he Royal Academy Art Schools. The
reason for his almost immediate reappearance at Haworth has never been
explained. Probably he wasted his money and his father refused supplies.
He had certainly been sufficiently in earnest at the start, judging from
this letter, of which I find a draft among his papers.

TO THE SECRETARY, ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS

'SIR,--Having an earnest desire to enter as probationary student in
the Royal Academy, but not being possessed of information as to the
means of obtaining my desire, I presume to request from you, as
Secretary to the Institution, an answer to the questions--

'Where am I to present my drawings?

'At what time?

and especially,

'Can I do it in August or September?

--Your obedient servant,

BRANWELL BRONTE.'

In 1836 we find him as 'brother' of the 'Lodge of the Three Graces' at
Haworth. In the following year he is practising as an artist in
Bradford, and painting a number of portraits of the townsfolk. At this
same period he wrote to Wordsworth, sending verses, which he was at the
time producing with due regularity. In January 1840 Branwell became
tutor in the family of Mr. Postlethwaite at Broughton-in-Furness. It was
from that place that he wrote the incoherent and silly letter which has
been more than once printed, and which merely serves to show that then,
as always, he had an ill-regulated mind. It was from
Broughton-in-Furness also that he addresses Hartley Coleridge, and the
letters are worth printing if only on account of the similar destiny of
the two men.

TO HARTLEY COLERIDGE

'BROUGHTON-IN-FURNESS,
'LANCASHIRE, _April_ 20_th_, 1840.

'SIR,--It is with much reluctance that I venture to request, for the
perusal of the following lines, a portion of the time of one upon
whom I can have no claim, and should not dare to intrude, but I do
not, personally, know a man on whom to rely for an answer to the
questions I shall put, and I could not resist my longing to ask a man
from whose judgment there would be little hope of appeal.

'Since my childhood I have been wont to devote the hours I could
spare from other and very different employments to efforts at
literary compositio