t and the
supernatural, began also to occupy the attention of the British
literati." Scott's German studies were much assisted by Alexander Frazer
Tytler, whose version of Schiller's "Robbers" was one of the earliest
English translations from the German theater.[20]

In the autumn of 1794 Miss Aikin, afterward Mrs. Barbauld, entertained a
party at Dugald Stewart's by reading a translation of Buerger's ghastly
ballad "Lenore." The translation was by William Taylor of Norwich; it
had not yet been published, and Miss Aikin read it from a manuscript
copy. Scott was not present, but his friend Mr. Cranstoun described the
performance to him; and he was so much impressed by his description that
he borrowed a volume of Burger's poems from his young kinswoman by
marriage, Mrs. Scott of Harden, a daughter of Count Bruehl of Martkirchen,
formerly Saxon ambassador at London, who had a Scotchwoman for his second
wife, the dowager Countess of Egremont. Scott set to work in 1795 to
make a translation of the ballad for himself, and succeeded so well in
pleasing his friends that he had a few copies struck off for private
circulation in the spring of 1796. In the autumn of the same year he
published his version under the title "William and Helen," together with
"The Chase," a translation of Buerger's "Der Wilde Jaeger." The two poems
made a thin quarto volume. It was printed at Edinburgh, was anonymous,
and was Walter Scott's first published book. Meanwhile Taylor had given
his rendering to the public in the March number of the _Monthly
Magazine_, introducing it with a notice of Burger's poems; and the very
same year witnessed the appearance of three other translations, one by J.
T. Stanley (with copperplate engravings), one by Henry James Pye, the
poet laureate, and one by the Hon. William Robert Spencer,--author of
"Beth Gelert." "Too Late I Stayed," etc.,--with designs by Lady Diana
Beauclerc. (A copy of this last, says Allibone, in folio, on vellum,
sold at Christie's in 1804 for L25 4s.) A sixth translation, by the Rev.
James Beresford, who had lived some time in Berlin, came out about 1800;
and Schlegel and Brandl unite in pronouncing this the most faithful, if
not the best, English version of the ballad.[21]

The poem of which England had taken such manifold possession, under the
varied titles "Lenore," "Leonore," "Leonora," "Lenora," "Ellenore,"
"Helen," etc., was indeed a noteworthy one. In the original, it remains