Page:The Earliest English Translations of Bürger's Lenore - A Study in English and German Romanticism - Emerson (1915).djvu/38

 style had impressed me extremely; and I now think that, in one or two passages, it transcends Mr. Spencer's generally more spirited, more elevated paraphrase—especially here:

[She comments at length to the advantage of the Taylor version, but adds the following sentence]: But the Spencer paraphrase, rich in general superiorities, need not grudge to its rival the transcendence of one or two passages.

Far more important than these letters of Miss Seward are those of men soon to bring in a new era in literature. Lamb, writing to Coleridge July 17, 1796, asks:

We have no word of Coleridge in reply to Lamb, and he was in such personal difficulties himself that he may not have answered. Later, however, while in Germany, Coleridge was in correspondence with Taylor regarding the latter's poem and praised it highly. He and Wordsworth had disagreed as to the value of Bürger's poetry, Coleridge supporting it enthusiastically. The correspondence shows that Wordsworth also knew Taylor's translation of the Lenore. He wrote:

We have read 'Leonora' and a few things of Bürger; but on the whole we were disappointed, particularly in 'Leonora' which we thought in several passages inferior to the English translation. 'Wie donnerten die Brücken'—how inferior to