n
all this mass of translations, German ranks perhaps third as regards
quantity; it is exceeded only by the Latin and French.[20] This is
true, however, only for the period to the end of 1810. The situation
in the three succeeding decades is very different, but will be
discussed at a later time.

[Footnote 19: There are in the magazines of the period, 71
translations of German poetry and 10 duplicates; 68 original
poems and translations of other Teutonic poetry, and 24
duplicates.]

[Footnote 20: No list of the translations from the Latin and
French in these magazines has been made, so that a numerical
comparison with those from the German is at present
impossible.]

There is another reason why these magazines did not contain more
translations from the German. The period under consideration coincides
very closely with the classical epoch of German literature and many of
the masterpieces were not issued until near the end. _Hermann und
Dorothea_ appeared in 1797 and _Wallenstein_ three years later, while
_Wilhelm Tell_ was not finished until 1804 and the completed _Faust_
(first and second parts) was published twenty-three years after the
period closes. The dates of much of the classical German literature
precluded the possibility of its being translated until two thirds of
the period had passed. However valuable these works are, it is not
remarkable that they should not have become known immediately on this
side of the Atlantic. For the Germans here, the originals were all
that were needed, and it naturally took some time for the English part
of the population to realize the worth of the books and to demand
translations. These causes, then, prevented the German influence in
the magazines from assuming larger proportions.

The period treated in the present study is from 1741 to 1810
inclusive. The year 1741 is chosen as marking the beginning of the
American periodicals of a literary type. The publications of an
earlier date that were examined were devoted almost entirely to news,
or were almanacs that contained no literary material, for example, the
_New England Kalendar_, I, 1706, Boston, or the _New Weekly Journal_,
1728, Boston. These have been omitted from the list. It is therefore
not until 1741 that our period really begins. The two magazines which
were to be the pioneers of this extensive class of American literature
had been announced in the previous year. The _Phila. Weekly