Page:The Earliest English Translations of Bürger's Lenore - A Study in English and German Romanticism - Emerson (1915).djvu/63

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TRANSLATIONS OF BÜRGER'S LENORE

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correspondent and later the editor of her poetical works. She is describing the "poetical readings" which formed "part of our amusements" on a visit to Nottingham:

Mr. Saville, who reads finely as you well know, gave us the extracts with which the Scottish ladies of your neighborhood favoured him, from that sublime paraphrase of Bürger's Leonora, the yet unpublished work of their friend. It is not near so close as the four rival translations which I have seen of that wild and violent poem; amongst which Mr. Spencer's, with its happy engravings, is so very prominent in poetic merit.

Many ideas and images are in the extracts Mr. Saville had obtained, which cannot be found in Bürger's poem; but they vie, and in some places transcend those of the original in well-imagined horror. Chilling, grand, and horrific is the shrouded corpse rising from the bier, and the half-perished body of the murderer swinging and creaking in the winds and rain, descending from the gibbet at the call of the equestrian spectre, and joining the ghastly train on that impetuous journey.^[1]

Two years later, when her enthusiasm for Mr. Spencer's translation had somewhat cooled, Miss Seward received from Mr. Colin Mackenzie of Edinburgh a copy of Scott's William and Helen as published in 1796, and in manuscript The Triumph of Constancy, an otherwise unknown translation from Bürger, as well as Scott's own ballad imitation Glenfinlas. These facts Miss Seward added as a note to a copy of her letter to Mr. Mackenzie. That letter is otherwise interesting as showing how Mr. Saville obtained the extracts from Scott's poem and Miss Seward's later views respecting it:

Two years since a friend of mine met with the William and Helen at the cottage of the celebrated recluses of Llangollen Vale. He reads finely, and he was desired to read it in their circle. It was in manuscript, and he understood unpublished; but that was a mistake. Thus he considered as an indulgence that he obtained permission to make extracts from William and Helen, of those parts

↑ Letters of Anna Seward (Constable), IV, 314. The reference to the body of the murderer coming down from the gibbet to join the train, "at the call of the equestrian spectre," is conclusive proof that the version was Scott's William and Helen. In no other have we such a feature. The Scottish ladies who had first received it perhaps can not be identified.
Lady Eleanor Butler was a personage of the time. With her friend, Sarah Ponsonby, and a maid-servant, she had sought seclusion in North Wales and lived a recluse at Plas Newydd, Llangollen, for fifty years or more until her death in 1829. Her home was a place of pilgrimage for many years from all parts of Britain, and from the continent. De Quincey visited them, as shown by his Confessions (Works, Masson, III, 321). Wordsworth was a guest and wrote a sonnet upon them and their home; see an interesting account of them in A Swan and Her Friends' by E. V. Lucas, ch. XIII. Anna Seward, a visitor and frequent correspondent, wrote her poem Llangollen Vale in their honor.
Mr. Saville was the choir singer of Lichfield for whom Miss Seward indulged a platonic friendship of great vigor; see Mr. Lucas's work above, p. 174-9.

[1] Letters of Anna Seward (Constable), IV, 314. The reference to the body of the murderer coming down from the gibbet to join the train, "at the call of the equestrian spectre," is conclusive proof that the version was Scott's William and Helen. In no other have we such a feature. The Scottish ladies who had first received it perhaps can not be identified.
Lady Eleanor Butler was a personage of the time. With her friend, Sarah Ponsonby, and a maid-servant, she had sought seclusion in North Wales and lived a recluse at Plas Newydd, Llangollen, for fifty years or more until her death in 1829. Her home was a place of pilgrimage for many years from all parts of Britain, and from the continent. De Quincey visited them, as shown by his Confessions (Works, Masson, III, 321). Wordsworth was a guest and wrote a sonnet upon them and their home; see an interesting account of them in A Swan and Her Friends' by E. V. Lucas, ch. XIII. Anna Seward, a visitor and frequent correspondent, wrote her poem Llangollen Vale in their honor.
Mr. Saville was the choir singer of Lichfield for whom Miss Seward indulged a platonic friendship of great vigor; see Mr. Lucas's work above, p. 174-9.

[1]