Page:The Earliest English Translations of Bürger's Lenore - A Study in English and German Romanticism - Emerson (1915).djvu/18

 man literature began almost, if not quite, as early as that of William Taylor of Norwich, one of the earliest Englishmen to make his countrymen acquainted with German poetry. As a youth of fifteen, in August, 1781, Stanley set out for the continent, and took up his residence at Brunswick, where he remained a year with most intimate relations to the court and the people of the German principality. In May, 1783, he again returned to the continent, this time residing at Neuchatel, Lyons, and later at Turin, where he remained until the spring of 1785. Once more, in the spring of 1786, he revisited Neuchatel, staying there almost a year and then spending some months in Italy.

Perhaps owing to the circumstances narrated at the last of the Præterita (see last footnote), the young Stanley no longer went to the continent for his education. In 1788, however, he proceeded to the University of Edinburgh where, under Playfair, Dugald Stewart and Dr. Joseph Black, he acquired new interests in mathematics, philosophy and natural science. The latter led to an unusual venture for a young man of twenty-three. He fitted out and commanded a scientific expedition to Iceland in the summer of 1789. The journey was made "in princely style," says the Gentleman's Magazine, "in a private yacht, accompanied by a staff of naturalists, draughtsmen and men of science."