Whilst smuggling was the means of acquiring wealth to bold and reckless adventurers, drunkenness and dissipation occasioned the ruin of many respectable families." I have given this extract because I conceive it bears some reference to the life of Miss Bronte, whose strong mind and vivid imagination must have received their first impressions either from the servants (in that simple household, almost friendly companions during the greater part of the day,) retailing the traditions or the news of Haworth village; or from Mr.Bronte, whose intercourse with his children appears to have been considerably restrained, and whose life, both in Ireland and at Cambridge, had been spent under peculiar circumstances; or from her aunt, Miss Branwell, who came to the parsonage, when Charlotte was only six or seven years old, to take charge of her dead sister's family.

This aunt was older than Mrs.Bronte, and had lived longer among the Penzance society, which Dr.Davy describes.

But in the Branwell family itself, the violence and irregularity of nature did not exist.

They were Methodists, and, as far as I can gather, a gentle and sincere piety gave refinement and purity of character.

Mr.Branwell, the father, according to his descendants' account, was a man of musical talent.