Und zu saugen seines Herzens Blut.
Ist’s um den geschehn,
Muss nach andern gehn,
Und das junge Volk erliegt der Wut.[5]
Even more famous are the charnel horrors of Bürger’s Lenore which was first printed in 1773 in the Gottinger Musenalmanach and which notwithstanding the legions of hostile comments and parodies whereof Brandl gives an ample list[6] has remained a household word.
In spite of the immense enthusiasm at that date in contemporary England for German romantic literature it is remarkable that no translation of Lenore was published here until 1796, when William Taylor of Norwich printed in the Monthly Review of March his rendering which in some respects must be called an adaptation. He had, however, by his own account written the translation as early as 1790,[7] and there can be no doubt that very shortly after its completion it was declaimed, applauded and much discussed in Norwich literary circles. We know that Mrs. Barbauld who visited Edinburgh “about the summer of 1793 or 1794”[8] read aloud Taylor’s version to a number of enthusiastic admirers. This event was described to Sir Walter Scott by Miss Cranstoun, afterwards Countess Burgstall,[9] although Scott himself mentions that his curiosity “was first attracted to this truly romantic story by a gentleman, who, having heard Lenore once read in manuscript, could only recollect the general outline, and part of a couplet, which, from the singularity of its structure, and frequent recurrence,[10] had remained impressed on his memory.”[11] This gentleman was Mr. Cranstoun, the brother of Countess Burgstall, and so her statement is no doubt accurate as Scott might well have received his account both from the brother as well as from the sister. It was in the course of 1794, or at any rate early in the following year that Scott made his own rendering of the ballad. The account of Taylor’s version, Ellenore, which “electrified” the assembled company at Dugald Stewart’s house when read by the famous Anna Letitia Barbauld had given him the strongest desire to see the original. Just about this time, however, it was a difficult matter to procure books from the continent, and it was not until after some delay that a copy of Bürger’s works was conveyed to him from Hamburg. He
