pre-eminence. It is interesting to know, in these prying and
babbling times, that in the house of Murray the secret of even a
supposed ruffian is safe to the third generation.

ANNOUNCEMENT.

ROMANTIC STORIES FROM THE FAMILY HISTORY OF THE BRONTES.

The August and succeeding issues of McCLURE'S MAGAZINE will contain a
series of papers giving the dramatic and hitherto unknown history of
the Brontes in Ireland. They will throw a vivid light upon the origin
of the Bronte novels, and upon the ancestors of the Brontes. As Doctor
Wright says:

"Hugh Bronte, the father of Patrick, and grandfather of the famous
novelists, first makes his appearance as if he had stepped out of
a Bronte novel. His early experiences qualified him to take a
permanent place beside the child 'Jane Eyre' at Mrs. Reed's. The
treatment that embittered his childhood is never referred to by
the grand-daughters in their correspondence, but it is quite
evident that the knowledge of his hardships dominated their minds,
and gave a bent to their imaginations, when depicting the misery
of young lives dependent on charity."

All the existing biographies of the Bronte sisters are confined to the
Brontes in England. There were but two people competent to give the
story of the Bronte ancestors: one, Captain Mayne Reid; and the other,
Doctor William Wright, who has spent many years preparing this
history.

Doctor Wright had exceptional advantages for his labor of love. In his
childhood his nurse told him the traditions of the Brontes; his tutor
was full of recollections of the father, uncles, and grandfather of
the novelists. As a student he wrote screeds of the Bronte novels in
place of essays, having first been told the incidents and events by
his tutor. His recollections, extending back to the early part of this
century, have been strengthened by years of patient investigation.
During different years Doctor Wright has spent several months at a
time in Ireland, following up obscure traces of the family, hunting
down traditions connected with the Brontes, or carefully verifying
minute points derived from his own recollections or the reports of
others. The result of these painstaking researches, which have
extended over a lifetime, is an authentic narrative of great human
interest.

The unadorned history of the family reads like a Bronte novel. The
adventures, the hairbreadth escapes, the struggles, the kidnappi