Page:The Earliest English Translations of Bürger's Lenore - A Study in English and German Romanticism - Emerson (1915).djvu/33

 former year. Perhaps, too, the appearance of a new edition of Bürger's Gedichte in 1789 may have turned his attention again to that poet. In any case Taylor began his translations from German poetry about this time. He prepared his English versions of Goethe's Iphigenia and Lessing's Nathan Der Weise in 1790, though they were not printed until later, the first in 1793, the second not until 1805.

It is to 1790 also that Taylor himself assigned his translation of Lenore. In a note at the end of the version printed in his Historic Survey of German Poetry (II, 51) he says:

The latter statement of Taylor is not quite accurate. It is in a note at the end of the poem, not in the preface, that Dr. Aikin says:

It will be seen that Dr. Aikin makes no such definite reference as would establish the time at which Taylor's translation of Lenore was composed. Fortunately much more definite proof that Taylor's poem was known as early as 1791 is given in a letter from a German friend. On August 10, 1791, A. M. Benzler wrote to Taylor from Wernigerode:

Benzler's reference to "diese treffliche Uebersetzung," and the later "so wie auch die Lenore," shows that the latter at least had been sent him some time before. It therefore proves, more conclusively than the allusion by Aikin, that Taylor's translation was known to others than himself as early as the first part of 1791.