Page:The Earliest English Translations of Bürger's Lenore - A Study in English and German Romanticism - Emerson (1915).djvu/30

 brought into prominence by the new interest in that German dramatist at the close of the century.

A letter of Maria Stanley herself also shows that her husband had translated other German poetry. She writes to her sister Louisa, early in 1800:

That German literature was frequently read in these years at the Stanley home is also clear from another passage in the letters. Mrs. Stanley writes:

I have been thus full in the account of Mr. Stanley and his translation of Lenore because they have not been given sufficient prominence in previous discussions of the Bürger influence in England. Stanley's acquaintance with German literature was quite as early as that of William Taylor of Norwich. His translation of Bürger's poem was also the first to be published. Even before publication, too, like Taylor's, it had inspired another. Besides, indirectly, it called forth the publication of Taylor's first version and of Pye's translation. Incidentally, it resulted in the drawings of Blake, and less directly the designs of Lady Diana Beauclerk.

The publication of Stanley's Leonora resulted in the speedy printing of William Taylor's first version of the Bürger poem in the Monthly Magazine for March. I say the first version because,