_Edinburgh Review_. Taylor's tastes were one-sided, not to say
eccentric; he had not kept up with the later movement of German thought;
his critical opinions were out of date, and his book was sadly wanting in
unity and a proper perspective. Carlyle was especially scandalized by
the slight space accorded to Goethe.[26] But Taylor's really brilliant
talent in translation, and his important service as an introducer and
interpreter of German poetry to his own countrymen, deserve always to be
gratefully remembered. "You have made me hunger and thirst after German
poetry," wrote Southey to him, February 24, 1799.[27]

The year 1796, then, marks the confluence of the English and German
romantic movements. It seems a little strange that so healthy a genius
as Walter Scott should have made his _dèbut_ in an exhibition of the
horrible. Lockhart reports him, on the authority of Sir Alexander Wood,
as reading his "William and Helen" over to that gentleman "in a very slow
and solemn tone," and then looking at the fire in silence and presently
exclaiming. "I wish to Heaven I could get a skull and two crossbones."
Whereupon Sir Alexander accompanied him to the house of John Bell,
surgeon, where the desired articles were obtained and mounted upon the
poet's bookcase. During the next few years, Scott continued to make
translations of German ballads, romances, and chivalry dramas. These
remained for the present in manuscript; and some of them, indeed, such as
his versions of Babo's "Otto von Wittelsbach" (1796-97) and Meier's
"Wolfred von Dromberg" (1797) were never permitted to see the light. His
second publication (February, 1799) was a free translation of Goethe's
tragedy, "Götz von Berlichingen mit der Eisernen Hand." The original was
a most influential work in Germany. It had been already twenty-six years
before the public and had produced countless imitations, with some of
which Scott had been busy before he encountered this, the fountain head
of the whole flood of _Ritterschauspiele_.[28] Götz was an historical