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ments, in that abyfs, and toffing amidst the waves. Why were my feet rooted to the earth? why could I not thus have put an end to my mifery? But I feel it, my dear friend, my hour is not yet come. With what delight fhould I have changed my nature, and have incorporated with the whirlwinds to rend the clouds and difturb the waters! Perhaps I may one day quit my prison, and taste these pleasures.

I looked forrowfully down upon a little spot where I had fat under a willow by the fide of Charlotte, after a fummer's walk; that also was under water. I could hardly distinguish

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guish the tree. Alas! I then thought of the meadows, the fields round the hunting-lodge; the walks, the green receffes, now perhaps laid waste by the torrent; and the memory of time for ever loft entered my heart. -Thus to the fleeping captive, dreams recall all the bleffings he is deprived of. I stopped.-I don't reproach myself, I have the courage to die ;- I should have-I am now like an old and wretched woman, who picks dry sticks along the hedge fide, and begs bread from door to door, to prolong for a few moments her feeble and miferable existence..

LETTER

LETTER LXXVI.

December 17.

I KNOW not how it is, my dear

VOWS.

friend, my imagination is full of terror! Is not my love for her the purest and the most facred? Is it not the love of a brother for his fifter? Did ever my heart form a wish that was criminal?-I will make no And now a dream -Oh! they were much in the right who at tributed contending paffions to powers that are foreign to us !-This very night-I tremble as I write itthis very night I held her in my arms, I preffed her to my bofom, de

voured her trembling lips with kiffes. The moft melting foftness was in her eyes, in mine equal extafy. When I now at this moment recall these transports with delight, am I guilty of a crime?-Oh! Charlotte! Charlotte! 'tis all over ;my fenfes are difordered, and for these seven days I have not been myfelf; my eyes are full of tears;-all places are alike to me; in none am I at peace ;-I defire nothing, I ask nothing.-Ah! 'twere better far that I should depart!

[The

[The Editor to the Reader.

IN order to give a connected account of the last days of Werter, I am obliged to interrupt the course of his letters by a narration; the materials for which were furnished to me by Charlotte, Albert, his own fervant, and fome other witneffes.

THE paffion of Werter had infenfibly diminished the harmony which fubfifted between Charlotte and her husband. The affection of Albert for his wife was fincere, but calm, and had by degrees given place to his business. He did not

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