Brontës
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45. CB to Aylott & Jones, 11 May 1846: MS Bon 184 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, i, 473]; CB to Aylott & Jones, 25 May 1846: MS Bon 185 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, i, 474].
46. Yorkshire Gazette, 30 May 1846 p.5.
47. PBB, Lydia Gisborne, 1 June 1846: MS BS 128.5, BPM [VN PBB, 282–3; A&S no.290]. See plate 25. Flintoff, ‘Some unpublished poems of Branwell Brontë’, 248, points out that the poem is written on a leaf from the missing Thorp Green notebook. Branwell similarly wrote ‘Lydia’ in Greek letters and drew a tombstone in the margin of PBB, Juan Fernandez, [1846–7]: MS Bon 154, BPM [VN PBB, 288–90; A&S no.300].
48. PBB to JBL, [24 Jan 1847]: MS p.1, Brotherton [LCB, i, 512].
49. CB to EN, 17 June 1846: MS Gr. E11 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, i, 477].
50. Release from the executors of the will of Revd Edmund Robinson to his son Edmund Robinson, reciting the will of 2 Jan 1846, 14 Jan 1853: MS 30, Robinson Papers, BPM.
51. See, for instance, Du Maurier, 188–91; Joan Rees, Profligate Son: Branwell Brontë and his Sisters (London, 1986), 132–3.
52. Edmund Robinson., Cash Book, 1845: MS 93/2, Robinson Papers, BPM. Mrs Robinson and her husband on her behalf spent £30 11s at Scarborough between 5 July and 7August 1845.
53. WG PBB, 262–4 confuses references in Branwell’s letters to the coachman and to George Gooch, the latter being a railway acquaintance who had been employed as an engineer on the construction of the Summit Tunnel: HG, 6 Mar 1841 p.3. In 1847 both Gooch and Grundy were working near Haworth on the Bradford to Keighley line, so Branwell was in contact with them both: ibid., 6Mar 1847 p.4. The Thorp Green coachman, as is clear from the Robinson cash book, was William Allison.
54. Hibbs, Victorian Ouseburn, 25(b), 26(k). Allison went to live with Sir Edward Scott, Mrs Robinson’s second husband, in February 1847, having been at Thorp Green for 4years; he returned on 14 April to fetch his family, so the arrangement was clearly intended to be permanent.
55. ECG, Life, 524–5.
56. PBB to JBL, [June 1846], MS pp.1–2, Brotherton [LCB, i, 475–6].
57. PBB to JBL, [c.June/July 1846], MS pp.1–2, Brotherton [LCB, i, 480].
58. Ibid. p.2[LCB, i, 480].
59. PBB to JBL, [June 1846]: MS p.2, Brotherton [LCB, i, 475]. Branwell drew a sketch accompanying this letter depicting a martyr tied to the stake in the middle of a fire and titled ‘Myself’ [A&S no.289].
60. CB to EN, 17 June 1846: MS Gr. E11 p.2, BPM [LCB, i, 477–8]; CB to EN, 14 Apr [1846]: MS HM 24444 p.4, Huntington [LCB, i, 463].
61. PBB to Francis Grundy, [June 1846] MS n.l. [LCB, i, 479 n].
62. Unsigned review, Critic, 4July 1846 [Allott, 59].
63. Ibid.
64. [Sydney Dobell], Athenaeum, 4July 1846 [Allott, 61].
65. Unsigned review, Critic, 4July 1846 [Allott, 59–60].
66. CB to WSW, 9 Oct 1847: MS p.2, Brotherton [LCB, i, 549]; CB to Aylott & Jones, 10 July 1846: MS Bon 186 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, i, 484]. The other journals to receive copies were Fraser’s Magazine, Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal, the Globe and the Examiner. Aylott & Jones advised against further expenditure on advertisements as the season was ‘unfavourable’: CB to Aylott & Jones, 18 July 1846: MS Bon 188 p.1, BPM [LCB, i, 486].
67. HG, 10 Oct 1846 p.6.
68. Unsigned review, Dublin University Magazine, Oct 1846 [Allott, 63–4].
69. CB to the Editor of the Dublin University Magazine, 6Oct 1846: MS Bon 190 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, i, 501].
70. CB to J.H. Lockhart, 16 June 1847: HAOBP:bb235, BPM.
71. CB to Thomas de Quincey, 16 June 1847: MS in Berg and CB to Hartley Coleridge, 16 June 1847: MS in Texas [LCB, i, 529–31]. Ebeneezer Elliot’s copy of Poems 1846, though not the accompanying letter, is MS Bon 294, BPM. Elliot (1781–1849) was a Sheffield master-founder and lyric poet best known as the ‘Corn-Law Rhymer’ for his advocacy of the repeal of the Corn Laws.
72. CB to Aylott & Jones, 23 July 1846: MS BS 104/15, BPM [LCB, i, 487, 489]: see page 601.
73. CB, Biographical Notice, 361.
74. PBB to JBL, 10 Sept [1846]: MS p.2, BPM [L&L, ii, 61].
75. CB to Aylott & Jones, 6Apr 1846: MS Bon 179 p.1, BPM [LCB, i, 461]; CB, The Professor, 27 June 1846: MS in PM, [CB, The Professor, xxviii]; CB to Henry Colburn, 4 July 1846: MS divided, p.1 at Princeton, p.2 at Historical Society of Pennsylvania [LCB, i, 481].
76. ECG to John Forster, [Sept 1853] [C&P, 247] quoting Martha Brown; ECG, Life, 247.
77. CB, Preface to The Professor, [1850]: MS MA 32, PM [CB, The Professor, 1]. Charlotte had expressed a similar idea as early as 1833 in her story ‘Brushwood Hall’: ‘But let me resume my narrative – I must remember that an English merchant is its hero and
78. See above, pp. 237, 240.
79. Scott’s Rob Roy was first published in 1817 and was clearly a Brontë favourite: see above, pp.241, 318, 324.
80. PBB, THE POLITICS OF VERDOPO-LIS, Oct–Nov 1833: MS Bon 141 p.15, BPM [Neufeldt, i, 357]. For a discussion of Gondal poetry anticipatory of Wuthering Heights see JB SP, 117, 120, 122–8.
81. PBB, Life of feild Marshal the Right Honourable ALEXAN[D]ER PERCY, vol. i, [Spring, 1834]: MS in Brotherton [Neufeldt, ii, 92–147]; CB, The Foundling, 31 May–27 June 1833: MS Ashley 159 p.6, BL [CA, ii, 87–8].
82. For examples, see JB SP, 117, 120, 122–8.
83. CB, Editor’s Preface to the New Edition of Wuthering Heights, 1850: MS n.l. [EJB, Wuthering Heights, 365, 366].
84. AB, Agnes Grey, 1.
85. ECG, Life, 247 quoting HM, Obituary of Charlotte in Daily News, April 1855 [Allott, 303].
86. AB, Agnes Grey, 138.
87. CB, Biographical Notice, 361.
88. This was convincingly argued by Tom Winnifrith, Wuthering Heights: One Volume or Two’ in Chitham and Winnifrith, Brontë Facts and Brontë Problems, 84–90.
89. ECG, Life, 241. The church registers confirm that Nicholls effectively took all the duties throughout this year.
90. CB to EN, 10 July 1846: MS Gr. E10 pp.2–3, BPM [LCB, i, 482–3].
91. BO, 16 Jan 1846 p.8; LM, 17 Jan 1846 p.9. BO, 19 Feb 1846 p.8 announced the appointment of William Crowther, second son of Revd Thomas Crowther of Cragg Vale, but he declined the post and, on 2March, James Cranmer was appointed in his stead. He was sacked in 1848 for neglecting ‘to attend properly to the school’: Minutes of the Trustees of Haworth Free Grammar School, 1838–63: MS in Keighley [9 Feb and 2Mar 1846; 10 Mar 1848]. I am grateful to Sarah Fermi for this reference.
92. LI, 6June 1846 p.7. The Ancient Order of Foresters held their 13th annual meeting on Whit-Tuesday at the Wesleyan Chapel but were addressed by one of their own number. For the opening of the school see BO, 25 June 1846 p.5. The Revd J.B. Grant wrote a furious letter to the Leeds Mercury denouncing the ceremony which was held without his prior knowledge during his absence for a few days from the parish. Revd Thomas B. Charnock, son of the former minister of Haworth, attracted his particular opprobrium because he had officiated at the ceremony and, probably more significantly, had been credited with originating the scheme. In fact, as Grant pointed out, Charnock had worked with Patrick and Weightman as long ago as 1841 to obtain grants for a school in Oxenhope but these had lapsed when local funding could not be raised. ‘With the present school he has had nothing to do except as a subscriber, the originators of it being Mr George Feather, Mr John Sutcliffe, and myself’, Grant pompously claimed: LM, 4July 1846 p.12. This letter is excellent first-hand evidence for the accuracy of Charlotte’s portrayal of Grant as Joseph Donne who was unsurpassed in the art of begging for his little school, church and parsonage, all of which owed their erection to his ability in this field: CB, Shirley, 633–4.
93. BO, 2 Apr 1846 p.8.
94. Ibid., 23 July 1846 p.5; LI, 25 July 1846 p.7; Haworth Church Hymnsheets, 19 July 1846: MS BS x, H, BPM; BO, 23 July 1846 p.5.
95.
LI, 25 July 1846 p.7; 8 Aug 1846 p.7.
96. CB to MW, [?Nov/Dec 1846]: MS FM 3 p.1, Fitzwilliam [LCB, i, 505]; CB to EN, [9 Aug 1846]: MS HM 24445 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 491].
97. E. Mansfield Brockbank, Sketches of the Lives and Work of the Honorary Medical Staff of the Manchester Infirmary (Manchester, 1904), 269–71.
98. Isaac Slater, General and Classified Directory and Street Register of Manchester and Salford (Manchester, 1847), 55; CB to EN, [9Aug 1846]: MS HM 24445 pp.2–3, Huntington [LCB, i, 491]. Charlotte says she found ‘a Mr Wilson’ to act as surgeon, implying she did not know of his reputation before she went to Manchester. Oddly enough, Wilson had featured as surgeon to the Infirmary in an article, ‘A Week at Manchester’, BM, xlv (1839), 490–1.
99. CB to EN, 21 Aug [1846]: MS HM 24446 pp.1–2, Huntington [LCB, i, 493]; ECG, Life, 242. The landlady seems to have been absent some considerable time: John Robinson, a book-keeper, was living there in 1845 and Thomas Bell, an ‘agent’, in 1847: Slater, General and Classified Directory … of Manchester and Salford, 9and ibid. (1845), 10.
100. CB to EN, 26 Aug [1846]: MS HM 24447 p.1, Huntington [LCB, i, 494].
101. PB, annotations in his copy of Graham, Modern Domestic Medicine: HAOBP:bb210 pp.226–7, BPM [JB ST, no.42].
102. CB to EN, 26 Aug [1846]: MS HM 24447 p.1, Huntington [LCB, i, 494].
103. PB, annotations in his copy of Graham, Modern Domestic Medicine: HAOBP:bb210 pp.226–7, BPM [JB ST, no.42].
104. CB to EN, 26 Aug [1846]: MS HM 24447 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 494]; CB to EN, 31 Aug [1846]: MS in Beinecke [LCB, i, 496]. See also CB to EN, 23 July [1846]: MS p.1, Rosenbach [LCB, i, 488].
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THREE TALES
Title: CB to Henry Colburn, 4 July 1846 [LCB, i, 481].
1. CB to WSW, 28 Oct 1847: MS MA 2696 R-V p.2, PM [LCB, i, 553].
2. CB, Jane Eyre, 255–6.
3. CB to EN, [13 Sept 1846]: MS Bon 189 p.2, BPM [LCB, i, 497].
4. [HM], Obituary of Charlotte Brontë in Daily News, 6 April 1855 [Allott, 303].
5. CB to EN, 31 Aug [1846]: MS in Beinecke [LCB, i, 496]; CB to EN, [13 Sept 1846]: MS Bon 189 p.1, BPM [LCB, i, 496–7]; CB to EN, [21 Sept 1846]: MS HM 24446 pp.1–2, Huntington [LCB, i, 498]; CB to EN, 26 Aug [1846]: MS HM 24447 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 494].
6. CB to EN, 29 Sept 1846: MS BS 57 p.1, BPM [LCB, i, 500]; PB, annotations in his copy of Graham, Modern Domestic Medicine: HAOBP:bb210 pp.226–8, BPM [JB ST, no.42].
7. CB to EN, 17 Nov 1846: MS Gr. E12 p.2, BPM [LCB, i, 504]; Baptisms and Burials, Haworth. Patrick received occasional help from Grant of Oxenhope and Eggleston, curate of Keighley.
8. [HM], Obituary of Charlotte Brontë in Daily News, 6April 1855 [Allott, 303–4].
9. CB, Preface to The Professor [1850]: MS MA 32, PM [CB, The Professor, 2].
10. George A. Wade, ‘Charlotte Brontë as I Knew Her: A Chat with the Rev J C Bradley’, Great Thoughts, 17 Oct 1908 pp.278–9: a typescript copy in CKS Collection, Brotherton; CB to EN, 17 Nov 1846: MS Gr. E12 pp.2–3, BPM [LCB, i, 504]. Bradley identified the house as belonging to the Greenwoods, suggesting it was Spring Head he had in mind. Ellen claimed that the story was inspired by a ghostly lady stalking the attics of Roe Head [EN, Reminiscences, BST:2:10:68–9] and there is still an attic room in the upper storey of Norton Conyers, near Ripon, where Charlotte may have visited while a governess with the Sidgwicks, which is said to have suggested the mad woman’s cell.
11. AB, Mirth and Mourning, 15 July 1846, and ‘Weep not too much my darling’, 28 July 1846: MS HM 2576 pp.8–11, 11–14, Huntington [Chitham, 130–3]; AB, ‘The Power of Love’ 13 Aug 1846, and ‘I dreamt last night; and in that
12. EJB, ‘Why ask to know the date – the clime’, 14 Sept 1846: MS Add 43483 pp.62–7, BL [Roper, 184–92]. Anne’s poem written on the same day and subject, though from a different perspective, is AB, ‘I dreamt last night; and in that
13. Part of the time may have been occupied in sittings for Leyland’s medallion portrait: see above, pp.579, 1081 n.42.
14. Mary Pearson, Commonplace Book, [1841–7]: MS pp.55–6, Texas; Census Returns for Ovenden, 1841: Microfilm, WYAS, Calderdale. Mary’s age at the time of Branwell’s visit is uncertain: the census describes her and two of her sisters as all being 15 in 1841, which is extremely unlikely, but as she is listed first she may have been the eldest. By 1847, the year after Branwell’s visit, she was old enough to have taken over the running of the Ovenden Cross and was still unmarried: White, Directory of the … West Riding of Yorkshire (1847), 466.
15. Mary Pearson, Commonplace Book, [1841–7]: MS pp.55–6, Texas [VN PBB, 458]. PBB, ‘Why hold young eyes the fullest fount of tears’ [On the callowness produced by Cares] had already been published in the Bradford Herald and Halifax Guardian in May 1842: see above, p.467. An earlier version of ‘When all our cheerful hours seem gone for ever’ MS p.50) was included in PBB to JBL, 28 Apr 1846: MS p.4, Brotherton [VN PBB, 144]. The similar epitaph, written under a sketch of Branwell as a corpse and a tombstone, reads ‘MARTINI LUIGI IMPLORA ETERNA QUIETE!’; under this Branwell has written ‘“Martin Luke implores for eternal rest!” (Italian epitaph.)’ [A&S, no.302]; PBB to JBL, [Jan 1847]: MS in Brotherton. [L&L, ii, 120]. As Leyland pointed out, Branwell must have been aware that Byron, one of his literary heroes, had seen a Bolognese tomb inscribed ‘Implora pace!’ and had expressed a wish to have these words written on his own grave. He would also have known Mrs Hemans’ poem of the same title inspired by reading this remark: Leyland, ii, 256. Branwell seems to have made a study of epitaphs after his dismissal from Thorp Green: see above, p.1079 n.111.
16. Mary Pearson Commonplace Book, [1841–7]: MS p.52, Texas [A&S no.298].
17. Ibid., p.54 [VN PBB, 283; A&S no.299].
18. Ibid., pp.49, 51. Mary included a further 4 cuttings of Branwell’s poems from the Halifax Guardian: ‘On Peaceful Death and Painful Life’, ‘Real Rest’, ‘Caroline’s Prayer’ and ‘Song’: ibid., pp.24, 28, 35. I am grateful to Victor Neufeldt for this information. On p.53, opposite Branwell’s self-portrait, is a clipping from the same paper of a poem entitled ‘Speak Kindly’: though uncharacteristically anonymous, the sentiments and metre are typical of Branwell and the whole poem is strongly reminiscent of his ‘The man who will not know another’, see above, p.433. I think the poem must be by Branwell and, as it is unpublished, I append a transcript: ‘Speak kindly to thy fellow man,/ Who droops from weight of woe!/ He sinks beneath deep sorrow’s ban/ With cares thou canst not know:/ Oh! kindly speak, for deadly grief/ Is gnawing at his heart;/ It may be thine to give relief,/ And act a brother’s part!/ Perchance, from thee, a single word,/ Spoken in accents kind,/ May a sweet transient joy afford/ To his o’ercharged mind;/ And though his care-worn heart is filled/ With heaviness and gloom,/ It may cause peace and hope to gild/ His passage to the tomb!/ Turn not the wanderer away,/ E’en though the weight of sin/ Hath quench’d his spirit’s heavenly ray,/ And darken’d all within!/ Oh! chide him not – nor coldly spurn/ His now repentant tears;/ For from that one good spark may burn/ A flame in after years/ Yes! kindly speak – and bid his soul/ From its dejection rise,/ Push back the waves which round him roll,/And point him to the skies:/ Stay not to ask his grade, nor how/ He into evil ran, –/ It is enough for thee to know/ He is thy fellow man.’
19. PBB to JBL, [Oct 1846]: MS pp.2–3, Brotherton [L&L, ii, 114].
20. PBB to JBL, [Jan 1847]: MS p.1, Brotherton [L&L, ii, 121].
21. CB to EN, [13 Dec 1846]: MS HM 24450 pp.2–3, Huntington [LCB, i, 507].
22. PBB to JBL, [Jan 1847]: MS p.1, Brotherton [L&L, ii, 121].
23. PBB to JBL, [24 Jan 1847]: MS p.1, Brotherton [LCB, i, 512].
24. Ibid., p.4. [LCB, i, 513–4].
&nb
sp; 25. On 12 May Charlotte said that Branwell had ‘got to the end of a considerable sum of money of which he became possessed in the Spring’: CB to EN, 12 May [1847]: MS p.2, Berg [LCB, i, 524]. Gaskell mentions £20 a time as being the amount Mrs Robinson sent Branwell: ECG, Life, 524.
26. PBB to JBL, [24 Jan 1847]: MS pp.2–3, Brotherton [LCB, i, 512–13].
27. MT to ECG, [1857]: MS n.l. [Stevens, 164].
28. CB to EN, 14 Oct 1846: MS HM 24449 pp.4–5, Huntington [LCB, i, 503]; CB to EN, [24 Mar 1847]: MS Bon 191 pp.3–4, BPM [LCB, i, 520].
29. CB to EN, [13 Dec 1846]: MS HM 24450 p.1, Huntington [LCB, i, 506–7]. The weather had been unseasonably mild throughout the rest of the year: BO, 5 Feb 1846 p.5; 13 June 1846 p.8; 3 Sept 1846 p.8.
30. CB to EN, [13 Dec 1846]: MS HM 24450 p.1, Huntington [LCB, i, 507].
31. LM, 17 Jan 1846 p.9; BO, 5Feb 1846 p.5; 20 Aug 1846 p.8; 3Sept 1846 p.8; ECG, Life, 45. Gaskell does not identify the strike but this was the most bitter and protracted of Patrick’s incumbency and the strikers would certainly have needed his assistance ‘by all the means in his power to keep “the wolf from their doors,” and avoid the incubus of debt’. In supporting the wool-combers against the mill-owners Patrick incurred the wrath of the most powerful and influential section of his congregation but persevered in pursuit of what he believed was right.
32. BO, 3Sept 1846 p.8; 24 Sept 1846 p.8; 26 Nov 1846 p.5; 31 Dec 1846 p.8.
33. Ibid., 19 Nov 1846 p.8; 11 Feb 1847 p.8. The rector peevishly refused Milligan’s services in the investigation, presumably fearing he would be too radical in his views: LI, 27 Feb 1847 p.8; BO, 25 Mar 1847 p.8. Milligan had lectured ‘On the moral and intellectual conduct of England and her people’, attacking the immorality, drunkenness, prostitution and poverty of London while praising its fine buildings and famous literary and scientific men: ibid., 14 Jan 1847 p.8. See also above, p.1048, n.37.