language in its highest form of expression, and with the Yorkshire and Hibernian _patois_ also, he could easily make use of the quaintest and broadest terms when occasion called for them. It was, indeed, amazing how suddenly he could pass from the discussion of a grave and lofty subject, or from a deep disquisition, or some exalted poetical theme, to one of his light-hearted and amusing Irish or Yorkshire sallies. He could be sad and joyful almost at the same time, like the sunshine and gloom of April weather; exhibiting, by anticipation, the future lights and shadows of his own sad, short, and chequered existence. In a word, he seemed at times even to be jocular and merry with gravity itself. It is known also that Branwell, at that period of his young life--when manhood with its hopes and joys, its enterprises and aspirations, its affections and its responsibilities, stretched before him--was also busily laying, to the best of his ability, the foundations, as he trusted, of a brilliant literary or artistic future. CHAPTER VIII. ART-AIMS OF THE BRONTËS. Love of Art in the Youthful Brontës--Their elaborate Drawings-- J. B. Leyland, Sculptor--Spartacus--Mr. George Hogarth's Opinion --Art Exhibition at Leeds--Mr. William Robinson, their Drawing-Master--Branwell aims at Portrait-Painting--J. B. Leyland in London--Branwell and the Royal Academy--He visits London. The biographers of the Brontë sisters have pointed out especially the artistic instinct of Charlotte and Emily; and the originality and fidelity of their written descriptions, and the beauty of the composition and 'colour' of their word-paintings, have formed an inexhaustible theme for the various writers on the excellencies of Brontë genius. The appreciation of art possessed by the members of this family, whether in drawing, painting, or sculpture, was manifested early; but, though highly gifted in felicity and aptness of verbal expression in describing natural scenery, and in the delineation of personal character, they were not endowed, in like degree, with the faculty of placing their ideas--weird and wild, or beautiful and joyous as they might be--in that tangible and fixed shape in which artists have perpetuated the emanations of their genius. The devotion of Charlotte and Branwell to art was, nevertheless, so intense, and their belief was so profound, at one time, that the art-faculty consisted of little more than mechanical dexterity, and could be obtained by long study and practice in manipulation, that the sister toiled incessantly in copying, almost line for line, the grand old engravings of Woollett, Brown, Fittler, and others till her eyesight was dimmed and blurred by the sedulous application; and Branwell, with the same belief, eagerly followed her example. Great talent and perseverance they undoubtedly had; and, although we are not possessed of any original drawings by Charlotte of striking character, we know that Branwell drew in