'During the delightful day which I had the honour of spending with
you at Ambleside, I received permission to transmit to you, as soon
as finished, the first book of a translation of Horace, in order
that, after a glance over it, you might tell me whether it was worth
further notice or better fit for the fire.

'I have--I fear most negligently, and amid other very different
employments--striven to translate two books, the first of which I
have presumed to send to you. And will you, sir, stretch your past
kindness by telling me whether I should amend and pursue the work or
let it rest in peace?

'Great corrections I feel it wants, but till I feel that the work
might benefit me, I have no heart to make them; yet if your judgment
prove in any way favourable, I will re-write the whole, without
sparing labour to reach perfection.

'I dared not have attempted Horace but that I saw the utter
worthlessness of all former translations, and thought that a better
one, by whomsoever executed, might meet with some little
encouragement. I long to clear up my doubts by the judgment of one
whose opinion I should revere, and--but I suppose I am dreaming--one
to whom I should be proud indeed to inscribe anything of mine which
any publisher would look at, unless, as is likely enough, the work
would disgrace the name as much as the name would honour the work.

'Amount of remuneration I should not look to--as anything would be
everything--and whatever it might be, let me say that my bones would
have no rest unless by written agreement a division should be made of
the profits (little or much) between myself and him through whom
alone I could hope to obtain a hearing with that formidable
personage, a London bookseller.

'Excuse my unintelligibility, haste, and appearance of presumption,
and--Believe me to be, sir, your most humble and grateful servant,

'P. B. BRONTE.

'If anything in this note should displease you, lay it, sir, to the
account of inexperience and _not_ impudence.'

In October 1840, we find Branwell clerk-in-charge at the Station of
Sowerby Bridge on the Leeds and Manchester Railway, and the following
year at Luddenden Foot, where Mr. Grundy, the railway engineer, became
acquainted with him, and commenced the correspondence contained in