from the designs] we find it faithful and spirited. In the latter part particularly, we think Mr. Spencer has clearly the advantage over his two competitors. Our readers will judge from the following extract—[gives last four stanzas, of which the last is]

The fiend horse snorts; blue fiery flakes
Collected roll his nostrils round;
High reared his bristling mane he shakes,
And sinks beneath the rending ground.
Demons the thundering clouds bestride,
Ghosts yell the yawning tombs beneath:
Leonora's heart, its life-blood dried,
Hangs quiv'ring on the dart of death!^[10]

Outside the Reviews we have some evidence that Mr. Spencer's version was especially appreciated by those likely to be influenced by his connection with a noble house. Attention has already been called to the admiration of Miss Seward when she received a copy from Lord Bagot. She says at the beginning of her letter to Miss Wingfield, July 19, 1796:

And now I must proudly boast to you of Lord Bagot's goodness. He has honoured me with an obliging billet, accompanied by a very acceptable literary present. It is a superb book,— A German poem entitled Leonora and translated by Mr. Spencer. I apprehend the fine poetic talents of that gentleman have done much more than justice to the sublimity of his author's ideas. This tale of despairing love, reaches the ne-plus-ultra of horrific greatness.^[11]

She then follows with the quotation regarding Taylor's translation already given on p. 31.

More important is the description of her numerous readings during the year, in which Spencer's translation plays the important part. She writes to Miss Arden Dec. 17:

You ask if I have seen Spencer's Leonora, with engravings by Lady D. Beauclerk? Lord Bagot sent me that charming work, so beyond all comparison superior to all the other translations. I have not read aloud less than fifty times this violent story, adorned by the pencil of kindred genius. . . . One party after another petitioned to hear it, till there was scarce a morning in which a knot of eight or ten did not flock to my apartments, to be poetically frightened: Mr. Erskine, Mr. Wilberforce—everything that was everything, and everything that was nothing, flocked to Leonora; and here, since my return, the fame of this business having travelled from Buxton hither, the same curiosity has prevailed. Its horrible graces grapple minds and tastes of every complexion. Creatures that love not verses for their beauty, like these for their horrors.^[12]

Thus, at least in certain quarters, did the sedate and serious English mind respond to the new romanticism.

Mr. Spencer's translation of Bürger was to receive one further flattering notice from an eminent woman. In her De l' Allemagne, when published a second time in 1813,^[13] Madame de Staël, in discussing Bürger in chapter xiii of the second part, says:

II y a quatre traductions de la romance de Lénore en englais, mais la première de toutes, sans comparison, c'est celle de M. Spencer, le poëte anglois qui connoit le mieux le véritable esprit des langues étrangères. L' analogie de l' anglois avec l' allemand permit d' y faire sentir en entier l' originalité du style et de la versification of Bürger; et non-seulement on peut retrouver dans la traduction les mêmes idées que dans l' original, mais aussi les mêmes sensations; et rien n' est plus necessaire pour connoitre un ouvrage des beaux-arts. II seroit difficile d' obtenir le même résultat en françois, où rien de bézarre n' est naturel

As this passage is not one marked for suppression by the Paris police when her first edition was allowed to go to press, Madame de Staël must have met Mr. Spencer's translation before her visit to London in the spring and summer of 1813, when she was so much feted by the society of the English capital. But Mr. Spencer was already somewhat known in French literary circles, for Delille makes allusion to him in his poem Les Jardins. In describing the seat of the Spencers, Blenheim, he compliments the English poet in the lines,

Spencer! l' honneur du moderne Elysee!
Marlbrough en est l' Achilles; et Spencer le musee!^[14]

This reference is in the flattering biography of Spencer which appeared with his collected Poems in 1835, a year after his death. That biographer, Miss Louisa F. Poulter has this to say of his Leonora:

This translation had remarkable success among the best judges. Sir Walter Scott thought very highly of it, and it has generally been considered as by far the best that has been made of this celebrated poem. I know of one person, who had finished a translation of Leonora which he was on the point of publishing; but Mr. Spencer's having accidentally been put into his hands, after reading it he threw his own into the fire, saying it would be ridiculous to attempt doing what had been already accomplished so perfectly.

Who the budding author was, who thus ruthlessly destroyed another version of Bürger's much translated poem, we shall probably never know.

 

---

1. See p. 15, and footnote.
2. Noctes Ambrosianae, Blackwood's Magazine, XXXIII, 487 (April 1827). The name of the poem is sometimes given Bed Gellert.
3. Byron's Letters and Journals, ed. by Prothero, II, 61. "Little's leadless pistol" of Byron's English Bards was naturally felt to be a slander by Moore, who had bought enough powder and ball in Bond St. for twenty duels. His inexperience, however, was quite properly satirized, as he had only once before discharged a pistol and then nearly blew his thumb off.
4. Byron said Spencer's verse, like his conversation, was "perfectly aristocratic," and he placed him with Moore, Campbell, and Rogers as a poet.
   Lamb narrates an amusing incident. Talking at the India House with a young clerk who said he loved poetry, Lamb mentioned Spenser. "Poor fellow," said the clerk, and to Lamb's astonished "Why," answered, "He has lost his wife." "Said I, 'Who are you talking of?' 'Why, Spencer,' said he; 'I've read the Monody he wrote on the occasion, and a very pretty thing it is.'" This led to the explanation that the clerk meant, "the Honorable William Spencer who has translated some things from the German very prettily, which are published with Lady Di. Beauclerk's Designs."—Lamb in letter to Wordsworth, Feb. 1, 1806, Works, ed. by Lucas, VI, 234.
5. Not the second Duke, as the Dict. of Nat. Biog. and Hill's Boswell have it. The mistake is a natural one, since there was no second duke. After the death of the first duchess, who retained the title in her own right until 1744, the title passed to the father of Lady Diana, who had married a daughter of the first duke.
6. Letters, ed. by Cunningham, V, 74.
7. Boswell's Life (Hill) II, 282. Boswell much admired Lady Diana's witty conversation. From her he won a wager that he dared not ask Johnson what he did with the Seville oranges when he put them in his pocket after squeezing out the juice; see Hill's Boswell II, 330. With Horace Walpole she was also a favorite, and references to her appear in every volume of his Letters.
   It will be seen that Lady Diana really belonged to the preceding generation. She was sixty-two when she made the designs for Spencer's Leonora.
8. Lady Diana Beauclerk and her Work by Mrs. Steuart Erskine, p. 220. The Countess Spreti was the daughter of Count Jenison-Walworth, chamberlain to the elector palatine, and she is said to have married Mr. Spencer under unusually romantic circumstances.
9. It has not been noticed that each of the plates in the book bears a date of publication. In all but one the statement is Publish'd June 1, 1796, by E. & S. Harding, Pall Mall; in one of the tail-pieces, Published by E. & S. Harding, Pall Mall, July 1, 1796. The latter date is doubtless correct, as even this would be in time for the July Reviews.
   There are four full-page plates besides the frontispiece, and head and tail pieces for both the German and English versions of the poems. The frontispiece, etched by Bartolozzi from Lady Diana's drawing, shows the sarcophagus of Leonora on which a winged child places a wreath as he turns away in mourning. On the other side another winged child holds a garland of flowers, as he gazes at the great pall, supported by two skeletons, on which is written Leonora's name. Above is another winged child bearing a lacerated heart toward heaven. The other full-page plates, three of them engraved by Harding, one by A. Birrell, represent 1) Wilhelm on horseback with Leonora ready to mount; 2) the meeting of the "funeral train"; 3) the "spectres of the guilty dead" following at William's bidding; 4) Wilhelm a skeleton, aiming the "dart of death" at the swooning Leonora, with ghostly figures to right and left, and the open grave.
   The head and tail-pieces are all engraved by Bartolozzi. The left head-piece represents two naked children decorating a helm and corselet which they have placed upon the stump of a tree. In the distance are a city, no doubt Prague, and companies of soldiers parading on the plain, or perhaps being led against the city. The right head-piece is the seated figure of a female child plaiting a wreath, a village in the distance. The tail-piece represents winged child figures in mourning, the one at the left beside Wilhelm's tomb, the one at the right beside Leonora's.
10. Critical Review XVII, 307.
11. Letters of Anna Seward, IV, 314.
12. Letters, IV, 283.
13. The first, or Paris issue of 10,000 copies, had been suppressed by Napoleon in 1810, who had also banished its author from France. Part of the following quotation is given by Erik Schmidt in Characteristiken, I, 244.
14. Les Jardins was published in 1782, and often thereafter.