The Press. — London, England, 1857-04-04 00:00:00

APRIL 4, 1857. found herself famous. But the discovery occasioned no change in her habits. What ever exultation she experienced was chastened by the events that followed. " Will fortune "never come with both ltitnds full?" How often in life has that question been asked by the sensitive when some fondly-cherished wish has been granted, but granted with ac companying circumstances which render it almost worthless ! There is profound truth in the reflection of Rochefoucauld that though our fondest desires are sometimes granted, they aro never granted at the moment when their realisation would give the highest plea sure. Charlotte Brame had achieved literary fctne. She was independent. She had no cause to fear the future. Alas! the sunshine was but— Brief as the lightning in the collied night, Which, e're a wan bath power to say—ttehohl The jaws of darknes doth devour it up. A few months after the publication of " Jane Eyre," Miss Bronte wrote (July 28, 1848): Branwell is the same in conduct as ever. His constitu tion seems much shattered. Papa, and sometimes all of us, have sad nights with him. He sleeps most of the day, and coAsequently will lie awake at night. But has not every house its trial? A month later and he was in his grave. We are ',old When his fatal attack came on his pockets were found filled with old letters front the woman to whom he was attached. He died! she lives still—iu May•fair. TL►is trouble was quickly followed by one heavier to bear. Two months later Charlotte wrote that Emily was very ill. With a pecu liarity characteristic of the family, she would see no "poisoning doctor." though her state was most alarming and her sufferings serene. Branwell had died Oct. 9, and on Dee. 21 Charlotte wrote : There is no Emily in time or on earth now. Yesterday we put her poor, wasted, mortal frame quietly tinder the church pavement. We are very calm at present. Why should we be otherwise ? The anguish of seeing her suffer is over; the spectacle of the pains of death is gone by ; the funeral day is past. We feel she is at peace. The two sisters alone remained, and it was in this time of her bereavement that Miss lironte had to read the harshest criticisms ever published on her works. One reviewer, speculating on her personality, said :—" She " must, be one who, for some sufficient reason, " has long forfeited the society of her sex " Remarks of this kind, in spite of affliction, of pride, and of conscious goodness, forced tears from her eyes. Reviewers are really placed under a deeper responsibility than they are inclined to recog nise. A book is often a living subject. It is not merely a reflex of tile author's mind, it is the author in propria persona. . To stretch it on the rack, or to lay it out on a board as a " subject " in a dissecting room, to probe its weak places, to exercise the knife on its excre scences, is exquisite torture to the author. When, tempted by the desire to pen a smart article, or to point a sentence, the critic ven tures on censure or insinuation beyond what the book itself warrants, he does unquestion ably abuse his power. When some cruel re. views of "Jane Eyre" appeared, what was the position of poor Jane Eyre herself? She was an inmate of Haaorth Parsonage, made deso late by many deaths, mourning —the grief in both cases most bitter over a brother steeped in degradation before ho died, and over a sister cut off in the finest bloom of promise. She was tending an old stern father ; she was watching with fearful anxiety the only sister remaining of the four she had known She was intent on the discharge of household duties, and in her literary character solely anxious to manifest truly the talent intrusted to her charge. What a reed was this, trembling in the wilderness, for the severity of criticism to strike and blast ! Her sister Anne soon sickened after the death of Emily. The year (1848) had not closed before her illness assumed an alarming form. The spring of the following scar came, and Anne lingered on. In April she composed some verses, before she closed her desk for ever. The two first may serve as a speci men : I hoped that with the brave and strong My portioned task might lie ; To toil amid the busy throng, With purpose pure and high. THE PRESS. But God has fixed another part, And He has fixed it well: J said so wan my bleeding heart, When first the anguish fell. In the hope that a change might be beneficial, Charlotte accompanied her sister to Scar borough. Remedies then came too late. She calked out on the 27th of May, a Sunday, and wished to go to church. On the 28th she died, and Charlotte, save her aged father, was alone in the world. After the death of Anne in 1849, a period of repose was given to Miss Bronte. We do not propose to follow her literary life further. " Shirley" and " Villette " were successfully published ; and the Times distinguished itself by a slashing review of the former. Miss Bronte was more pained by some stinging comments on the latter novel from the pea of her friend, Miss Martineau. There is, we cannot disguise it, an acrimonious jealousy in the literary character, the consequence per haps of keen perception, which greatly detracts from the regard which it may claim on other accounts. The remainder of her domestic history may be soon told. Her father's curate, Mr. Nicholls, who had known her " as a daughter, " a sister, a mistress, and a friend," had con ceived the deepest attachment for her. He spoke at the close of 1852. Miss Bronte favoured his suit, but her father was averse to it. Her resolution was instantly taken. She conformed to her father's will, and Mr. Nicholls resigned the curacy of Haworth. A year later her father relented, and it seemed that Charlotte had the prospect of a happy married life before her. On the 29th of June, 1851, she became a bride. She was quietly wed in Haworth Church, and made a wedding tour with her husband to tho lakes of Killar ney. Early in the new year, 1855, she caught cold, and sickened. We read : Martha tenderly waited on her mistress, and from time to time tried tc cheer her with the thought of the baby that was coming. " I dare say 1 shall be glad sometime," she would say ; " but lam so ill—so weary—" Then the took to her bed, too weak to sit up. The progress of her fatal malady was rapid. On the Christmas-day of 1854 she had made glad the hearts of the poor of her parish by her gifts and visits ; and About the third week in March there was a change; a low wandering delirium came on Wakening fin• an instant, from this stupor of intelligence, she saw her husband's woe•worn face, and caught the sound of some murmured words of prayer that God would spare her. " Oh," she whispered forth, " am not going to die, cm 1 ? He will not separate us, we have been so happy." She died on the 31st of March ; and her father and her husband were left together in the lonely parsonage•house. The memoir closes rapidly, as befits the end of so sad a story. There is a hint that the close vicinity of the crowded churchyard may have contributed to the untimely death of the sisters and their brother. A more dreary situation for a dwelling cannot be imagined ; yet Miss Bronte never for a mo ment seems to have thought of quitting it. The parsonage was her home : and she seems to have been too heedless of the world beyond. It is said that from an early age—as if the shadows of the future overhung her she never• knew what hope was. A hectic flush pervaded the family ; and un fortunately it was strengthened by their mode of life. It is perceptible in all Miss Bronte's writings We never thought them healthy reading. They want a wider range of view and thought than Haworth Parsonage could give. In an eloquent passage Mrs. Gaskell excuses the peculiarities which have been most censured in Charlotte Bronte's novels : I do not deny for myself the existence of coarseness here and there in her works, otherwise so entirely noble. I only ask those who read them to consider her• life — which has been openly laid bare befote them—and to say how it could be otherwise. She saw few men ; and among these few were one or two with whom she had been nc quainted since early girlhood—who had shown her much friendliness and kindness—through whose family she had received many pleasures—for whose intellect she had a great respect—but who talked before her, if not to her, with as little reticence as Rochester talked to Jane Eyre. Take this in connection with her poor brother's sad life, and the outspoken people among whom she lived—re• member her strong feeling of the duty of representing life as it really is, not as it ought to be—and then do her just►ce fur all that she wai, and all that she would have been (had God spared her), rather than censure her be- cause circumstauoes forcel her to touch pitch, as it were 341 and by it her hand was for a moment defiled. It was but skin deep. Every change in her life was purifying her; it hardly could raise her. Again I cry, "If she had but lived " We do not think that either mind or character required " purifying." Her intellect wowed only more expansive exercise, and more com munion with society. Like her biographer, we refrain from criticising ner ‘vorks. bidet d their interest fades before the infinitely stronger interest of her strange and pathetio story. NEW NOVELS. SEVERAL clever and agree.►ble novels have been issued lately, most of thee► by writers of established reputation. Our notices of th. m must be brief, as it. does not strike us that any are so remarkable fur originality as to call fur critical examination. (1.) Mrs. Marsh's novels are always plea-- ing. Iler new one, "The Rose of Ashurst," is chiefly concerned with the rural life she excels in describing. It gives prominence to the home affections and pure sentiments which country life is calculated to nourish ; and is throughout natural, though suffi ciently touched with romance to be attractive in perusal. The characters of the brothels, Paul and Walter Lewis, one " a genius," the editor of a Radieal newspaper, and the other a hard-working village doctor, are effectively contrasted. There is less of incident and story in this novel than we are accustomed to find in the authoress's productions ; but many of the descriptive passages are in her best style. Sometimes, as in the epistolatory parts of the novel, her pen runs too fast and too far. She would do well to check this tendency to exuberance. The sentiment of the book is throughout healthy, and the lovers of fiction will find it pleasant though not very exciting relihng. (2.) The "Second Wife" is a story of a different cast, and of more crowded incident. The plot is carefully constructed and well sustained ; though too dependent, we think, on what is a rather stale device of modern novelists,—the prevalence of Jesuit intrigue in society under the mask of High Church zeal. We doubt the vraisemblance of this part of the novel, which in other respects is so clever that it might have been dispensed with The sketches of fashionable life are all excellent, showing intimate knowledge of society, and keen perception. For this reason, and for its general animation, the book is sure of a favourable reception. Lady Armadale and Lady Bouverie are in opposite styles the per fection of portraiture. The mind of the Avriter frequently rises above the level of drawing room conversation, and expands in beautiful thought. It is a favouraule sign that the work as it progresses shows deeper feelir g and higher power than could he anticipated from its opening chapters. If the book is a first production it promises to place the authoress in the first rank of "fashionable novelists." (3.) The authorship of " Cousin Geoffrey" was long a puzzle, as the book gave evidences both of masculine force and feminine delicacy. The like combination of mental qualities is manifested in " Married for Love." The struggles in a woman's heart between affec tion and duty, and the agony and despair which follow on the illusions of love being rudely dispelled, could only proceed from a female pen ; while, on the other hand, severe scrutiny of men's motives and passions indi cate a mastery of their nature seldom attained except by one of their own gender. We believe the name of the writer is now no secret, but as long as the anonymous is retained, it is not for us to disturb it. The moral of the story is to show that love-marriages do not answer, and that women should take better securities for their happiness than are to be found in the professions of lovers who would persuade them to contract an unequal and imprudent alliance. There is a double plot in the novel (1) The Rose of Ashsirst. By the Author of " Emilia Wynd- ham." Three Vols. London : Hurst and Blacken. (:l) The Second Wife. Three Vole. London: Hurst and Blacken. (3) Marriedfor Love. By the Author of "Cousin Geoffrey." Throe Yule. London : Hurst and blackett.