he says that interest in German literature was first aroused in Scotland
by a paper read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh in April, 1788, by
Henry Mackenzie, the "Addison of the North," and author of that most
sentimental fictions, "The Man of Feeling." "The literary persons of
Edinburgh were then first made aware of the existence of works of genius
in a language cognate with the English, and possessed of the same manly
force of expressions; they learned at the same time that the taste which
dictated the German compositions was of a kind as nearly allied to the
English as their language; those who were from their youth accustomed to
admire Shakspere and Milton became acquainted for the first time with a
race of poets who had the same lofty ambition to spurn the flaming
boundaries of the universe and investigate the realms of Chaos and old
Night; and of dramatists who, disclaiming the pedantry of the unities,
sought, at the expense of occasional improbabilities and extravagance, to
present life on the stage in its scenes of wildest contrast, and in all
its boundless variety of character. . . Their fictitious narratives,
their ballad poetry, and other branches of their literature which are
particularly apt to bear the stamp of the extravagant 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 Bürger'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