steps, with her pail beside her, waiting

till somebody came, who might help

to place it upon her head: "Shall I

assist you, my dear?" I said. "Oh,

no, sir," she answered, colouring.

"Come, come, make no ceremony,"

said I; and helped her to lift the pail : <she thanked me, and went up the steps,

' smiling.'

In this scene, which is highly dramatic, its admirers assert that the unities

are finely preserved, the incidents well imagined, the dialogue terse, and beautifully pastoral; and the interest sustained to the last.

M. Goëthe has conferred a multiplicity of accomplishments on Werter, at a very small expense: we are assured that he not only draws, but understands Greek; and his literary taste is put out of doubt by various allusions, in terms of rapture, to those incomprehensible and tiresome forgeries, usually called the Poems of Ossian.

Every page contains instances of Werter's powers of reasoning, and his dexterous use of logical deductions: but nothing in this way can exceed one in the sixty-first letter, dated the 30th of October; a day, it may be presumed,

auspicious to moral argument. A hundred times have I been on the point of

clasping her in my arms' (his friend's wife). 'What torment to see such loveli'ness, such charms, passing and repassing ' continually before one, without daring to touch them! To touch is so natural: do not children endeavour to 'touch every thing they see;- and

I-' Whence it appears that this frantic gentleman knew extremely well what he was about; and that, moreover, had Mrs. Charlotte been ugly, he would not have been so anxious to touch her.

In letter fifty-six, his ambition was confined within more moderate limits,

and something less than touching would have contented him; for he says, with sweet sensibility, 'Only to look at her 'dark eyes, is to me happiness: what 'affects me is, that Albert' (the woman's husband) appears not so happy as he expected to be; as I should have been, if I hate broken sentences-heavens!

• And am I not explicit enough? '

Most certainly he is: his object is as manifest as any object can possibly be ; nor is it altogether so very surprising that the poor man, whose domestic

peace he is undermining, should not ap

pear happy.

The catastrophe which terminates this pious transaction wears rather a serious aspect; and, conscious of this, M. Goëthe has done his utmost to relieve its sombre colouring, by a few lively tints: for, doubtless, this must have been his motive for introducing some strokes of a character so equivocal, as to render it uncertain whether, at last, the reader should be sad or merry.

Can it be otherwise believed that the

author (unless as light-headed as his hero) would represent him, when upon