clearly more spirit than the other. Both have succeeded sufficiently to gratify the English reader with a very striking story; but neither has transfused the peculiar and characteristic beauties of his author with a free and masterly hand.
At this point the reviewer mentions what is evidently Taylor's version of the Lenore, which had appeared in the Monthly Magazine for March. He then takes up Stanley's new conclusion:
Since the above was written, a new edition has appeared of Mr. Stanley's version, in which his attention to the moral which we have before noticed, has led him to make a very material alteration in the catastrophe of the piece. . . .
Whether the generality of readers will think Mr. Stanley altered for the better a ballad of such a cast, by giving it a fortunate conclusion, we can not say; for our parts we confess we think he has not only flattened the piece very much, but spoiled the moral it was his object to improve. The story of Bürger is no doubt highly filled with horror; but for those whose sensibilities are too delicate to bear any thing which strongly moves them, poetry enough exists of a tamer cast:—there was no occasion to render Bürger tame.[1]
The Monthly Review was also generally favorable, though also criticising the new conclusion of the poem:
We think it unnecessary to prompt the judgment of our readers with respect to the comparative merit of the two versions. . . . On the whole, however, we deem ourselves justified in saying that Mr. Stanley's performance contains more of the graces of poetry than the other, at no greater expense of ease and propriety of language. In his second edition [really the new edition as shown by the heading of the article] Mr. Stanley has deviated from himself, and from his original, in a total alteration of the catastrophe; which, by the ready artifice of supposing all the horrid scenery to have passed in a vision, he makes to end with the repentance of Leonora, rewarded by the return of her lover. For this liberty, he gives certain moral and religious reasons, which, we confess, do not greatly weigh with us; since, in a play of the fancy like the present, we rather look for a gratification of the imagination, than for any solid lesson for the understanding. We commend Mr. Stanley's motive: but, to those who delight in a tale of wonder and horror, we are convinced that the terrible catastrophe will be the most impressive:—and no others will delight in it at all.[2]
