It will appear extraordinary that a poem, written a considerable time since, and known in this country at least for some years, should on a sudden have excited so much attention as to employ the pen of various translators, and the pencil of more than one designer.[1]
In the next sentence it adds of this translation, "since published, as we understand, in a new magazine," an evident allusion to the Monthly Magazine of March. Twice afterwards does the same Review refer to the priority of Taylor's version. In the! next volume, reviewing Taylor's second version, called Ellenore, it says:
This is the translation to which we some time ago alluded, as being the earliest in point of time, of the various English versions of this fashionable ballad.[2]
We have already accounted for the way in which Dr. Aikin knew of Taylor's translation, through the acquaintance of Taylor with Mrs. Barbauld, Dr. Aikin's sister. The acquaintance with Dr. Aikin also accounts for Taylor's printing his translation in the Monthly Magazine. The former had recently founded that periodical with the understanding that Taylor should coöperate.[3] It was natural, therefore, that the new English interest in Bürger should have resulted in Taylor's translation appearing in that magazine.[4]
Taylor's version, called Lenora, a Ballad from Bürger, was preceded by the following note:
The following translation (made some years since) of a celebrated piece, of which other versions have appeared and are now on the point of appearing, possesses so much peculiar and intrinsic merit that we are truly happy in being permitted to present it to our readers.
- ↑ Monthly Review, N. S. XX. 322; July, 1796.
- ↑ Monthly Review, N. S. XXI, 186; February, 1797. This review, though of Taylor's second version, is attributed to himself in Robberds, Life, I, 168. Robberds makes no comment, but if this is true I suspect that the other Monthly Review articles on the Lenore translations were also by him. Other contributions to that periodical indicate his activity in connection with it after 1793. See the letter to Dr. Griffiths in Robberds, Life, I, 124, and compare Herzfeld, Taylor von Norwich, p. 26.
- ↑ Robberds, Life. I, 155.
- ↑ Robberds, Life (I, 394) says that Taylor was paid six shillings for the article. It was printed without his name. In this connection Robberds used a sentence which is at least misleading. He says of Taylor's translation: "In the six years during which it remained in manuscript, it became so extensively known, by passing successively from one friend to another, that besides Walter Scott's three other imitations of it appeared almost simultaneously in the year 1796, and more were afterwards added. The announcement of these caused it to be inserted in the Monthly Magazine, and afterwards reprinted as a separate publication." There is no authority, so far as I can find, for the implication that any of the other translators of this year had seen Taylor's version. Yet this error of Robberds led the writer of the article William Taylor, in the Dict. of Nat. Biog., to say: "The announcement of the almost simultaneous publication of Scott's version and three others had led Taylor to publish his in the 'Monthly Magazine' just founded by John Aikin."
The latter statement may be one reason why the chronological relations of the various translations have been so frequently missed. Only Stanley's translation had appeared when Taylor printed. Spencer's had been announced, but Scott did not print until October.
