ned, Currer
Bell had provided her dowagers with "vast white wrappers" on the second
night alarm. And, after all, the sex of _The Quarterly_ reviewer itself
remains a problem. Long ago Mr. Andrew Lang detected the work of two
hands in that famous article. You may say there were at least three.
There was, first, the genial reviewer of _Vanity Fair_, who revels in
the wickedness of Becky Sharpe, and who is going to revel in the
wickedness of Jane. Then suddenly some Mr. Brocklebank steps in, and you
get a "black-marble clergyman" on _Jane Eyre_.

"We have said," says this person, "that this was the picture of a
natural heart. This, to our view, is the great and crying mischief of
the book. Jane Eyre is throughout the personification of an unregenerate
and undisciplined spirit, the more dangerous to exhibit from that
prestige of principle and self-control, which is liable to dazzle the
eyes too much for it to observe the insufficient and unsound foundation
on which it rests. It is true Jane does right, and exerts great moral
strength; but it is the strength of a mere heathen mind which is a law
unto itself.... She has inherited the worst sin of our fallen
nature--the sin of pride."

Jane, you see, should have sinned to show her Christian humility. The
style, if not the reasoning, is pure Brocklebank. He does "not hesitate
to say that the tone of mind and thought, which has overthrown authority
and violated every code, human and divine, abroad, and fostered Chartism
and rebellion at home, is the same which has written _Jane Eyre_".

Ellis and Acton (poor Acton!) Bell get it even stronger than that; and
then, suddenly again, you come on a report on the "Condition of
Governesses", palpably drawn up by a third person. For years Miss Rigby,
who was afterwards Lady Eastlake, got the credit for the whole absurd
performance, for she was known to have written the review on _Vanity
Fair_. What happened seems to have been that Miss Rigby set out in all
honesty to praise _Jane Eyre_. Then some infuriated person interfered
and stopped her. The article was torn from the unfortunate Miss Rigby
and given to Brocklebank, who used bits of her here and there.
Brocklebank, in his zeal, overdid his part, so the report on Governesses
was thrown in to give the whole thing an air of seriousness and
respectability. So that it is exceedingly doubtful whether, after all,
it was a woman's hand that dealt the blow.

If Charlotte Bronte did not feel