play of their limbs and the rattle of their tongues might be controlled. Their father was not fond of children, and wanted to have quiet; the mother was ill, and for her sake too these precocious little elves were kept in abeyance under lock and key, and under the frown of the nurse. It was characteristic of their habit that the room set apart for them was called, not a nursery, but "the children's study." Here Maria, the eldest, but not more than seven years of age, would sit with her little sisters, reading to them the newspapers in lack of fairy tales. The newspapers! was it the births was it the murderswas it the fires-was it the "strange if true" was it the colossal gooseberry that interested their youthful minds? The old nurse declares that it was "the debates in Parliament, and I don't know what all." It is amusing enough to think of this little colony of six children, the eldest only seven, huddled away in quiet room by themselves (for they have no companions), and solacing their misery while they wait for dinner, by studying the parliamentary debates on Catholic emancipation. The flood of Irish oratory, however, is soon relieved by an Irish dinner of potatoes-nothing but potatoes; for Mr Bronte will not let his children touch meat. After dinner, they invent and act little plays of their own, in which the Duke of Wellington (Charlotte's great hero) performs the most astounding feats, and is always certain to come off victorious at the last. Or they go forth to scamper on the moorlands those scenes which made so deep an impression on all of them, and which Emily-Emily, the prettiest of the family, on whom they had the deepest influence-afterwards described in verse, when, far away on the Continent, her heart was stricken with home-sickness, and her imagination painted the loved spot in colours too bright and fair. "The house is old, the trees are bare, Moonless above bends twilight's dome; But what on earth is half so dear, So longed for, as the hearth of home? The mute bird sitting on the stone, The dank moss dripping from the wall, The thorn-trees gaunt, the walks o'er Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere. Soon after Mrs Bronte's death, her sister, Miss Branwell, came to live at the parsonage, and to take care of the children. It seems that she won the respect, but never the love of these children; and in all the severity of an old maid's habit, she rises vividly before us, a stiff old lady, generally confined to her bedroom, where she takes most of her meals; and whenever she ventures to leave this sacred bower, always pattering about the house, up-stairs and downstairs, in pattens, through dread of catching cold from the stone floors. Perhaps the children were not sorry to escape to school from the tutelage of this worthy dame. The two eldest were sent to Cowanbridge school, which had shortly before been instituted for the benefit of the daughters of clergymen who might be unable to pay large sums for the education of their children. At this seminary, for about £15, a plain but useful education was afforded, while for £3 more, music, drawing, and other accomplishments, were promised. The whole was under the superintendence of Mr W. Carus Wilson, a benevolent clergyman, who spared neither labour nor money in order to establish the success of the scheme. Unfortunately, at first he trusted too much to the housekeeper, who was anything but a good manager; and the result was, that the girls were supplied with food small in quantity, and so vilely cooked that no animal but a starving rat would have eaten it. Maria and Elizabeth Bronte could not partake of it; and what with constitutional weakness, the lowness of the diet, the unhealthiness of the situation, and the severity of the discipline, the seeds of disease soon manifested their presence. Still Mr Bronte, unapprehensive of danger, not only maintained his two eldest daughters at the school, but also sent Charlotte and Emily; and it was, Mrs Gaskell insists, from her experience here that Charlotte afterwards drew the disgusting picture of Lowood school, as her sister Maria was the prototype of that angelic Helen Burns who is made so much of in the earlier pages of Jane Eyre, actually dying in the arms of the heroine. It is true that Currer Bell in her novels almost always started from facts, but she gave them a morbid colouring; and it is only with considerable limitation that we can accept the description of Lowood as applicable to Cowanbridge, and believe that in the teachers of Cowanbridge we have the originals of Miss Temple and Miss Scatcherd, especially since the estimate of a little girl of nine is scarcely to be relied on as perfectly accurate. On the whole, her report of the school is not favourable, and the circumstance that her two eldest sisters returned to Haworth from this place to die, was likely to deepen the unfavourable impression which almost all schools, but certainly cheap schools, make on the minds of young girls fresh from the freedom and comforts of home. The two eldest girls returned to the parsonage, as we have said, to die. Charlotte and Emily returned shortly afterwards, to be nursed and watched by an elderly Yorkshirewoman named Tabby (surname unknown), who ruled the children sharply, but kindly, and aspired to the position rather of a friend than of a servant. As old age came upon her in the midst of these household cares, Miss Bronte used to say that she found it somewhat difficult to manage with Tabby, who expected to be informed of all the family arrangements, and was yet so deaf that whatever was repeated to her was overheard. Her young mistress got over the difficulty on these important occasions by taking Tabby out for a walk on the moors, and there, seated on some rising-ground in all the solitude of heather and fern, pouring the secret into the ear of her faithful domestic. Poor old Tabby deserved their confidences, for in her rough affectionate way she had been a mother to the Bronte children; and one can see them playing about her as she works she ironing or baking, they teasing her, talking to her, slightly insurrectionary, but, on the whole, obedient and happy. One night in particular, when Charlotte, now the eldest of the little herd, was but eleven (she described the scene in her note-book two years afterwards), we see them, amid the cold of November, cowering around the warm kitchen-fire. They have just concluded a quarrel with Tabby concerning the propriety of lighting a candle, a proposition which the old dame has so effectually quashed, that the children are fain to content themselves with the blaze of the fire; and there they sit, not knowing what to do with themselves. "I don't know what to do," say the children one after the other, in the imitative manner of the tribe. "Wha, ya may go t' bed," says Tabby. Why are you so glum to-night, Tabby?" remonstrates Charlotte. "Oh, suppose we had each an island of our own!" Branwell, the most impulsive of the family, snatches at the idea. "I would choose the Island of Man." "And I would choose the Isle of Wight!" cries Charlotte. "The Isle of Arran for me," says Emily. And mine would be Guernsey," says little Anne. Then they choose to people their islands-Charlotte selecting for her colony the Duke of Wellington and his two sons, together with Christopher North and Co., and Mr Abernethy; Branwell fixing upon John Bull, Astley Cooper, and Leigh Hunt; Emily setting her heart on Walter Scott, Mr Lockhart, and Johnny Lockhart; while Anne, the wee thing of five years old, singles out Michael Sadler, Lord Bentinck, and Sir Henry Halford. Suddenly the clock struck seven, and without more ado Tabby hurried the merry little wretches from their play, and put them to bed; but the next day they set to work again, and developed the idea of the night before, making it into a little drama. In the heroes selected by these children one can easily trace the Toryism of the father, and the influence of these parliamentary de bates which, even at their early age, he used to discuss with his daughters. "We take two and see three newspapers a-week," wrote this little Charlotte of thirteen. "We take the 'Leeds Intelligencer,' Tory; and the Leeds Mercury, Whig. We see the John Bull, it is a high Tory, very violent. Mr Driver lends us it, as likewise Blackwood's Magazine,' the most able periodical there is. The editor is Mr Christopher North, an old man seventy-four years of age; the 1st of April is his birth-day." Curiously enough, politics was at this time the grand theme, and the Duke of Wellington the grand monarque of these children. They wrote stories and acted plays without number, but always the Duke was the conquering hero, and the destined saviour; while for gallant knight-errant and handsome lover, the Marquess of Douro and Lord Charles Albert Florian Wellesley are the most convenient personages in the world. If there is an interesting tale to be told, it is put into the mouth of Lord Charles Albert Florian Wellesley; if there is some glowing poetry to be recited, it is set down to the account of the most noble the Marquess of Douro. From this point of view, and as a memorial of Charlotte Bronte's rage for fictitious composition, few documents are more singular than the "Catalogue of my books, with the period of their completion up to August 3, 1830," when let it be remembered that she was little more than four teen. There are "The Adventures of Edward de Crack," "The Duke of Wellington's Adventure in the Cavern, The Marquess of Douro and Lord Charles Wellesley's Tale to his little King and Queens," "The Three Old Washerwomen of Strathfieldsaye," "The Twelve Adventurers, and the Adventures in Ireland," "Lord Charles Wellesley and the Marquess of Douro's Adventure," "The Strange Incident in the Duke of Wellington's Life," "Character of Great Men of the Present Age," "Scene in my Tun, a Tale," "Descriptions of the Duke of Wellington's Palace on the Pleasant Banks of the Lusiva," "The Green Dwarf, a Tale of the Perfect Tense, by the Lord Charles Albert Florian Wellesley;" and so on, with these singular titles, through not less than twenty-two volumes. When it is added that all these volumes contain between sixty and a hundred pages, on each of which there is about as much matter as on one of the pages of Maga (for the writing is so minute that it seems to be the penmanship of a fairy, and no mortal man can read it without a compound microscope), the industry and enthusiasm of the little girl who wrote the whole in fifteen months will be appreciated. We can understand how, afterwards, at school, she used at night to keep her companions awake while she told them stories, till violent palpitations ensued, they screamed with terror, and woke up the house; and we can scarcely be surprised to hear that, some twenty years afterwards, she produced a novel which was immediately pronounced to be one of the most remarkable that had ever issued from the pen of a woman. Charlotte was not sent to school again until she was fifteen years of age, and then she became the pupil of a Miss Wooler, who lived at Roehead, somewhere between Leeds and Huddersfield, in a district which the future novelist selected as the scene of the transactions recorded in Shirley. At this school too, where she was very happy, she contracted friendships with three girls, who afterwards figured as the Caroline Helstone, the Rose, and Jessie Yorke of the same novel, a fact which is worth mentioning, as an illustration of her mode of painting from the life. She always started from facts, but worked them out in imagination according to what seemed to be their consistent development. It was a habit which she had very early acquired, and which, by herself and her school companions, was called "making out." She awoke in the middle of a pleasant dream, and she would make out the conclusion of which she had been baulked; she would pitch upon a hero, and she would find him characteristic words and actions through a hundred complications. Her whole time at school, however, was not taken up with this practice of "making out.' She had much to learn, for though her information was extensive, yet her mind was undisciplined and her knowledge was superficial. She became an indefatigable student, never lost a moment, gave up her play-hour for lessons, and made very rapid progress. She is described by her schoolmates as at this time looking like a little old woman, with her quaint antediluvian garments, and her odd gravity of manner, which was made all the more piquant by the shortness of her sight. When a book was placed in her hands, she dropt her head over it till her nose nearly touched the page; and when she was told to lift her head up, up went the book after it, still close to her nose. She was shy and nervous too, with a strong Irish accent; and the general criticism of the school, which, by the way, consisted of not more than nine or ten pupils, was conveyed in the saying of one of her companions, uttered with all a school-girl's spitefulness, "You are very ugly." With that fine weird expression of hers, ugly she never was, although her features were by no means remark able for symmetry. Her nose was large, her mouth was a little awry, but her eyes were of singular beauty. "Her hands and feet," says Mrs Gaskell, "were the smallest I ever saw when one of the former was placed in mine, it was like the soft touch of a bird in the middle of my palm. The delicate long fingers had a peculiar fineness of sensation, which was one reason why all her handiwork, of whatever kind-writing, sewing, knitting-was so clear in its minuteness. She was remarkably neat in her whole personal attire; but she was dainty as to the fit of her shoes and gloves." The latter part of this description, however, applies to a more recent period than the school-days of Charlotte Bronte, although even then she seems to have blown out into perfect womanhood, coming home to take a sort of maternal charge of the younger children. She had not been much more than a year at Roehead, when she thus came back to the parsonage, to share in its duties and partake of its freedom. Her aunt Branwell exacted a good deal of her attention : to various household requirements, such as brushing the carpets, blackleading the stoves, making the beds, baking the bread, mending and ironing the clothes, and she went through them all with a gentleness and goodness of heart that was most beautiful. "I excited aunt's wrath very much by burning the clothes the first time I attempted to iron," she says, "but I do better now. Human feelings are queer things I am much happier blackleading the stoves, making the beds, and sweeping the floors at home, than I should be living like a fine lady anywhere else." Her father, on the other hand, encouraged her in her studies as much as possible, and she herself added to her other duties that of imparting to her sisters whatever she had acquired at school. It is strange to think of this little band, almost entirely self-educated, clinging together among the mountains, having no companions, scarcely even a teacher except the father, but panting for knowledge, and, as if by mere force of rubbing on some secret ring or lamp, calling up a powerful genius of those ruled by Solyman son of Daoud, to enlighten their eyes and to make wise their hearts. They were now, indeed, looking out for the genius of fortune as well as of knowledge, for the family were shooting up, the strain upon their father's income was more and more felt, and it became a question of growing importance what could any of them do to diminish the pressure. Charlotte at one time thought of making her way as an artist, and wearied her eyes, says Mrs Gaskell, "in drawing with pre-Raphaelite minuteness, but not with pre-Raphaelite accuracy, for she drew from fancy rather than from nature." But about this period it began to be determined that Branwell, at least, of whose gift there could be no doubt, should be an artist, and should proceed to London to study at the Royal Academy. Poor Branwell grew up with splendid talents, and is said to have been the greatest genius of the family, although he was utterly wanting in that remarkable power of self-control possessed by all his sisters. He was certainly the most sociable of the Brontes-he was fond of conviviality—he was a brilliant talker, and established such a fame in the neighbourhood, that when any traveller came to the Black Bull of the village, and seemed to be dull over his liquor, the landlord would say-"Do you want some one to help you with your bottle, sir? If you do, I'll send up for Patrick," for so he was called by the villagers. It was not the best training for the lad, who, like most young men, was by no means averse from the pleasures of dissipation, and felt constrained in his village retreat. For days together the boy would pore over the map of London, until he knew its highways and byways all by heart, and could puzzle a Londoner by informing him of the shortest cuts with which not many who have been all their lives in the metropolis are acquainted. Dreaming thus of the great city-dreaming and scheming, hoping, longing and trying, it is sickening to read that all his hopes were clouded and all his plans were baffled. He would be an artist, but it was found impossible to send him to London, and that bright daydream vanished. He would be a poet, and wrote to Wordsworth for his opinion; but in these days poetry was at a discount, and although Branwell looked to verse rather for the launching of his vessel than for the bearing of it onward, the bubble again burst, and he was doomed to disappointment. Finally, after years of hope deferred, and idle hanging on the skirts of chance, he obtained a situation as a private tutor, and once more all was promise and expectation. But this hope also failed him, and he had soon to relinquish his appointment. He returned home to sketch out plans of honourable labour, and to dream of a brilliant future that never was to come. So, with the misfortune of having no profession, he passed the remainder of his days, loitering about the parsonage and the village, sleeping all day and waking all night, a burden to himself, and a cause of much anxiety to his relatives. Anne Bronte is so haunted with the idea of her poor brilliant brother before her eyes wasting away his existence, that she can do nothing but think of him, and describes all his moods with painful minuteness in the "Tenant of Wildfell Hall." At length, in his thirtieth year, this young man, with all his extraordinary power, passes from our sight into the mystery of the grave. It was characteristic of the Bronte family that he knew not death was upon him till the very end; that two days before his decease he was in the village as usual, and that to carry out a favourite theory of his, that so long as there is life in a man, there is strength of will to do what he chooses, he resolved on standing up to die, and in this position breathed his last. He who has not will enough to shape out his life, has will enough to die in an attitude of defiance, which declared that the great king of terrors, who has power to destroy the body, has no power to destroy the soul. It was in 1848, nearly a year after the publication of Jane Eyre, and when Charlotte Bronte was in all the radiance of success and fame, that her brother thus proudly perished; and we have anticipated the final scene, that we may at once get rid of a very painful history. But now, in 1835, brother and sisters are full of hope, and the result of their cogitations is that "we are all about to divide, break up, separate. Emily is going to school, Branwell is going to London, and I am going to be a governess. I am going to teach in the very school where I was myself taught. My lines have fallen in pleasant places." Emily accompanied her sister to the same school as a pupil, but soon became ill from homesickness, and could not settle to anything. Every morning when she woke," says Charlotte in that touching little memorial which she has prefixed to her sister's writings, "the vision of home and the moors rushed on her, and darkened and saddened the day that lay before her. Nobody knew what ailed her but me. I knew only too well. I felt in my heart she would die if she did not go home, and with this conviction obtained her recall. She had only been three months at school; and it was some years before the experiment of sending her from home was again ventured on. 66 Her place in the school was |