# The Earliest English Translations of Bürger's Lenore: a Study in English and German Romanticism/Chapter 2

II. The Translations of Lenore by J. T. Stanley
The earliest translation of Bürger's Lenore to be published in England was by one too little known in connection with the subject. Yet he was an interesting man, a member of parliament, a fellow of the Royal Societies of England and Scotland, and long acquainted with German life and German literature. Besides, his translation, while not the first or the best, was the occasion of the appearance of three others in the same year.
The materials for a knowledge of this first translator to publish his work have been accessible for some time. Moreover, they present the key to the conditions which led to much Bürger activity in England during the year 1796. We may begin with a reference in the Girlhood of Maria Josepha Holroyd, a book printed an even century after the appearance of the first English translation of Lenore. In a letter of "Serena to Maria Josepha," which is undated but immediately precedes one of Feb. 22, 1796, Serena, or Sarah Martha Holroyd, sister of Lord Sheffield, asks, "Have you seen a little Thing called 'Lenore'?" To this question Maria Josepha replied on Feb. 22 as follows:
I have seen the little thing called 'Leonora', and have got it of my own from the Author, alias Translator, Mr. Stanley; for I suppose you mean a Tale in Verse from the German. I cannot say I am delighted with it. The best parts are the Lines at the End, his own addition. Another Translation is coming out soon by Mr. Spencer which is likely to be better, but Mr. Stanley was very ill-used about it. He lent his Translation to Lady D. Beauclerk, who took advantage of it to make beautiful drawings from it, and Mr. Spencer, her nephew I think, undertook to improve the Translation, and meant to publish it with Engravings from Lady Diana's Drawings. Mr. Stanley did not intend to publish, but hearing of this he was affronted, and had his Translation printed in hot haste.
This spicy letter of Maria Holroyd, who soon became the wife of Mr. Stanley, gives us almost at first hand the story of a literary embroilment which precipitated the first appearance of an English Bürger translation. The Mr. Stanley referred to was John Thomas Stanley, son of Sir John Stanley of Cheshire. His interest in Ger​man literature began almost, if not quite, as early as that of William Taylor of Norwich, one of the earliest Englishmen to make his countrymen acquainted with German poetry. As a youth of fifteen, in August, 1781, Stanley set out for the continent, and took up his residence at Brunswick, where he remained a year with most intimate relations to the court and the people of the German principality. In May, 1783, he again returned to the continent, this time residing at Neuchatel, Lyons, and later at Turin, where he remained until the spring of 1785. Once more, in the spring of 1786, he revisited Neuchatel, staying there almost a year and then spending some months in Italy.
Perhaps owing to the circumstances narrated at the last of the Præterita (see last footnote), the young Stanley no longer went to the continent for his education. In 1788, however, he proceeded to the University of Edinburgh where, under Playfair, Dugald Stewart and Dr. Joseph Black, he acquired new interests in mathematics, philosophy and natural science. The latter led to an unusual venture for a young man of twenty-three. He fitted out and commanded a scientific expedition to Iceland in the summer of 1789. The journey was made "in princely style," says the Gentleman's Magazine, "in a private yacht, accompanied by a staff of naturalists, draughtsmen and men of science."
​The expedition was fruitful in several ways. The young Stanley wrote Accounts of the Hot Springs near Rykum and Haukadal in Letters to Dr. Black. These were printed in Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (vol. III), and separately in 1791. By reason of them Stanley became a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He also presented the seeds and plants he had gathered in Iceland to Sir Joseph Banks, eminent scientist and president of the English Royal Society, who had himself visited the Hot Springs of Iceland in 1772. This led to Stanley's being elected fellow of the Royal Society of London, and to intimate acquaintance with the learned of the capital. In 1790 Mr. Stanley was chosen member of parliament for Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, and in June of that year became a member of Lord Auckland's embassy at the Hague. Two years later, June, 1792, he was plunged in grief by the death of his betrothed, an Irish heiress, and to gain seclusion from public life for a time he joined the Cheshire militia. In 1794, as major of the Cheshire regiment, he was stationed at Bexhill, Sussex, near Sheffield Place, where he met and wooed the Maria Holroyd of the letters already quoted, a daughter of John Baker Holroyd, Lord Sheffield.
We have less definite information than we might wish as to when Mr. Stanley made his translation of Lenore. The account of ​him in the Early Married Life of Lady Stanley breaks off in 1792 with the remark: "His letters during the next three years show that he was actively engaged in helping the French refugees, in military duties, and in literary work." What this literary work was we are not told. Nor have we any hint of any external influence leading Mr. Stanley toward German poetry. Possibly the publication of William Taylor's translation of Goethe's Iphigenia in 1793 may have turned him again to his earlier studies. The death of Bürger in 1794 may have directed him to this one of the German writers he had known. It certainly seems doubtful whether the publication of Taylor's translation of Wieland's Dialogues of the Gods in 1795 could have had any marked effect.
A single sentence of the Preface to Stanley's first edition of his Leonora may have an interpretation bearing upon the subject. He says: "The success of some late publications has proved that the wild and eccentric writings of the Germans are perused with pleasure by the English reader." If this is a reference to a particular book, and I am inclined to think it may be, it must be to the one which created the greatest sensation of the year 1795. That was the Ambrosio or the Monk of M. G. Lewis. This famous example of the terror school of fiction appeared in the summer, and was soon the talk of London. Now The Monk, as it came to be more commonly called, contained an unusual number of poems of the ballad sort, some of them of German origin. Besides, Lewis had introduced more than one horror or supernatural element from German legend, as the story of the bleeding nun. We know also from his Essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad, that Scott was much attracted by these ballads, as well as by the other German tales in Lewis's extravagant fiction. It is not impossible that Mr. Stanley was also turned again to German balladry by this book. If so we may place his translation with even more confidence in the last half of 1795.
Not impossibly, too, Stanley's translation of Lenore was associated with the composition of the only original poem known to have been written by him. While commanding the militia he composed a song for the men of his regiment, presumably while in Sussex, since the published edition was illustrated by views of Pevensey Bay and ​Beachy Head on the south coast. This also would lead us to 1794 or 1795 as the year of the composition of his translation.
We are more fortunate in being able to explain the relation of Mr. Stanley to the Spencers, and the probable occasion for his lending his manuscript poem to Lady Diana Beauclerk. Mr. Stanley and Lord Henry Spencer, second son of the fourth duke of Marlborough, entered parliament in the same year (1790), and were associated as members of the diplomatic staff of Lord Auckland at the Hague in 1792. Lord Henry Spencer, like Mr. William R. Spencer, was a nephew of Lady Diana, so that the acquaintance of Lady Diana and Mr. Stanley may be fully accounted for. Besides, Lord Henry Spencer died in July, 1795, and this is doubtless another reason why Mr. Stanley saw more of Lady Diana in that year. In any case parliament was in session from Oct. 29, 1795, to May 19, 1796, and doubtless Mr. Stanley was in attendance. We may reasonably assume, therefore, that Mr. Stanley's loan of his translation to Lady Diana Beauclerk, of which mention is made by Maria Josepha Holroyd, took place in the last part of 1795.
For the publication of Mr. Stanley's translation in February, 1796, we have Maria Josepha's spicy explanation. He did not intend to print but, on finding his poem was to be made the basis of a new edition by Mr. Spencer and Lady Beauclerk, he "printed in hot haste" as Maria Josepha says, though without his name. This first edition has never been described, as it is not in the British Museum, and has not been used by those who have dealt with the Lenore ​translations. It is my good fortune to have seen the copy possessed by Miss Adeane, a granddaughter of Maria Holroyd, the copy used by Mr. Stanley himself in preparing both the second and the new editions, and containing emendations in his own hand. Its title-page reads:
Leonora/A Tale/translated freely from the/German/of/Gottfried Augustus Bürger/"Poetry hath Bubbles, as the water hath:/"And these are of them"—/London/Printed for William Miller/Old Bond Street/1796.
The frontispiece is a plate by D. Chodowiecki (spelled Chodowiecke) and engraved by Harding, one of the eight made by Chodowiecki for the first collected edition of Bürger's Gedichte in 1778. It portrays William, with Lenore on the horse behind him, dashing through the gates into the city, i. e. Prague. In the clouds above him the devil, blowing a horn, is encircled by eight naked devlets dancing in a ring. Below is the Icelandic motto,
At the bottom of the page, "London Printed for W. Miller, Old Bond Street." The preface covers pages v to viii. Before the poem is a head-piece, picturing William at the left in the attitude of the dying gladiator, his horse lying dead at the right; horsemen and a fortress are in the middle distance. The tail-piece is a cupid with torch reversed, sleeping on a new-made grave, a full moon in the sky. Both these pieces are by J. Harding.
The preface, which I infer was written by Mr. Stanley though signed by the publisher, explains the issue of the translation as follows:
The following little Poem was translated by a respectable friend of the publisher, who, being favoured with a perusal, was much pleased with its wild originality; and he has thought himself fortunate in obtaining permission to lay it before the public.
​This account, true enough in itself though not stating the whole case as we now know, is doubtless the reason why less attention has been given to Mr. Stanley's translation and its priority to others. Apart from this, the preface shows the characteristic attitude of many Englishmen toward the new romanticism. Mr. Stanley felt he must apologize for such extravagance, as he does in his second paragraph:
The German author, conscious, perhaps, of the latitude he gives his imagination, was willing to shield himself under that liberty which poets are allowed the privilege of possessing: for the parody of the words
which is placed as a motto to the title-page, is to be found in a preface to a collection of his works, published by him in his own country:—Was it not for these bubbles, which nature, in her lavish mode, sometimes permits to issue from the mind, poetry would be deprived of many of her most beautiful productions.
Again, Mr. Stanley frankly admits that he has altered the poem, as "translated freely" of the title-page implies. He says:
The Poem will be found, in many respects, to have been altered from the original; but more particularly towards the conclusion, where the translator, thinking the moral not sufficiently explained, has added several lines. The German poem concludes with a stanza, the literal meaning of which may be given in the following words:
To his translation of this last stanza, free enough in itself, Mr. Stanley added one of his own as follows:
It was thus that he thought to explain and strengthen for his countrymen the didacticism of the poem.
​In Mr. Stanley's modifications of the poem there was, of course, no intention to mislead. Free paraphrasing of foreign works was common enough at the time. Besides, Mr. Stanley provided for the printing of the German text, "which may be had, sewed up with the translation, by such as should be desirous of comparing the one with the other." Yet on the whole, this preface shows, quite as clearly as the poem itself, the spirit of the time immediately before the romantic revival gained its headway.
The preface to Mr. Stanley's first edition is dated Feb. 8, 1796. The advertisement to the third, called a "new edition" is dated April 15 of the same year. Between these two appeared a second edition, a clear indication of considerable popularity. This second edition was an exact duplicate of the first, except for two slight changes on the title-page. There, just before the two verses, appeared the words "By J. T. Stanley,. Esq. F.R.S.," and just after, "Second Edition."
The interest excited by Stanley's translating of the Lenore not only inspired, before its publication, the proposed edition of Wm. R. Spencer to accompany Lady Beauclerk's drawings, but brought out two others. The first, and by far the more important, was the version of William Taylor of Norwich, made some years before as we shall see, and now printed for the first time in the March number of the Monthly Magazine. The second was by Henry James Pye, the poet laureate. This interest also encouraged Stanley's publisher to propose a new edition with better plates, in anticipation of that with the designs of Lady Diana Beauclerk. It is possible also that Mr. Spencer's known purpose to "improve" the translation may have had its influence. At least Mr. Stanley now made his own improvement. ​He considerably altered the translation in details, and especially wrote a new conclusion.
The importance of this new edition, especially in relation to the conflict between the old and the new spirit in our literature, merits a fuller description than has hitherto been given. Its title-page reads:
Leonora/A Tale/Translated and altered from the/German/of Gottfried Augustus Bürger/By J. T. Stanley, Esq. F.R.S. &c./
A New Edition/London/Printed by S. Gosnall/For William Miller, Old Bond Street/1796.
The frontispiece of Chodowiecki is now replaced by one designed by Blake and engraved by Perry. There are head and tail pieces by the same artist. Below the frontispiece are the following lines, "altered from Young" of the Night Thoughts:
The preface of the first edition is reprinted with slight changes, and a new preface, called an advertisement, explains the new issue. In this the publisher says:
The favourable manner in which the translation of "Leonora", ​offered by me to the Public, has been received, I feel highly flattering, as a proof, my opinion of the work was not erroneous, when I thought it worthy being submitted to their perusal.
When the last Edition was nearly exhausted, I intimated to Mr. Stanley, (whom now I am allowed to name as the Translator of the poem) my intention to re-publish it on a larger sized paper, accompanied by some new Engravings; he, in consequence, was pleased to send me, after an interval of some days, a copy of his Translation, much altered, and much enlarged, together with a letter, which, having his permission, as it states his reasons for deviating from the story originally related by Bürger, I shall here insert.
"Dear Sir, I have sent you, according to my promise, a corrected copy of the translation of Bürger's Leonora. Translation, indeed, I ought scarcely now to call it; for I have so altered and added to the original, that the story in its English dress, has acquired a character altogether new and peculiarly its own.
Since your first publication of the poem, I have often doubted whether it was not calculated (as far as its effects could extend) to injure the cause of Religion and Morality, by exhibiting a representation of supernatural interference, inconsistent with our ideas of a just and benevolent Deity.
Such reflections have tempted me to make the alterations I have alluded to. I am, however, doubtful whether they will be approved by the public. Those who think the merit of the Poem consists in its power of exciting terror, and who love to retain the impressions of such sentiments when once excited, will probably condemn every deviation from the original, as prejudicial to its interests; but, on the other hand, many may prefer it, as it will appear in your new Edition, who think that the first object of all writing, particularly of all poetry, as bearing the character of more studied composition, should be to teach man clear ideas of justice and injustice, vice and virtue. They will be pleased to find the Almighty no longer held out to their contemplation as an irritable and vindictive ruler, ever watchful for offence, and prepared to punish; but instead, as a friend and affectionate parent, having but one interest with his creatures, happy in their happiness, and associated to their nature In the captivating forms of sympathy and love. I am, dear Sir, truly your's, I. T. S. Bolton Row, April 15, 1796."
The Public will judge between the merits of the first, and this new publication of Leonora, and it remains with me only to express my hopes that no purchaser of the former edition will be displeased at the appearance of another so much altered, and to inform such as may be desirous of exchanging the one for the other, that I shall, at all times, be ready to obey their orders.
W. M.
Old Bond Street.
​It is clear from the letter of Mr. Stanley, found in the advertisement, that he was no child of the new romanticism. Although he seems to have enjoyed German poetry, he was still English to the core, attached to the established order of things, perhaps somewhat alarmed at the evident interest of his countrymen in what he thought German extravagance. This is even more fully confirmed by the new conclusion which he made for Bürger's poem. To offset the ghastly crew of spectres he introduces a second voice, which speaks "in milder tones" to the swooning Leonora. Transformed by the voice she is still able to express her resignation as she sinks into unconsciousness, and the spectres vanish discomfited. Then the dawn is made to appear, with "Love and his smiling train." William returns, calls to his Leonora to awake, tells her "Death has vainly aimed his dart," and clasps her in his arms as the poem closes. The whole makes an addition of eight stanzas, or seven besides the original stanza, now somewhat modified, which Mr. Stanley had first added to the Bürger material.
But these are by no means all the changes made in this new edition. Besides many verbal alterations in individual lines, of which a detailed account need not be given here, he added considerably in other ways. For instance, Bürger's poem consists of thirty-two stanzas. Mr. Stanley's first edition has thirty-four stanzas, the last of which was his own. The third, or new edition, has forty-four stanzas, ten more than his first version. Of these one new one is added after the twenty-first of the first edition, and another after the twenty-second. These, with the eight new stanzas at the end, account for the additions in this new edition.
The issue of three editions of Stanley's Leonora within a little more than two months is proof that it was not unfavorably received. Its reception by the reviewers attests the same fact. We have noted how the Monthly Mirror expressed the public's debt to the publisher "for this fantastic little work." It added, "The translator has lost little of the spirit of the original, though we think the metre he has adopted is by no means advantageous to the subject." Both the Critical and Monthly Reviews noticed it, with Pye's translation, in July. The former says of the two:
Mr. Pye claims the merit of superior exactness,—having translated it, as he says, line by line. Mr. Stanley's, however, we do not find deficient in exactness; and it is more concise, and, we think, has ​clearly more spirit than the other. Both have succeeded sufficiently to gratify the English reader with a very striking story; but neither has transfused the peculiar and characteristic beauties of his author with a free and masterly hand.
At this point the reviewer mentions what is evidently Taylor's version of the Lenore, which had appeared in the Monthly Magazine for March. He then takes up Stanley's new conclusion:
Since the above was written, a new edition has appeared of Mr. Stanley's version, in which his attention to the moral which we have before noticed, has led him to make a very material alteration in the catastrophe of the piece. . . .
Whether the generality of readers will think Mr. Stanley altered for the better a ballad of such a cast, by giving it a fortunate conclusion, we can not say; for our parts we confess we think he has not only flattened the piece very much, but spoiled the moral it was his object to improve. The story of Bürger is no doubt highly filled with horror; but for those whose sensibilities are too delicate to bear any thing which strongly moves them, poetry enough exists of a tamer cast:—there was no occasion to render Bürger tame.
The Monthly Review was also generally favorable, though also criticising the new conclusion of the poem:
We think it unnecessary to prompt the judgment of our readers with respect to the comparative merit of the two versions. . . . On the whole, however, we deem ourselves justified in saying that Mr. Stanley's performance contains more of the graces of poetry than the other, at no greater expense of ease and propriety of language. In his second edition [really the new edition as shown by the heading of the article] Mr. Stanley has deviated from himself, and from his original, in a total alteration of the catastrophe; which, by the ready artifice of supposing all the horrid scenery to have passed in a vision, he makes to end with the repentance of Leonora, rewarded by the return of her lover. For this liberty, he gives certain moral and religious reasons, which, we confess, do not greatly weigh with us; since, in a play of the fancy like the present, we rather look for a gratification of the imagination, than for any solid lesson for the understanding. We commend Mr. Stanley's motive: but, to those who delight in a tale of wonder and horror, we are convinced that the terrible catastrophe will be the most impressive:—and no others will delight in it at all.
​The Monthly Mirror followed its first notice of Stanley by a further reference to him when reviewing Pye and Spencer, in July, 1796:
It is difficult to say which is the best—they have all their different degrees of merit. Mr. Pye's is nearest to the original, but has less spirit than Spencer's, and less simplicity than Stanley's. The first translator [Mr. Stanley] is perhaps entitled to more indulgence than his competitors, since they have had the opportunity of profiting by example.
Before dismissing Mr. Stanley and his translation of Bürger, a word further on the man himself. He never published anything after the Leonora, except Letters on his resigning his commission and some reports on farming. He gave up his parliamentary seat at the close of the session in 1796, not caring to stand for the new parliament. He continued major of the Cheshire militia until the latter part of 1797 when he settled at Alderley Park, his home to the death of his father and his accession to the baronetcy. That occurred in 1807 when he became Sir John Stanley. A little more than twenty years later he was made first Lord Stanley of Alderley, doubtless a reward for his long profession of liberal principles.
Mr. Stanley thus separated himself wholly from the making of literature, though there are many evidences that he continued to enjoy it. More important are the proofs that he again sometimes tried translation from the German, though not for publication. In another letter of "Serena" to Maria Josepha, then Mrs. Stanley, she says:
Did I tell you how charmed I was with Mr. Stanley's translation of the 'Generous Lye'? It really seemed the original, and with all its absurdity, is quite beautiful. I read it to Lady Hesketh and two or three more, but it was never out of my hands.
This refers to a little one-act drama of Kotzebue, Die edle Lüge, ​brought into prominence by the new interest in that German dramatist at the close of the century.
A letter of Maria Stanley herself also shows that her husband had translated other German poetry. She writes to her sister Louisa, early in 1800:
I dote upon the German authors, whether they are in the tender, passionate, or horrible style. In all, I think, they excel. There is a play by Goethe—'Stella'—some scenes of which the Man [a common name of Mrs. Stanley for her husband] has translated, and I never read anything equal to it for passion mixed with the greatest delicacy of sentiment. . . . Now and then I catch the Man to translate a little, and am as pleased as Punch. Last night I had an idyll and a half read to me.
That German literature was frequently read in these years at the Stanley home is also clear from another passage in the letters. Mrs. Stanley writes:
In general, I am disappointed with any translation of any play, poem or fragment which has not first been translated by the Man; and not only because Adam the relator is to be preferred before any angel, for reasons too obvious to insert, but because the literal version which he gives, though it would not do to set down, often preserves more of the spirit and peculiar beauty of the German sentiments than a polished and Englishified translation can do.
I have been thus full in the account of Mr. Stanley and his translation of Lenore because they have not been given sufficient prominence in previous discussions of the Bürger influence in England. Stanley's acquaintance with German literature was quite as early as that of William Taylor of Norwich. His translation of Bürger's poem was also the first to be published. Even before publication, too, like Taylor's, it had inspired another. Besides, indirectly, it called forth the publication of Taylor's first version and of Pye's translation. Incidentally, it resulted in the drawings of Blake, and less directly the designs of Lady Diana Beauclerk.
* ↑ By J. H. Adeane, London (1896).
* ↑ The form of the title used by "Serena" is that of Pye's translation, rather than of Stanley's, but it is scarcely possible that Pye had published as early as this. The first review of Pye is of July, 1796, in both Monthly and Critical Reviews. Besides, Serena fully accepts Maria Josepha's answer as a reply to her question.
* ↑ The Girlhood of Maria Josepha Holroyd, p. 368.
* ↑ It was in July of the same year that William Taylor, at the age of sixteen, settled at Detmold, Westphalia, for a year's residence, and there became an enthusiastic admirer of German literature. The young Stanley's early residence abroad was due to his mother, Margaret Owen, who thought his youthful days "much more profitably spent than those of most English lads are; he sees good company and hears talk of reason, principle, and morals, which few others do." Early Married Life of Maria Josepha, Lady Stanley, by J. H. Adeane, p. 44.
* ↑ The Early Married Life of Maria Josepha, Lady Stanley, by J. H. Adeane, Ld., 1899. The first part of this interesting volume gives extracts from Stanley's Praeterita, an autobiography so called by him half a century before that name appeared on a title-page of Ruskin. The references to this German residence are on pp. 16-30.
* ↑ Young Stanley's experience at Neuchätel was an exact parallel to that of the young Gibbon at Lausanne some years earlier. Stanley fell in love with the beautiful "Adelaide", "the daughter of an old officer", and she "remained through life his ideal of perfect womanhood." (Early Married Life, pp. 53-54). "Obstacles to marriage intervened," we are told, and like the young Gibbon "he sighed like a lover", he "obeyed as a son." The beautiful Adelaide, however, was not so fortunate as the charming Susanne Curchod. She died unmarried, sending back to her English lover at her death his letters to her, with a packet of her journals. His comments (Ibid. p. 53) prove the depth of his affection. It was too early for the international marriage to be commonly accepted. This unusual European education gave the young Stanley his knowledge of foreign literatures. In the Preface to the Early Married Life (p. viii) ) the author says: "Before he [Stanley] was twenty he had mixed in the court circles of three European capitals, Brunswick, Turin and Rome. French he spoke fluently, German and Italian with facility, and his love of German literature never left him."
* ↑ Annual Register (1850), p. 273. Curiously enough the paths of Stanley and William Taylor again cross. The latter visited his friend Frank Savers at Edinburgh university in the same year; see Robberds, Life of William Taylor of Norwich, I, 63.
* ↑ Gentleman's Magazine, Dec, 1850. The language is misleading in our time of far more elaborate scientific expeditions. The companions of Mr. Stanley were Mr. Baine, teacher of mathematics at the university, for scientific observations and drawings; Mr. Wright, medical student at Edinburgh, acting surgeon and botanist; Mr. Benners, a Danish student, keeper of accounts; Mr. Taylor, a collector and setter of minerals in the city.—Early Married Life, p. 58.
* ↑ R. Watt, in Bibliotheca Britannica, says also Voyage to the Orkneys, 1789, but of this I find no other mention; it is not in the British Museum catalogue, nor is it mentioned by Miss Adeane in her books.
* ↑ They were noticed with large extracts and high praise in the Monthly Review of April, 1796, N. S. XIX, 422.
* ↑ A special purpose of Stanley's visit to Iceland was to add to Sir Joseph's observations. The latter had brought back specimens of the incrustations about the Springs. Dr. Black of Edinburgh wished to examine the water itself, "and learn by what means this salicious matter was dissolved in it." Stanley brought back samples of the water, and the analysis of them by Dr. Black appeared with Stanley's papers.—Early Married Life, p. 85.
* ↑ John Baker Holroyd (b. 1735) was a captain of the Royal Foresters from 1760 to 1763, and soon after, in his continental travels, met Gibbon at Lausanne, forming a lasting friendship. In the Lord Gordon riots of 1780 he was conspicuous in quelling the rioters, and early in 1781 was rewarded by being made Baron Sheffield. Gibbon made him his executor and, with the assistance of his daughter Maria, he prepared the original edition of Gibbon's Memoirs (1796). Maria Josepha was a vivacious girl from whom the historian of the Roman empire delighted to receive letters; see Gibbon's Letters by Prothero. The first record of Mr. Stanley's being at Sheffield Place, Lord Sheffield's estate, is of Sept. 22, 1795. The marriage was on Oct. 12, 1796. To a girl friend Maria Josepha drew this portrait of her future husband (Girlhood, p. 384): "He is the eldest son of Sir John Stanley, Bart., of Cheshire, has been in Iceland, published an account thereof, has translated a Poem from the German called Leonora—with considerable additions of his own, is, for anything I know to the contrary, an F. R. S., and what is more, has the most amiable feeling heart I believe a Man can be possessed of, and what is still more, if faith is to be put in Words, Actions and Looks—loves me with the most perfect Love. . . . As to description of the outside of the Man you perhaps would not be enchanted with his first appearance. He is very dark, black eyebrows that meet, and very near-sighted, but he has a sensible and good humoured countenance, at least I think so because I know he is both." The marriage was a happy one. Maria Josepha was the mother of several children, among them Edward John Stanley, during many years in the second third of the nineteenth century principal whip of the Whig party. Later he was offered a seat in Mr. Gladstone's first cabinet, but declined and soon retired from political life. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, the famous Dean of Westminster was a son of J. T. Stanley's brother Edward.
* ↑ Early Married Life, p. 101.
* ↑ Mrs. Radcliffe had also drawn upon romantic verse for her novels, as in the Mysteries of Udolpho published in 1794. But in Lewis's Monk the German element was strong and unmistakable.
* ↑ Stanzas I, V, VI of this song are given in the Early Married Life, p. 104. It has spirit and good sentiment, as the following (st. v) will show:If England but breathes the same soul  Which of old called her sons to the field, When they sought haughty France to control,  Again to our arms she must yield. We remember the name that we bear,  What our fathers have been in that day: When they marched against France, what they were  Let Cressy and Agincourt say. CHORUS For Cheshire men still are the same  Their fathers were, loyal and bold; Chief of men they were called—and the name  May we long be deserving to hold. The views accompanying the song when printed were drawn by Mr. Stanley and engraved by Thos. Bewick, the celebrated wood-engraver.
* ↑ The Annual Register of 1795 (p. 54) says: "July 3, Lord Henry John Spencer, second son of the Duke of Marlborough, and envoy extraordinary at Berlin." I am indebted to a letter from Miss J. H. Adeane for this close connection of Mr. Stanley and Lord Henry.
* ↑ Annual Registers of 1795 and 1796 give the king's speech at the opening and close of parliament in those years.
* ↑ It is the edition reviewed in the Monthly Mirror of March, 1796, not Dec., 1795, as by Brandl, who seems to have been misled by the date of the first number in the bound volume. The anonymity of this edition is attested by this review. It gives no name of translator in its heading of the article, and closes with: "The public are indebted to Mr. Miller [the publisher] for this fantastic little work, which betrays all the singularities of the German muse."
* ↑ See Sauers, Bürger's Gedichte, Einleitung, lxiii. Brandl describes the second edition as the one with the frontispiece by Chodowiecki (Characteristiken, I, 244 f.), but he had probably not seen the first edition.
* ↑ The Icelandic motto below the frontispiece is apparently Stanley's, as it does not occur in the first collected edition of Bürger, for which the plate was made by the Polish artist. It is not unlikely that, in preparation for his expedition to Iceland, Stanley may have made some study of the older language. Perhaps it may be noted that Gray gives a brief quotation from Icelandic before each of his Icelandic translations. The motto is appropriate, as will be seen from its meaning: "Go (fare) thou now where all fiends may have thee."
* ↑ Altered in new edition to are.
* ↑ Changed to And were in new edition.
* ↑ This concluding stanza is the part so highly praised by Maria Josepha Holroyd: "The best parts are the Lines at the End, his own addition."
* ↑ This accounts for the heading of the review in the Monthly Mirror, already noticed in footnote to p. 16. After giving the English title it adds, "Lenore, ein Gedicht von Gottfried August Bürger, London, 1796. S. Gosnall." Perhaps, too, this German print was to forestall criticism through comparison with the proposed edition of Mr. Spencer.
* ↑ A curious error regarding this date has led to several misunderstandings. When the third, or new edition was printed in April, the original preface was reprinted but the date was wrongly given as Feb. 8, 1786. This appears in the Harvard library copy at least, and I infer from what follows in all copies. A writer in Fraser's Magazine, LXVIII, 550 (1858), on Bürger and his Translators, first called attention to the date 1786, assumed it to be correct, and spoke of the poem as having been reprinted "ten years later", that is in 1796. As he mentions having the copy before him, we can hardly doubt his having seen the misprinted date. Yet Mr. W. W. Greg, in the Modern Quarterly of Language and Literature, assumed the 1786 of the Fraser's article to be a misreading of 1796, clearly without having examined closely the new edition, unless, indeed, there be some prints in which the wrong date had been corrected. The error also appears in Gilchrist's Life of Blake (I, 134) where it is said: "In 1795-6 Miller, the publisher of Old Bond Street, employed Blake to illustrate a new edition in quarto of a translation of Bürger's Lenore, by one Mr. J. T. Stanley, F.R S. The first edition (1786) had preceded by ten years Sir Walter Scott's translation which came out at the same time as Stanley's new edition." The latter statement should also read in the same year, not "at the same time", as we shall see. The first date should be 1796.
* ↑ This statement is based on a collation of the first edition, lent me by Miss Adeane, and the second edition in the British Museum.
* ↑ The illustrations by Blake have their special interest, both in themselves and in connecting Stanley with this eccentric but important romanticist. The first is reproduced in the Early Married Life, p. 103. It portrays a greatly elongated horse plunging in the air, breathing out flame, and spurning the earth with a similar display of fireworks. On its back is William, clutched round the waist by the terrified Lenore, William waving to an "airy crew" of creatures, mainly heads, which show joy and terror. Below are human figures, half sunk in the earth and looking up with amazement, while a naked "ghostly crew" of three men and two women dance frantically across the face of the full moon just above the horizon. The head-piece represents the return of the soldiers from the war. At the right a husband and wife are clasped in each other's arms, a child also clinging to the father's leg. Two grenadiers with their sweethearts are in the center, "their helms bedecked with oaken boughs," and before them three youths, one blowing a reed instrument, and one with a drum. At the right Lenore and her mother look on, taking no part in the joyous return. The tail-piece contains three figures. Lenore is starting from her couch, as if waking from a dream. William, with arms outstretched, is rushing toward her, followed by the mother close behind. This, of course, illustrates Stanley's new conclusion.
* ↑ The passage is from The Complaint or Night Thoughts, Night V near the end, the paragraph beginning "He most affects the forms least like himself"; phrases are taken from some four paragraphs. This is not unlikely Blake's work, as it seems a part of the plate itself. In 1796 Blake was making designs for an elaborate edition of Young's Night Thoughts, still a popular book, and this may have accounted for his choice of a motto from that poem; see Gilchrist's Life of Blake, I, 135.
* ↑ Monthly Mirror, March, 1796, the first volume of this periodical.
* ↑ Critical Review, July, 1796, N. S. XVII, 303.
* ↑ Monthly Review, July, 1796. N. S. XX, 325.
* ↑ The first was called "The Correspondence of J. T. Stanley Esq. with the Earl of Stamford, Lord Lieutenant of the County of Cheshire; and other Letters relative to the resignation of his Commission as Major in the Royal Militia, 1798." For the second, see the Gentleman's Magazine, Dec, 1850, N. S. XXXIV, 655.
* ↑ To her aunt Maria Josepha explains Mr. Stanley's withdrawal from parliament as follows: "He does not intend to come in again, which I am very glad of, as he is so warm in Politics when engaged, and on the liberty side too, which may lead to anything bad, with the best original intentions, that it is much better for the Domestic Happiness of both that he should give up the pursuit entirely, not having the least ambitious turn of mind."—Girlhood of Maria Josepha Holroyd, p. 386.
* ↑ Early Married Life, p. 176; letter dated Mar. 1, 1799. Lady Hasketh was the favorite correspondent of the poet Cowper, and an intimate friend of Miss Sarah Holroyd. In her answer Mrs. Stanley says: "I am very glad you liked the 'Generous Lye.' There are very beautiful natural passages in it, though the plan is so German. I see two translations of the 'Noble Lye' are published. It is very odd that the German translators will always present themselves in pairs."—Ibid., p. 179. The last sentence refers to the fact that Stanley's Leonora was so soon followed by another, probably meaning Spencer's.
* ↑ One of the two translations referred to in the letter quoted in the preceding footnote is noticed in the Monthly Review of May, 1799. It was translated by Maria Geisweiler.
* ↑ Early Married Life, p. 191.
* ↑ Early Married Life, p. 179.