Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/320

 314: BRONTE BRONZE teacher; but the labor wore upon her health and spirits till she was forced to give it up. In 1839 she obtained a situation as governess, but fell into a hard and uncongenial family, from which she soon withdrew. In 1841 she went out again as governess, and met with kind and appreciative treatment ; but the occu- pation was not suited to her disposition. She next determined, in conjunction with her sis- ters Emily and Anne, to establish a school of her own; and to qualify themselves for the task, she and Emily in the winter of 1842 went to Brussels. At the end of six months they were employed as teachers in the school they were attending. Emily did not remain quite a year, hut Charlotte spent nearly two years there. In the summer of 1844 the arrange- ments were made for opening a school at Ha- worth ; they sent out circulars, and received many assurances of good wishes to the enter- prise, but obtained no pupils. Henceforth the sisters remained at home, dividing their time between household cares and literary labors. In 1846 they issued at their own risk, under the names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, a volume of poems; but the work met with little favor. Notwithstanding this failure, each of them wrote a prose tale, hoping the three would be published together. These were, "The Professor," by Charlotte; "Wuthering Heights," by Emily; and "Agnes Grey," by Anne ; the names assumed in the volume of poems being still retained. The last two found a publisher ; the first was everywhere refused, nor did it appear till after the author's death. It was under the weight of all this discourage- ment that Charlotte undertook the composition of " Jane Eyre," which was published in Octo- ber, 1847, and met with immense success; it was translated into most European languages, and dramatized in England and also in Ger- many under the title of " The Orphan of Lo- wood." Emily, to whom Charlotte had been deeply attached, died Dec. 19, 1848. Anne died May 28, 1849, her novel, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall," having been published the pre- ceding year. Charlotte's second novel, " Shir- ley," was published in October, 1849. She had taken great pains with the work, but it hardly made good the expectations raised by ' Jane Eyre." From the large use she made of local .manners and traditions, the secret of the authorship soon transpired, and she was invited to London, where she was introduced to the prominent literary characters of the time. Her third novel, " Villette," published in 1853, seems to have taken more or less of its shape and texture from the author's recol- lections of Brussels. In strength and original- ity of characterization it does not equal " Shir- ley," but is perhaps more interesting and attrac- tive as a whole. It met with almost unbounded applause. About this time Miss Bronte had an offer of marriage from the Rev. Arthur Nicholls, her father's curate. Mr. Bronte ob- jected to the match, and Mr. Nicholls resigned his curacy; but by the spring of 1854 Mr. Bronte came to view the matter in a different light, and an engagement was formed. Mr. Ni- cholls resumed the curacy, and the marriage took place in the following June. They con- tinued to reside at the parsonage until her death. " The Professor " was published some time after the death of the author, and a few chapters of her unfinished novel entitled " Em- ma" appeared in 1860 in the "Cornhill Maga- zine," then edited by her friend W. M. Thack- eray. A biography of Charlotte Bronte, by Mrs. Gaskell, was published in 1857, and a second edition, considerably modified, in 1858. BRONZE, an alloy consisting of proportions of copper and tin which vary according to the pur- pose desired, and to which lead, zinc, and silver are sometimes added for the purpose of giving greater brilliancy to the compound, or render- ing it more fusible, the zinc being introduced in the form of brass. In some of the modern bronzes brass is used instead of tin ; these are then nothing more than brass consisting of very large proportions of copper. The princi- pal varieties of bronze are speculum metal, bell metal, gun metal, and statuary bronze. Specu- lum metal of reflecting telescopes is the whitest, hardest, most brilliant, and most brittle of all the bronze alloys; it consists of 100 parts of tin and 215 of copper. Bell metal is usually composed of 78 parts of copper and 22 of tin. This is also the composition of the Chinese gongs, which are forged under the hammer, the alloy being rendered malleable after casting by plunging it at a cherry-red heat into cold water ; the plate is kept in shape by confining it between two disks of iron. Cannon metal consists of 90 to 91 parts in 100 of copper, and the rest of tin ; the strength of this compound is stated by Dr. Thomson to be one half that of malleable iron. Antique bronze consisted of about 87 parts of copper to 13 of tin. Most of the modern French bronzes are composed of about 91 per cent, of copper, 2 of tin, 6 of zinc, and 1 of lead. The following table gives the composition of several ancient and modern bronzes from various authorities : BRONZES. Copper. Tin. Other Metals. Coin of Alexander the Great, 835 B. C Ptolemy IX., 70 B C.. Old Attic coin 86-72 84-25 83-40 18-14 15-64 10-04 Iron, a trace. Lead, 1-05. Eoman coin. 500 B. C. 62-04 85-28 7-66 13-11 Lead, 29-82. Lead, 1-14. 88-00 1-2-00 Kpyptian dagger Gatlo-ltoman axe Gallic bell 85-00 77-77 85-90 14-00 19-61 14-10 Lead, 1-1S; zinc, J-44. 85-00 14-20 Zinc, 0-SO. 80-50 19-50 78-00 22-00 Old bell at Rouen 71-00 26-00 Zinc, 1-8; iron, 1-2. The qualities of bronze of the same composition depend much upon the temperature of the al- loy when poured, and on the rapidity of the cooling. In making bronze, the metals are melted separately, and the tin is added and the