[Footnote 19: There are in the magazines of the period, 71 translations of German poetry and 10 duplicates; 68 original poems and translations of other Teutonic poetry, and 24 duplicates.]
[Footnote 20: No list of the translations from the Latin and French in these magazines has been made, so that a numerical comparison with those from the German is at present impossible.]
There is another reason why these magazines did not contain more translations from the German. The period under consideration coincides very closely with the classical epoch of German literature and many of the masterpieces were not issued until near the end. _Hermann und Dorothea_ appeared in 1797 and _Wallenstein_ three years later, while _Wilhelm Tell_ was not finished until 1804 and the completed _Faust_ (first and second parts) was published twenty-three years after the period closes. The dates of much of the classical German literature precluded the possibility of its being translated until two thirds of the period had passed. However valuable these works are, it is not remarkable that they should not have become known immediately on this side of the Atlantic. For the Germans here, the originals were all that were needed, and it naturally took some time for the English part of the population to realize the worth of the books and to demand translations. These causes, then, prevented the German influence in the magazines from assuming larger proportions.
The period treated in the present study is from 1741 to 1810 inclusive. The year 1741 is chosen as marking the beginning of the American periodicals of a literary type. The publications of an earlier date that were examined were devoted almost entirely to news, or were almanacs that contained no literary material, for example, the _New England Kalendar_, I, 1706, Boston, or the _New Weekly Journal_, 1728, Boston. These have been omitted from the list. It is therefore not until 1741 that our period really begins. The two magazines which were to be the pioneers of this extensive class of American literature had been announced in the previous year. The _Phila. Weekly Mercury_ (Oct. 30, 1740) gives the prospectus of a magazine to be edited by John Webbe and printed by Andrew Bradford; while in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ (Nov. 13, 1740) Franklin announced _The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for all the British Plantations in America_. A bitter controversy soon arose,--Franklin claiming that Webbe had stolen his plans, and Webbe accusing Franklin of using his position as Postmaster to exclude the _Mercury_ from the mail. Both magazines were issued in January, 1741; Webbe's journal, _The American Magazine; or a Monthly View of the Political State of the British Colonies_, ran for three months and Franklin's for six months.[21] With these, then, the investigation for the present subject begins. As has been indicated, the work has been extended to the end of the year 1840. After that, German literature was established as a well known factor in our intellectual development, as is shown by the numerous books of translations and imitations, and the magazines were, henceforth, less important in this particular. The period here treated extends only to the end of 1810. These years witnessed the beginning of the movement and the first period of considerable activity in this field. During the years immediately following 1810 there was a decline in the German literary influence in the American magazines.[22]