Branwell's letter to Wordsworth is, for the most part, well written, and breathes an eager spirit, which shows the anxiety he was under to know the opinion of a high and competent judge as to how he stood with the Nine. It tells us the ardour with which he read and wrote, the ambitious turn of his mind, and the special aims which he then had in the literary world. But the verses, although imbued with a fervent spirit of early piety, were such as Wordsworth could not justly review without giving discouragement, and it seems probable he preferred to keep silence rather than, by an open avowal, to give pain--if pain must be given--as the lesser evil of the two. Or, perhaps, he took amiss the ready frankness and apparent self-esteem which, notwithstanding the disavowal, would probably seem present to him in the letter of the young stranger who addressed him, without sending any evidence of the powers of which he expressed himself so confidently. But, at any rate, Mrs. Gaskell informs us that the letter and verses were preserved by the poet till the Brontës became celebrated, and that he gave the communication to his friend, Mr. Quillinan, in 1850, when the real name of 'Currer Bell' became known. It must not be overlooked that, in the verses which Mrs. Gaskell has printed, we have no opportunity of studying Branwell's dramatic powers, which apparently found scope in the poem he had written. In them is no development of the effect of the passionate feelings which Branwell describes: 'struggling with a high imagination and acute feelings,' and ending 'in mental misery and bodily ruin.' However, discouraged by long waiting, or assisted by friendly advice and criticism, he toiled on in silence at his literary work, as he did at art. The year 1837 turned out an important one for Charlotte. In March, she at last received the answer from Southey, which she considered a 'little stringent,' and from which she declared she had derived good. She says, in her reply to the Laureate, 'I trust I shall never more feel ambitious to see my name in print.... That letter is consecrated; no one shall ever see it, but papa, and my brother and my sisters.'