retreating chin conveys an idea of weakness of will.  His hair and complexion were sandy.  He had enough of Irish blood in him to make his manners frank and genial, with a kind of natural gallantry about them.  In a fragment of one of his manuscripts which I have read, there is a justness and felicity of expression which is very striking.  It is the beginning of a tale, and the actors in it are drawn with much of the grace of characteristic portrait-painting, in perfectly pure and simple language which distinguishes so many of Addison’s papers in the “Spectator.”  The fragment is too short to afford the means of judging whether he had much dramatic talent, as the persons of the story are not thrown into conversation.  But altogether the elegance and composure of style are such as one would not have expected from this vehement and ill-fated young man.  He had a stronger desire for literary fame burning in his heart, than even that which occasionally flashed up in his sisters’.  He tried various outlets for his talents.  He wrote and sent poems to Wordsworth and Coleridge, who both expressed kind and laudatory opinions, and he frequently contributed verses to the Leeds Mercury.  In 1840, he was living at home, employing himself in occasional composition of various kinds, and waiting till some occupation, for which he might be fitted without any expensive course of preliminary training, should turn up; waiting, not impatiently; for he saw society of one kind (probably what he called “life”) at the Black Bull; and at home he was as yet the cherished favourite.

Miss Branwell was unaware of the fermentation of unoccupied talent going on around her.  She was not her nieces’ confidante—­perhaps no one so much older could have been; but their father, from whom they derived not a little of their adventurous spirit, was silently cognisant of much of which she took no note.  Next to her nephew, the docile, pensive Anne was her favourite.  Of her she had taken charge from her infancy; she was always patient and tractable, and would submit quietly to occasional oppression, even when she felt it keenly.  Not so her two elder sisters; they made their opinions known, when roused by any injustice.  At such times, Emily would express herself as strongly as Charlotte, although perhaps less frequently.  But, in general, notwithstanding that Miss Branwell might be occasionally unreasonable, she and her nieces went on smoothly enough; and though they might now and then be annoyed by petty tyranny, she still inspired them with sincere respect, and not a little affection.  They were, moreover, grateful to her for many habits she had enforced upon them, and which in time had become second nature:  order, method, neatness in everything; a perfect knowledge of all kinds of household work; an exact punctuality, and obedience to the laws of time and place, of which no one but themselves, I have heard Charlotte say, could tell the value in after-life; with their impulsive natures, it was positive