of persons being engendered
by a certain uniformity of local color and resemblance in choice of
subject, which might have arisen either from identity, or from joint
peculiarities of situation and of circumstance. It seemed no less
evident that the writers described from personal experience the wild and
rugged scenery of the northern parts of this kingdom; and no assertion
or disproval, no hypothesis or rumor, which obtained circulation after
the success of 'Jane Eyre,' could shake convictions that had been
gathered out of the books themselves. In similar cases, guessers are too
apt to raise plausible arguments on some point of detail,--forgetting
that this may have been thrown in _ex proposito_ to mislead the
bystander; and hence the most ingenious discoverers become so
pertinaciously deluded as to lose eye and ear for those less obvious
indications of general tone of style, color of incident, and form of
fable, on which more phlegmatic persons base measurement and comparison.
Whatever of truth there may or may not be generally in the above
remarks,--certain it is, that in the novels now in question instinct or
divination directed us aright. In the prefaces and notices before us, we
find that the Bells were three sisters:--two of whom are no longer
amongst the living. The survivor describes their home as--

"A village parsonage, amongst the hills bordering Yorkshire
and Lancashire. The scenery of these hills is not grand--it
is not romantic; it is scarcely striking. Long low moors,
dark with heath, shut in little valleys, where a stream
waters, here and there, a fringe of stunted copse. Mills and
scattered cottages chase romance from these valleys; it is
only higher up, deep in amongst the ridges of the moors,
that Imagination can find rest for the sole of her foot: and
even if she finds it there, she must be a solitude-loving
raven,--no gentle dove. If she demand beauty to inspire her,
she must bring it inborn: these moors are too stern to yield
any product so delicate. The eye of the gazer must itself
brim with a 'purple light,' intense enough to perpetuate the
brief flower-flush of August on the heather, or the rare
sunset-smile of June; out of his heart must well the
freshness that in later spring and early summer brightens
the bracken, nurtures the moss, and cherishes the starry
flowers that spangle for a few weeks the pastu