seat of the Spencers, Blenheim, he compliments the English poet in the lines,
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.
VI. Scott's Version and Its History.
The fifth translator to publish an English version of Bürger's Lenore in 1796 is the best known of all, Sir Walter Scott as he became long after this youthful effort. His edition, too, called William and Helen, is still the most commonly read, as it has been the most readily accessible. The general circumstances of writing this version have also been frequently told, thrice by Scott himself,[2] once by Lockhart in his Life of Scott,[3] once by Capt. Basil Hall in his Schloss Hainfeld,[4] and often by others since these earlier attempts. The only excuse for another relation of the story is that the sources of information have not been critically examined, the various accounts differing considerably in detail, and sometimes conflicting. Besides, something may now be added on the origin of the influence of Bürger upon Scott.
We may best begin with Scott's own statement, given in the prefatory note to his translation:
- ↑ Les Jardins was published in 1782, and often thereafter.
- ↑ Prefatory note to edition of The Chase and William and Helen; Letter to William Taylor, Nov. 25, 1796; Essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.
- ↑ Chapters VII-VIII; Pollard's Edition I. 160-248.
- ↑ Page 330 f.
