In the case of Charlotte Brontë, her first, and, still, classical biographer, Mrs. Gaskell, carried through, now fifty-seven years ago, with great literary skill, and also with historical exactitude, the study of her parentage and youth; of her experiences in England as a governess; of her family trials and losses; of the sudden development of her talent, or rather, of her genius as a writer, that, at one bound, after the publication of her first novel, made her famous throughout England; and soon famous throughout Europe: and that proved her (since Charlotte has been 'dead'--as people use the phrase--more than half a century, and since her books are still living spirits, we may be allowed to affirm this) one of the immortals. But now whilst all these epochs in Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_ were studied by exact historical methods, there was one epoch in her heroine's career that this, elsewhere, conscientious biographer neglected to study at all: in the sense, of subjecting facts and events and personages, belonging to its history, to careful examination. Here, on the contrary, we find that Mrs. Gaskell left exact methods of enquiry behind her; and adopted arbitrary psychological methods, of arguments, and assumptions, where, not only no effort was made to consult the testimony of facts, but where this testimony was ignored, or contradicted, when it stood in the way, of preconceived theories. And this period, thus inadequately, or, rather, thus mischievously, dealt with, happened to be precisely the one where the key must be found to the right interpretations of Charlotte's personality; and of the emotions and experiences she had undergone and that called her genius forth to life: and stamped it with the seal and quality that made her, amongst our great English Novelists, the only representative prose-writer in our literature of the European literary movement that French critics praise, and attack, under the name of _le Romantisme_. The period in Charlotte's life that I am speaking of is, of course, the interval of two years (from Feb. 1842 to Jan. 1844) that she spent at Bruxelles, in the school in the Rue d'Isabelle, whose Director and Directress, Monsieur and Madame Heger, are supposed to have been painted in the characters of 'Paul Emanuel' and of 'Madame Beck,' in the famous novel of _Villette_.