rather do anything than that.'

"Charlotte. 'Why are you so glum to-night, Tabby? Oh! suppose we had
each an island of our own.'

"Branwell. 'If we had I would choose the Island of Man.'

"Charlotte. 'And I would choose the Isle of Wight.'

"Emily. 'The Isle of Arran for me.'

"Anne. 'And mine should be Guernsey.'

"We then chose who would be chief men in our Islands. Branwell chose
John Bull, Astley Cooper, and Leigh Hunt; Emily, Walter Scott, Mr.
Lockhart, Johnny Lockhart; Anne, Michael Sadler, Lord Bentinck, Sir
Henry Halford. I chose the Duke of Wellington and two sons,
Christopher North and Co., and Mr. Abernethy. Here our conversation
was interrupted by the, to us, dismal sound of the clock striking
seven, and we were summoned off to bed. The next day we added many
others to our list of men, till we got almost all the chief men of the
kingdom. After this, for a long time, nothing worth noticing occurred.
In June, 1828, we erected a school on a fictitious island, which was to
contain 1,000 children. The manner of the building was as follows: The
island was fifty miles in circumference, and certainly appeared more
like the work of enchantment than anything real," etc. . . .

There is another scrap of paper in this all but illegible handwriting,
written about this time, and which gives some idea of the sources of
their opinions. . . .

"Papa and Branwell are gone for the newspaper, the Leeds
_Intelligencer_, a most excellent Tory newspaper, edited by Mr. Wood,
and the proprietor, Mr. Henneman. We take two, and see three,
newspapers a week. We take the Leeds _Intelligencer_, Tory, and the
Leeds _Mercury_, Whig, edited by Mr. Baines, and his brother,
son-in-law, and his two sons, Edward and Talbot. We see the _John
Bull_; it is a high Tory, very violent. Mr. Driver lends us it, as
likewise _Blackwood's Magazine_, the most able periodical there is.
The editor is Mr. Christopher North, an old man seventy-four years of
age; the 1st of April is his birthday; his company are Timothy Tickler,
Morgan O'Doherty, Macrabin Mordecai, Mullion, Warnell, and James Hogg,
a man of most extraordinary genius, a Scottish shepherd. Our plays
were established, 'Young Men,' June, 1826; 'Our Fellows,' July, 1827;
'Islanders,' December, 1827. These are our three great plays that are
not kept secret. Emily's and my best plays were established the 1st of
December, 1827; the others March, 1828. Best plays mean s