Objectors of course there were. Lessing, for example, who neither suffered from the disease of the epoch, nor tolerated any approach to sentimentality, thought so fiery a production ought to have a cold epilogue to counteract it. "Do you believe," he wrote, "that any Roman or Grecian youth would thus and therefore have committed suicide? Certainly not. They knew how to guard themselves from the extravagances of love, and in the days of Socrates such an ἐξ ἔρωτος κατοχὴ whom τι τολμῖν παρὰ φύσιν impelled, would scarcely be pardoned even by a girl. Such littlegreat questionable originals only suit our Christian culture, which knows so well how to transform a cor

que vous, j'irais vous embrasser, et vous dire mon secret; mais malheureusement j'en habite un où personne ne croirait au motif qui vient de me déterminer à cette démarche. Soyez satisfait, Monsieur, d'avoir pu à trois cents lieues de votre demeure ramener le cœur d'un jeune homme à l'honnêteté et à la vertu, toute une famille va être tranquille, et mon cœur jouit d'une bonne action."

Let me not forget the visit of his English admirer, who accosted him on the stairs with "You must be the author of 'Werther'!" adding that he could not wait a moment longer, all he wanted to say was this, "I will not repeat what you must have heard from thousands, for indeed your work has not affected me so much as it has others; but when I think what it required to write such a book, I am lost in astonishment." Having eased his mind of this weight, he wished Goethe a hearty farewell, and ran down-stairs.

"A

A similar story is told by Schiller in a letter to Körner. shrivelled figure entered my room and asked me if I was not Councillor Schiller. I replied in the affirmative. I heard that you were here, and could not restrain myself from seeing the author of "Don Carlos." 'Gehorsamer Diener! your most obedient servant,' said I; 'whom have I the honour of addressing?' 'I have not the happiness of being known to you. My name is Vulpius.' 'I am indebted to you for your politeness; unluckily, I have an engagement.' 'Oh, sir, I beg you won't mention it. I am quite satisfied with having seen you.' Briefwechsel, i. p. 105.

At the risk of swelling this note to unreasonable dimensions, I must quote a passage from Pliny's "Letters," which records a similar anecdote: "Nunquamne legisti Gaditanum quemdam Titi Livii nomine gloriaque commotum ad visendum eum ab ultimo terrarum orbe venisse, statimque ut viderat abiisse ?"— Lib. ii. Ep. iii.

poreal necessity into a spiritual perfection. So, worthy Goethe, let us have a concluding chapter; and the more cynical the better." 1 This is a misstatement of the whole question. It is not the extravagance of love which causes Werther's suicide: it is his own diseased moral nature which makes life insupportable, and which makes unhappy love the spark that fires the train. Moreover, one reads with surprise this reference to Greek and Roman life, coming from so admirable a scholar as Lessing. He forgot that Sophocles, in the "Antigone," makes an unhappy lover commit suicide because his mistress is lost to him. He forgot, also, that the Stoics introduced the "fashion" of suicide into Rome; and in Alexandria the Epicureans established a "society for the suppression of life" - the ovvaπo@avoúμevo — συναποθανούμενοι where, having exhausted every pleasure, the members assembled at a feast, the wine-cup went freely round, and in the midst of this orgie they quietly put an end to their contemptible existences: a new variation of the conversazione, at which, instead of music. and æsthetic tea, the guests were invited to supper and suicide.

The Berlin Aristarchus Nicolai an upright, but narrow-minded man, and a great enemy of all Schwärmerei, wrote, by way of criticism, a parody called the "Joys of Young Werther," in which sentimentalism is ridiculed : Werther shoots himself with chicken's blood only, and marries Charlotte, "and lives happy all the rest of his life."

Goethe's answer to this was 66

a burlesque poem called Nicolai at Werther's Grave,' which, however, cannot be communicated." This poem has been re

1 Lessing: "Werke," x. 225, Letter to Eschenberg.

It is surmised that Lessing's objections to "Werther" were sharpened by his dislike at recognising his young friend Jerusalem, thus brought into a fiction. A letter from Weisse to Garve, quoted by Appell, "Werther und seine Zeit," p. 50, confirms this.

covered and printed by Boas. 1 coarse, and not very humourous.

It is exceedingly
The admirers of

Werther," of course, are greatly incensed against Nicolai; but they forget that Nicolai never denied the talent of the work, he only echoed Lessing's objection to its tendency. His criticism, moreover, was but a feather in the scale against the praise which poured in from all sides.

While the public was reading the tragic story of "Werther" through fast-flowing tears, a painful sense of indignation rose in the breasts of Kestner and Charlotte at seeing themselves thus dragged into publicity, their story falsified. The narrative was in many respects too close to reality not to be very offensive in its deviations from reality. The figures were unmistakable; and yet they were not the real figures. The eager public soon found out who were the principal personages, and that a real history was at the bottom of the romance: but as the whole truth could not be known, the Kestners found themselves in a very false light. They were hurt by this indiscretion of their friend; more hurt perhaps than they chose to confess; and we may read, in the following fragment of the sketch of the letter sent by Kestner on receipt of the book, the accents of an offended friend whose pride restrains the full expression of his anger:

"Your Werther' might have given me great pleasure, since it could have reminded me of many interesting scenes and incidents. But as it is, it has in certain respects given me little edification. You know I like to speak my mind.

"It is true, you have woven something new into each person, or have fused several persons into one. So far good. But if in this interweaving and fusing you had taken counsel of your heart, you would not 1" Nachträge zu Goethe's Werke:" Lief. i. p. 12.