Great Britain From the Boston Daily Advertiser, of 3rd August. now won by Great Britain was rather appaONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, IN AMERICA. rent than real. In the war so prosperously Ir illustrates the rapid progress of events concluded, she had trained her hardy coloand the sudden changes in the history of nists to know their own strength; she had nations, when we contemplate the fact that taught them the arts of battle, and had we are now passing through a series of centen- pointed out to them the men who were fit to nial anniversaries, uncelebrated and almost be their leaders. Of the officers engaged in forgotten, of the phases in that war in which the disastrous conflict of 1755, always to be England and France contended for the known as Braddock's Defeat, a provincial mastery of the new world, an empire which colonel alone had gained an honorable dis the result proved was destined for neither. tinction by his conduct on that occasion. Yesterday, was the centennial anniversary of He was to be the general of the armies, and that exciting scene at the head of Lake the first chief magistrate of a new nation, George, when Montcalm surprised the little the successor of the nations of the old world band of English troops in Fort William in maintaining the principal dominion upon Henry, and began a memorable siege. The the continent of America. siege was bravely sustained by the gallant lost her power here twenty-three years after Monro, who held out until the mortifying she gained it. It remains for the people of moment when he received the letter of the the United States, who are the sovereigns of pusillanimous Webb advising him to surren- the new nation, to show that they underder, which Montcalm had intercepted. On stand the lessons taught by bitter experience the 9th of August, 1757, Monro capitulated, to the great powers of the old world, and and there occurred that terrrible massacre that they are fit to maintain forever a dignity which stains the annals of honorable war- on this continent which France and England fare-although truth demands that the brave possessed only to lose. French general should not be held culpable We should not venture to allude to events for the infamous conduct of his savage allies. and reflections so familiar, but for the parThis sad close to the campaign of 1757 left pose of adverting to the fact that the scenes France triumphant, while America and Eng- of these passing events which distinguished land were humiliated. "Of the North the world's calendar one hundred years ago, American continent" says Bancroft, "the are precisely in the way of summer pleasure French claimed, and seemed to possess, travel; and nothing can be more interesting twenty parts in twenty-five; leaving four than to explore them with a view to renew only to Spain, and but one to Britain. ing one's memory of the history of which Their territory exceeded that of English twenty fold." Thus dark were the prospects of Anglo-Saxon dominion in America one hundred years ago. they were the theatre. No traveller to Europe neglects to visit the field of Water loo, and to make his visit thither the occa sion for speculation and reading; yet we A rapid sequence of events when Pitt was have upon our own continent, the scenes of placed at the head of the government reversed battles not less significant, which, if visited the image in the picture. One hundred at all, are visited to the neglect of their his years ago, in 1757, Franklin went to Eng- torical memories, while every malecontentat land as the agent of Pennsylvania, and was the newness of America lisps that its places able, as he tells us, to recommend and en- have no "associations." If our summer force on Pitt, through his secretaries, the utility of conquering Canada. Two years later, Quebec was taken, Wolfe and Montcalm falling the same day; and in 1760 the star of destiny in the new world set for interest! France forever But the glorious victory travellers would put the fourth volume of Bancroft, or Parkman's Pontiac in their travelling bags, they would make an excur sion to Lake George a trip of unsurpassable LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 693.-2 SEPTEMBER, 1857. i From The National Review. MISS BRONTE. The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Author of "Jane Eyre, 99 66 99 66 Shirley,' Villette," &c. By E. C. Gaskell, Author of "Mary Barton,' Ruth," &c. 2 vols. London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1857. 99 66 were wrung out of them by the living recollection of the long agony they suffered." Why thoughtless critics? They had penetration enough, it seems, to point out a leading feature in the books; and they must have been more than thoughtful to penetrate Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. By Currer the secret demestic sorrows of the family and Bell, Author of " Shirley, "Villette," take them into account in characterizing &c. Fifth Edition. London; Smith, their written productions. A living author Elder, and Co., 1855. is known to the world by his works only, or, Shirley. A Tale. By Currer Bell, Author if not so it is with his works alone the public of" Jane Eyre." London : Smith, Elder, are concerned; and he has no cause of comand Co., 1852. plaint if he is fairly judged by them without Villette. By Currer Bell, Author of " Jane Eyre,' Shirley," &c. A new Edition. any allowance for the private conditions under London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1855. which they were produced. On the other The Professor. A Tale. By Currer Bell, hand, he has the corresponding right to Author of "Jane Eyre, Shirley,' "demand that personal considerations and "Villette," &c. 2 vols. London: Smith, private information shall not be dragged in Elder, and Co., 1857. as elements of literary judgment, and that Wuthering Heights, and Agnes Grey. By his publicity as an artist shall give no preEllis and Acton Bell. A new Edition, text for invading the seclusion of his private revised; with a Biographical Notice of the Authors. A Selection from their life. While we disregard the weak and unLiterary Remains, and a Preface. By founded complaints we so often hear of Currer Bell. London: Smith, Elder, and " unsympathizing" criticism, we must all Co., 1851. allow that no terms of reprobation are too strong for forced and unwarrantable intrusions into the personal sanctuary. When an author is dead and his biography is writ ten, especially what may be called a private FRIENDS and friendly biographers are apt biography as distinguished from a simple to ask too much from "the public," and record of public actions, some of the restriofrom the critic who expresses an individual tions never justly infringed during the lifeatom of public judgment. There is such a time are removed. The sphere which is thing as being unjust to the judges. It is voluntarily opened to the public measures unjust to require of readers-all of whom the range of the critic. By the very act of more or less form opinions on an author-admitting us to the interior of a life and that the personal qualities of the writer, character we are invited to examine it; and unblemished purity of life, exalted heroism, if such a biography is to have any value, or heroic self-denial, should blind them to opinions on it must be freely formed and errors of style or dulness of story. It is freely expressed. constantly urged, more or less directly, that Smith must write sense because he supports an aged mother, and Amelia be true to nature because all her friends love her so much; and when these claims are ignored, there is irritation and outcry. "It is well," Mrs. Gaskell writes, "that the thoughtless critics, who spoke of the sad and gloomy views of life presented by the Brontes in their tales, should know how such words DCXCIII. LIVING AGE. VOL. XVIII. 37 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. By Acton In writing the life of the late Mrs. Nicholls, Mrs. Gaskell had more than ordinary difficulties to contend with. She had to depict an existence whose interest consisted in the singular characteristics of the narrow home in which it passed, in the spectacle of genius contending against cir cumstance, not on the wide stage of the world, but within the walls of one household, in energy struggling not against the outward blows of fate, but against the rather, we should say, to the felicity with trials of the heart, and still more against which its native elements of interest have isolation and repression. So narrow was the been marshalled and arrayed. The writer, stage, so few the actors, that it was impossi- indeed, has gently evaded the responsibility ble to illuminate one without letting in the of giving us her own conception of the charlight on others who stood closely grouped acters she is describing; this, perhaps, is a around the central figure, and without lay-thing we have no right to demand of her, ing bare to the public eye the closest, and but it would have added much to the value by all men most zealously guarded, secrets of of her work to have had a clear view of the domestic life. The biographer who has to impression produced by the whole of Miss deal with such a life must choose between a Bronte's character on any mind which had mode of treatment which reduces his field to had opportunitles of st.dying her intithe limits of a memoir, and scarcely allows mately. This is the simplest, the most him to do justice to his task, or one which, trustworthy, almost the only way in which on the other hand, is sure in its wider scope we can gain any adequate comprehension of to do some injury to the rights and suscepti- a nature which we have not known at first bilities of others. Mrs. Gaskell made her hand. But Mrs. Gaskell neither loves to choice, and has unflinchingly acted upon it. form a judgment herself, nor is she very In the warmth of her admiration for her willing that others should do so. She friend, in her determination to interest the admits the right of divergence of opinion, public in her conscientious self-denying char- but is almost as sensitive to the exercise of acter and her joyless life, she has let no con- it as Miss Bronte herself; not to echo her siderations interfere with her purpose of own enthusiasm is an unfailing mark of presenting her subject in all the detail neces- superficial insight and shallow thought. sary to its complete appreciation, and with She has a tendency to hector us all, in a all that force of graphic delineation of which she is so great a master. Frankly we will state our conviction, that she was mistaken; that the principles and the practice which in England make it indecorous to withdraw the veil from purely domestic affairs,-the joys, the griefs, the shames of the household,-have a true basis in fortitude and delicacy of feeling, and are paramount to considerations of gratifying public curiosity, or even to that of securing a full appreciation for the private character of a distinguished artist. Don't let us deceive ourselves about the moral lesson in the present case; it is either so exceptional as to have no common application, or it is one which all who wish may gather for themselves within the range of their own family experience. And let us remember, too, that, without pressing real domestic events into the service, we have in our modern novels sufficient scope for supplying that pleasurable excitement of our better feelings, now so common a luxury, and which is in danger with many of us of replacing the effort to find them a field for their actual exercise. After this protest, we are free to echo the universal opinion as to the skill with which a difficult work has been executed, and an absorbing interest given to the narrative; lady-like way, into unqualified admiration; and when very angry, she whips the critics severely with her pocket-handkerchief. What she stigmatizes as want of sympathy, excites her bitterness. She prefers the Transatlantic school of criticism, and thinks praise cannot be too like Devonshire cream. She approves the American clergyman, whose tribute, however, seems to us more difficult of digestion than any censure, however harsh and undeserved. "We have," writes the reverend gentleman," we have in our sacred of sacreds a special shelf, highly adorned, as a place we delight to honor, of novels which we recognize as having had a good influence on characterour character. Foremost is Jane Eyre.'" With all its excellencies, and they are many, her book has a trace of the cant of paneulogism. It is a very different description from that which Charlotte Bronte herself would have written under under similar circumstances,-very dissimilar from those brief, unspoken, truthful sentences in which she characterizes her sisters in the short and eloquent tribute she has paid to their memory. Charlotte Bronte's character could have borne a thoroughly open and honest picture of what defects it had, and borne it better than it can bear one or two slight, and almost friendly hints, such as that of" slight | land now has formed an idea of Yorkshire doubt if they ever understood the northcountry character. They studied its exceptional aspects, and familiarity with its external traits enabled them to give life-like. costume to their pictures; but their narrow and secluded natures had neither the range nor the opportunity to grasp the broader characteristics of the people among whom they lived, and the north country has received considerable injustice at their hands. They described one or two mere general characteristics, such as "the contrast of rough nature with highly artificial cultivation," and they delineated fully a confined set of very special characters. But all Yorkshiremen are not Helstones, Yorkes, Crimsworths, or Hunsdens. The timid lady who, after a perusal of some of the Bronte novels, declared she would rather visit the Red Indians than trust herself in Leeds society, may be reassured. Rude the North is perhaps, and and keen and over-engrossed in personal objects, far-sighted rather than wide-ranging in vision, and sagacious rather than wise; in the manufacturing districts especially there is much that is repulsive in coarseness of manners and greed of wealth, or rather in a sort of obtrusive self-satisfaction in these defects: but it is not true that, either in East Lancashire or Yorkshire, pity is an extinct passion, nor that the great mass of the men are selfish in heart, bull-dogs in temper, and boors in demeanor. Whatever the outside may be, at bottom the poet's saying may be trusted, that 6These are shortcomings, no doubt, yet the completeness of the work in other respects goes fur to compensate us for them; whatever can be derived from sequence of events, external description and such indications of personal character as letters afford, is furnished in the fullest abundance. The biographer's command of language, and her talent of description, at once powerful and delicate, enable her to depict with wondrous vividness the scenes in which this painful and secluded drama of life was presented, and the conditions under which it was played out to its melancholy close. Sadly and strangely the story reads, from the time when the motherless and little less than fatherless children sit self-companioned in the gloomy candleless kitchen, or return with wet and weary feet to a smell only of dry boots, to that when the last of them, after a life deeply scarred with those sharp struggles of which the heart is the arena, parted at last with a cry of reluctance from a brief spell of happy days. It is not keen and protracted suffering, or great calamities, which give its sorrowful character to this family history, though of these too it embraced its full share; but there is a sunlessness, a gray shadow over the house, from the pressure of which none of its members seem to escape even for a moment. Nothing happy, genial, or expansive gilds their brief day; joy rarely, if ever, comes to elevate them; and grief has no power to strike them down, it can only "Dark and true and tender is the North." crush them lower. How far the tempera- The close shadow of the Bronte's churchment, common under varied aspects to the yard-home, the bitter winds, and the wild three sisters, was due to the circumstances dark aspect of their moors, have left the of their life, or how far to peculiarities of mark of their influence upon the writings as nature and race, it is impossible to determine. well as upon the characters of the sisters. They seem curious offspring of the eccentric, They want softness, variety, beauty; they strong-willed Irish father, and the simple, are too often dark, hopeless, and discomfortmild, Cornish mother. It is as if the church-able on the other hand, they are vigorous yard-air they breathed, and the strong cold and fresh, and bear welcome traces of Nabreezes from the moor, had entered into their ture's close companionship with the minds very nature, and made them what they were. from which they sprang. A personal imYet they were clearly not children of the press is strongly marked on them. It is soil; the glowing embers that lay but half curious that, though the writers all had smothered at the bottom of the character of strong imaginations, not one of them had two at least of them, had in it more of the the power to get rid for a moment of her Southern and Celtic element than of the own individuality. It permeates with its Northman's opener clearer fire. Half Eng-subtle presence every page they write. They most were not engaging persons; and they felt | learnt the value of even the meanest of us to that they were not-felt it acutely, and other hearts, it is not in general compatible made others unduly sensible of it. Nor did with strong affections. Persons gifted with they care to see others in their more agree- these soon learn to appreciate the truth, that able and engaging aspects. They had been to be cruel to oneself is often to be yet more brought into close contact with the darker cruel to others; and that self-indulgence, shades of character, and they instinctively paradoxical as it seems, may sometimes constudied them and reproduced them; too often ceal itself under the guise of self-sacrifice. they used light to give a greater depth to But Emily was young; and all the sisters shadow, rather than shadow to set off light. seem to have been united by ties of deep and It is in Emily's works, as in her own nature, fervent, even passionate affection. Yet they that the darkness lies deepest. None of all had that unhappy gift of feelings strong them are at home in sunny weather; but out of all proportion to their power of bring Emily has drawn id-winter and thunderous ing them to the surface. If those who exskies. The clouds are ragged and dreadful, press habitually more than they feel deserve illumined for short glimpses by tempest fire: contempt, those deserve pity who can give "Storm and hail and thunder, no utterance to what they do feel, and And the winds that rave," unwise are they who wittingly hide away in are the material correspondents of those the recesses of their hearts riches which dread perturbations of the human spirit in were meant to be freely spent for the welfare which she found herself at home. Her tem- of themselves and others. Their treasure is perament was a strange, even a distorted one. like the buried gold of the miser, it is stored There must have been a fund of ferocity in up apart from its true uses. It yields no inher own nature strangely mingled with ten- terest of happiness or joy; yet if it be seized derness. 66 Stronger than a man, simpler away, the agony of loss is not the less bitter. than a child, her whole nature stood alone." It is a mistake to suppose that affections are So says her sister. She could not tolerate the more powerful for being concealed. Like the contact of other wills. Isolation became other great gifts, they rust unused, and their a necessary of her life; she could not endure true use is to let them flow forth easily and her reserve to be infringed, and the demon- freely. It is on the evidences of affection strations at least of her affection were re- the heart feeds; and he who drinks of other served for the dumb creation. One who springs, and gathers his own in a deep well, knew her, said of her, "She never showed re- must look closely to it lest the waters stag gard to any human creature; all her love was nate. Concentrated on few objects, love may reserved for animals." In her last illness, become more strong; but the more it is con her sisters dared neither question nor assist centrated, the closer it approaches to selfher. As her body sank, her will seemed to love. How mere a self-love it may become, get stronger. To the very gate of death she how mere a passionate wilful surrender to walked alone, not from necessity but from native instincts, has no where received a choice, rejecting all aid from medicine, refus- more vivid and terrible artistic delineation ing the sympathies that hung so tenderly than in Emily Bronte's tale of Wuthering around her, and compelling her wasted frame Heights. In force of genius, in the power to continue independent of all assistance of conceiving and uttering intensity of pas from others. "The awful point," says sion, Emily surpassed her sister Charlotte. Charlotte, was, that while full of ruth On the other hand, her range seems to have for others, on herself she had no pity; the been still more confined. The atmosphere spirit was inexorable to the flesh; from the of the book obscures the elements of char trembling hand, the unnerved limbs, the acter and incident; it is like gazing on a faded eyes, the same service was exacted as storm which melts together and shrouds in they had rendered in health. To stand by rain and gloom all the distinctive features of and witness this, and not dare to remonstrate the landscape. It is idle to deny that the was a pain no words can render." A less book is revolting. That a wickedness, whose degree of this sort of Stoicism and self-im- only claim to attention is its intensity, that molation is not uncommon in people of strong the most frightful excesses of degrading vices, wills; but except in youth, before we have snarling hypocrisy, an almost idiotic imbe 66 |