er, as the ballad was not to be more closely introduced to them.

The author was not present upon this occasion, although he had then the distinguished advantage of being a familiar friend and frequent visitor of Professor Stewart and his family. But he was absent from town while Miss Aikin was in Edinburgh, and it was not until his return, that he found all his friends in rapture with the intelligence and good sense of their visitor, but in particular with the wonderful translation from the German, by means of which she had delighted and astonished them. The enthusiastic description given of Bürger's ballad, and the broken account of the story, of which only two lines were recollected, inspired the author, who had some acquaintance, as has been said, with the German language, and a strong taste for popular poetry, with a desire to see the original.

This was not a wish easily gratified; German works were at that time seldom found in London for sale-in Edinburgh never. A lady

of noble German descent,* whose friendship I have enjoyed for many years, found means to procure me a copy of Bürger's works from Hamburgh. The perusal of the original rather exceeded than disappointed the expectations which the report of Mr Stewart's family had induced me to form. At length, when the book had been a few hours in my possession, I found myself giving an animated account of the poem to a friend, and rashly added a promise to furnish a copy in English ballad verse.

I well recollect that I began my task after supper, and finished it about daybreak the next morning, by which time the ideas which the task had a tendency to summon up were rather of an uncomfortable character. As my object was much more to make a good translation of the poem for those whom I wished to please, than to acquire any poetical fame for

* Born Harriet Countess Bruhl of Martinskirchen, and married to Hugh Scott, Esq. of Harden, the author's relative and much-valued friend.

myself, I retained the two lines which Mr Taylor had rendered with equal boldness and felicity.

My attempt succeeded far beyond my expectations; and it may readily be believed, that I was induced to persevere in a pursuit which gratified my own vanity, while it seemed to amuse others. I accomplished a translation of "Der Wilde Jäger"-a romantic superstition universally current in Germany, and known also in Scotland and France. In this I took rather more license than in versifying "Lenore;" and I balladized one or two other poems of Bürger with more or less success. In the course of a few weeks, my own vanity, and the favourable opinion of friends, interested by the revival of

species of poetry containing a germ of popularity of which perhaps they were not themselves aware, urged me to the decisive step of sending a selection, at least, of my translations to the press, to save the numerous applications which were made for copies. When was an author deaf to such a recommendation? In

1796, the present author was prevailed on, "by request of friends," to indulge his own vanity by publishing the translation of " Lenore," with that of "The Wild Huntsman," in a thin quarto. This trifling production was never entirely republished; on which account I have, in No. II. of the Appendix, reprinted the suppressed translation of the celebrated "Lenore." I had formerly no reason for omitting it, except a feeling how much it owed to the genius of a contemporary, which, however, had always been acknowledged.

The fate of this, my first publication, was by no means flattering. I distributed so many copies among my friends as materially to interfere with the sale; and the number of translations which appeared in England about the same time, including that of Mr Taylor, to which I had been so much indebted, and which was published in "The Monthly Magazine," were sufficient to exclude a provincial writer from competition. However different my success might have been, had I been fortunate enough to have led the

way in the general scramble for precedence, my efforts sunk unnoticed when launched at the same time with those of Mr Taylor (upon whose property I had committed the kind of piracy already noticed, and who generously forgave me the invasion of his rights);-of my ingenious and amiable friend of many years, William Robert Spenser ;-of Mr Pye, the laureate of the day, and many others besides. In a word, my adventure, where so many pushed off to sea, proved a dead loss, and a great part of the edition was condemned to the service of the trunk-maker. Nay, so complete was the failure of the unfortunate ballads, that the very existence of them was soon forgotten; and, in a newspaper, in which I very lately read, to my no small horror, a most appalling list of my own various publications, I saw this, my first offence, had escaped the industrious collector, for whose indefatigable research I may fairly wish a better object.

The failure of my first publication did not operate, in any unpleasant degree, either on my Et