There are few things more worthy of notice than those strange mutations of opinion, and returning circuits of belief, to which the human mind is subject. The same tastes and habits, the same fashions and follies, the same delusions and the same doubts, seem to have their periodical cycles of recurrence. Theories which have been solemnly buried, suddenly rear their unexpected heads, and are received with all the more favour because of the contempt and derision which followed them to the grave. How many things are taken for granted which want thinking about! The wholesale condemnation of works of fiction is consummate absurdity. When all are condemned, people are apt to suppose that any may be read with impunity. Some novelists have sought for their heroes and heroines among thieves and desperadoes; flagitiously indifferent alike to fact and morality, they have laboured with pernicious success to invest these wretched characters with a halo of romantic interest and dignity: but if on this account we give up the principle, then we must give up poetry, fable, allegory, and all kinds of imaginative literature. The society of our highest intellects must be renounced. Fictitious literature has been condemned on the ground that those novels which are taken up with a description of the world in its most vain and frivolous aspects, are the most popular. This is not true. The works of our modern fictionists are exceedingly popular; and no one acquainted with them will dare to say they are open to such a charge. Not a few object to works of fiction because they make them discontented with real life. It is true the Bible teaches us that it is wrong to murmur at the allotments of Providence; and the Episcopal Church beautifully prays every day, “Give us always minds contented with our present condition.” But it is equally true that the Scriptures teach us to aim at a higher standard than we have yet attained, and clergymen inculcate the necessity for progress. We ought to be dissatisfied with ourselves, and with many things that we see in others. Let us seek to rise to the lofty ideal presented in good novels, and if we do not find that our ascending steps lead us into a purer atmosphere, and into regions where grow perennial fruit—then complain. _BIOGRAPHY._ Charlotte Brontë was born at Thornton, in the parish of Bradford, on the 21st of April, 1816. Her father, the Rev. Patrick Brontë, was a native of the County Down, in Ireland; and her mother, Maria, was the third daughter of Mr. Thomas Branwell, Penzance, Cornwall. In 1820, Mr. Brontë removed to Haworth, a chapelry in the West Riding, and Mrs. Brontë died the following year. Charlotte in after-years could but dimly recall the remembrance of her mother. The servants were impressed with the cleverness of the little Brontës, and often said they had never seen such a clever child as Charlotte. Mr. Brontë’s account of his children is exceedingly interesting:—