(Vol. viii., pp. 71. 183.)
The southern part of the U. S. seems to make as free with the reputations
of English authors, as the northern with their copyright. The name of the
South Carolina newspaper, which, with so much confirmatory evidence,
ascribed _The Calm_ to Shelley, is not given. If it was the _Southern
Literary Messenger_, the editor has been at it again. The following began
to appear in the English papers about Christmas last, and is still "going
the round:"
"THE SORROWS OF WERTHER.--The _Southern Literary Messenger_ (U. S.) for
the present month contains, in 'The Editor's Table,' the following
comic poem of Thackeray's; written, we are told, 'one morning last
spring in the _Messenger_ office,' during a call made by the author:--
'Werther had a love for Charlotte,
Such as words could never utter.
Would you know how first he met her?
She was cutting bread and butter.
'Charlotte was a married lady,
And a moral man was Werther;
And for all the wealth of Indies,
Would do nothing that might hurt her.
'So he sigh'd, and pined, and ogled,
And his passion boil'd and bubbled,
Till he blew his silly brains out,
And no more by them was troubled.
'Charlotte, having seen his body
Borne before her on a shutter,
Like a well-conducted person,
Went on cutting bread and butter.'"
I believe that Mr. Thackeray knows the value of his writings and his time
too well to _whittle_ at verses in the _Messenger_ office, and leave his
chips on the floor; and that he is too observant of the laws of fair wit to
make a falsification and call it a burlesque. _The Sorrows of Werther_ is
not so popular as when known here chiefly by a wretched version of a
wretched French version, and many who read these stanzas will be satisfied
that the {378} last conveys, at worst, a distorted notion of the end of
Goethe's story. To prevent this misapprehension, I quote from Mr. Boylan's
translation all that is told of Charlotte after Werther's suicide:
"The servant ran for a surgeon, and then went to fetch Albert.
Charlotte heard the ringing of the bell; a cold shudder seized her. She
wakened her husband, and they both rose. The servant, bathed in tears,
faltered forth the dreadful news. _Charlotte fell senseless at Albert's
feet._
. . . . . . .
"The steward and his sons followed the corpse to the grave. Albert was
unable to accompany them. _Charlotte's life was despaired of._"
Perhaps "despaired of" is too strong a word for "man _fuerchtete fuer_
Lottens Leben;" but there is no peg on which to hang the poor joke of the
last stanza.