Scott was attracted by the romantic side of German literature. His first published poem was a translation made in 1796 from Buerger's wild ballad, _Leonora_. He followed this up with versions of the same poet's _Wilde Jaeger_, of Goethe's violent drama of feudal life, _Goetz Von Berlichingen_, and with other translations from the German, of a similar class. On his horseback trips through the border, where he studied the primitive manners of the Liddesdale people, and took down old ballads from the recitation of ancient dames and cottagers, he amassed the materials for his _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, 1802. But the first of his original poems was the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, published in 1805, and followed, in quick sucession by _Marmion_, the _Lady of the Lake_, _Rokeby_, the _Lord of the Isles_, and a volume of ballads and lyrical pieces, all issued during the years 1806-1814. The popularity won by this series of metrical romances was immediate and wide-spread. Nothing so fresh or so brilliant had appeared in English poetry for nearly two centuries. The reader was hurried along through scenes of rapid action, whose effect was heightened by wild landscapes and picturesque manners. The pleasure was a passive one. There was no deep thinking to perplex, no subtler beauties to pause upon; the feelings were stirred pleasantly, but not deeply; the effect was on the surface. The spell employed was novelty--or, at most, wonder--and the chief emotion aroused was breathless interest in the progress of the story. Carlyle said that Scott's genius was _in extenso_, rather than _in intenso_, and that its great praise was its healthiness. This is true of his verse, but not altogether so of his prose, which exhibits deeper qualities. Some of Scott's most perfect poems, too, are his shorter ballads, like _Jock o' Hazeldean_, and _Proud Maisie is in the Wood_, which have a greater intensity and compression than his metrical tales.