1781.[1] It is possible that the attention of the poet Pye had been turned toward Germany as early. As we have seen, William Taylor had made his translation of Bürger's famous poem as early as 1790, and another had been made but not published by some unknown writer even earlier.[2] The influence of Taylor's version, while still in manuscript, had produced at least one imitation in the Arthur and Matilda of Dr. Aikin as early as 1791. Matthew G. Lewis had doubtless become acquainted with Bürger in one of his school vacations in Germany before 1794. At least when in that year he was writing his Ambrosio or the Monk, he certainly knew Bürger, for he imitated Lenore in his ballad Alonzo the Brave. The hearing of a couplet of Taylor's version, as it had been read in Edinburgh by Mrs. Barbauld in 1794, together with his later interest in the ballads published by Lewis in the Monk, led Scott to seek and read Bürger's poems. From the Lenore he made his own translation, called William and Helen, about the time when the London publishers were active with at least three other versions of this much translated poem.
But it is to Mr. J. T. Stanley that we owe the special activity, in publication at least, of this remarkable year. His translation, probably made as early as 1795, led Mr. W. R. Spencer to begin one to "improve" it, as it had led Lady Diana Beauclerk to prepare designs illustrating the poem. The hasty publication of Stanley's first version early in February brought the almost simultaneous publication of Taylor's translation, now known to have been written six years before, and Pye's version which may possibly have been prepared some years earlier. The former appeared in the Monthly Magazine for March, which was not printed until the last days of the month. The latter seems to have been issued on or near April first. Mr. Stanley's more deliberate issue, April 15, of his second version in handsome form with plates by William Blake was followed, probably in July, by Spencer's, embellished with the designs of Lady Diana Beauclerk. Meanwhile a few copies of Scott's William and Helen, prepared as early as April but independently of the English versions except Taylor's, had been put into print through his friends Miss Cranstoun and William Erskine, probably a little before the issue of Spencer's translation. It was published by Scott himself, with a translation of Bürger's Der Wilde Jäger called by
