In the melancholy case of Hackman and Miss Ray, the following is the substance of a correspondence which passed between them on the subject of Werter. Hackman was refused the sight of this book by Miss R., who had a copy of the French translation, because, as she expresses herself, she saw too great a similarity between her lover and Werter, not only in point of situation, but in the impetuosity of their tempers. “The book you mention,” says Miss R., “is just the only book you should never read. On my knees, I beg you never to read it! Perhaps you have read it; perhaps—I am distracted! Heaven only knows to whom I may be writing this letter.” To this, Hackman, who was in Ireland, replies: “Nonsense! to say it will make me unhappy, or that I shall not be able to read it. Must I pistol myself because a thick-blooded German has been fool enough to set the example, or because a German novelist has feigned such a story.” Werter was read, and the effect was most injurious on his mind. Whilst confined in Newgate, he wrote the following letter:—“Among my papers you will see, my friend, some lines I wrote on reading Goëthe’s Werter, translated from German into French, which, whilst I was in Ireland, Miss R. refused to lend me. When I returned to England, I made her let me read it. But I never shewed her these lines, for fear they should make her uneasy. Unhappy Werter! still less pretence hadst thou for suicide than I. After finally seeing thy Charlotte married to another—marrying her thyself—hadst thou a right over thy existence, because she was not thy wife? Yet wast thou less barbarous than I; for thou didst not seek to die in her presence,—but neither didst thou doubt her love. We can neither of us hope for pardon!” The lines were these, supposed to be found, after Werter’s death, upon the ground by the pistol— “If chance some kindred spirit should relate To future times unhappy Werter’s fate; Should in some pitying, almost pardoning age, Consign my sorrows to some weeping page; And should the affecting page be haply read By some new Charlotte—mine will then be dead. (Yes; she shall die—sole solace of my love! And we shall meet—for so she said—above.) O Charlotte! (Martha—by whatever name, Thy faithful Werter hands thee down to fame,) O be thou sure thy Werter never knows The fatal story of my kindred woes! O do not, fair one,—by my shocking end I charge thee!—do not let thy feeling friend Shed his sad sorrows o’er my tearful tale: Example, spite of precept, may prevail.”