Taylor has in some respects surpassed Scott, and made what is on the whole the best version.
The next evidence that Scott's version of the Bürger ballad was highly esteemed is connected with the publication of Lewis's Tales of Terror and Wonder. As already noted Scott himself mentions the inspiration of Lewis's work in the Monk.[1] In the spring of 1798 Scott's friend Erskine met Lewis in London, with the result that Scott was asked to assist him in his proposed compilation. In answer to Scott's offer of anything that he had, Lewis wrote a letter of thanks and later invited the author of William and Helen to dine with him in Edinburgh.[2] Indeed, Lewis must have expected at this time to use Scott's poem, as shown by a letter in which he says: "In order that I may bring it nearer the original title, pray introduce in the first stanza the name Ellenora, instead of Ellen".[3]
Why Lewis did not finally use Scott's poem is not clear, but a reasonable conjecture may be offered. Lewis was unusually free with his criticisms of Scott's verses, and caused the Scotch attorney to revise his Glenfinlas before it was accepted. It is to be inferred also from Lewis's letter that Scott had objected to making all the changes suggested. Lewis writes:
Thank you for your revised "Glenfinlas." I grumble, but say no more on this subject, although I hope you will not be so inflexible on that of your other Ballads; for I do not despair of convincing you in time that a bad rhyme is, in fact, no rhyme at all. You desired me to point out my objections, leaving you at liberty to make use of them or not; and so have at "Frederick and Alice."
He then goes on to criticise Frederick and Alice, The Chase, and William and Helen. Scott made most of the changes suggested for the first two poems, but probably balked at making the more numerous ones in the last, after it had been once printed and so highly praised by his friends. At any rate William and Helen was not used by Lewis, and it remains today with all the faulty rimes and expressions Lewis pointed out. The latter, as we know, printed Taylor's first version in his Tales of Wonder, though without knowing the author.[4]
- ↑ See p. 50.
- ↑ Lockhart's Life, ch. IX (I, 254).
- ↑ Henderson's edition of Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, IV, 54. The name Ellen is also used by Lockhart (Life ch. IX, I, 275). In Pollard's edition the name of Scott's translation is William and Helen, but early editions read Ellen, and this is, I assume, what Lockhart wrote.
- ↑ Long afterwards (1825), Scott may have remembered this criticism when he wrote of Lewis: "He had the finest ear for rhythm I ever met with—finer than Byron's."—Lockhart's Life, ch. IX (I, 255).
The men remained good friends. In 1799 Lewis arranged for the publication in London of Scott's translation of Goethe's Goetz von Berlichingen, and it appeared in February. Lewis, too, obtained for the translator twenty-five guineas for the work, on the ground that it was Scott's first publication. He had forgotten the Bürger translations of 1796, as he also forgot that Scott's name was Walter, not William. See p. 48.
