[150] In his sixty-second year Goethe also said of himself: "Denn gewöhnlich, was ich ausspreche, das tue ich nicht, und was ich verspreche, das halte ich nicht."
[151] Werke, Briefe, ii. 140.
[152] These lines are by the Earl of Rochester. On reading the first English translation of Werther (1783), Goethe wrote: "It gave me much pleasure to read my thoughts in the language of my instructors."
[153] In making these modifications Goethe was advised by Herder and Wieland.
[154] Though to the satisfaction of neither Kestner nor Lotte.
[155] It was shortly after his meeting with Lotte Buff that Goethe learned that she was engaged to Kestner.
[156] Goethe gave the blue eyes of Maxe to Charlotte. Lotte Buff's eyes were brown.
[157] "Werther," Goethe remarked to Henry Crabb Robinson, "praised Homer while he retained his senses, and Ossian when he was going mad."
[158] Werke, Briefe, ii. 156.
[159] The judgment of Lessing, who had no sympathy with the effeminate sentimentality of the time, was severe. "We cannot," he said, "imagine a Greek or a Roman Werther; it was the Christian ideal that had made such a character possible." Goethe, he thought, should have added a cynical chapter (the more cynical the better) to put Werther's character in its true light. As the friend of Jerusalem, Lessing naturally resented the liberty which Goethe had taken with him.