those men who, without apparently achieving great success, leave behind them an abiding impression, and stamp their character in the institutions and thought of the age in which they live.—E. L.
BELL, John, of Lincoln's Inn, a lawyer of eminence, was born at Kendal, Westmoreland, in 1764. He graduated at Trinity college, Cambridge, in 1786, as senior wrangler of his year, and entered at Gray's Inn in 1789, where he became a pupil of Romilly. He was called to the bar in 1792, and made a king's counsel in 1816. In 1824-25 he gave most important evidence before the chancery commissioners on the practice of the courts of equity; and in 1830 published a pamphlet, entitled "Thoughts on Alterations in the Court of Chancery." He died in 1836, leaving behind him the reputation of an eminent legal reformer. Among his professional pupils he numbered Mr. Bickersteth, afterwards master of the rolls, who was created Lord Langdale in 1836.—E. W.
* BELL, John, a still rising and original sculptor, was born in Norfolk in 1800. One of his earliest works was a religious group, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1832. His latest is a design for a monument to the Guards who fell in the Crimea, just executed (1858). At first Mr. Bell was somewhat beset by the old straight Greek nose delusion, and was afraid to imitate homely work-a-day nature. By degrees, through various stages of partial eclipse—"Girl at a Brook," "Psyche borne by Zephyrs," "Psyche feeding a Swan," "John the Baptist," &c.,—our sculptor groped his way through Vatican halls to broad clear daylight. As for Psyche, she might have been St. Catherine, of course, and the nymph with the swan, Leda. The name in these cases is a lucky after-thought. But he rose, rose, and in 1837 appeared the model of his fine epical figure, "The Eagle Slayer," not an archer with the divine sneer of a Byron watching the result of his inevitable shaft, but a grappling passionate mountaineer, full of the one destructive thought. This stalwart figure appeared in a complete form at that birth-place of modern art, Westminster hall, in 1844, and he re-exhibited it in the full bloom of mature manhood at the Crystal Palace in 1851. Multiplied in bronze statuettes, this powerful figure, through the instrumentality of the Art-Union, was saved from the oblivion and seclusion of some rich man's solitary gallery. In 1841 the sculptor, who had already proved his sense of vigour, proved also his sense of grace and tender beauty by his figure of "Dorothea"—that pretty girl-page of Cervantes. This poetical realization of a modern and well-known, but not exhausted theme, was the mother of a noble army of porcelain statuettes, which have made it almost injuriously common. Mr. Bell's other works are, "The Babes in the wood;" "Andromeda," a bronze, a fine Ovidian nude subject, which was a complete stoppage at the Great Exhibition; "The wounded Clorinda" (1841); and a "Child Statue" (1845), purchased by the Queen. In 1847 at Westminster hall, Mr. Bell exhibited his first government recognition, a dignified and reflective statue of "Lord Falkland," for the new houses of parliament, and now in St. Stephen's hall; and in 1854 he exhibited his statue of that not very ideal statesman, "Sir Robert Walpole." This poor and rather coarse statue is also keeping its eternal watch in the same entrance hall. At Westminster hall, in 1844, this versatile sculptor exhibited a daring cartoon of "The Angel of the Pillar," embodied in some fluent "Compositions from the Liturgy," since published. The "Free Hand Drawing Book for the use of Artisans," is also one of Mr. Bell's useful labours. Men of the Times says, Mr. Bell is not only a refined and fertile artist, but a man well conversant with general literature, as artists should be, but are not. It adds, that in leisure moments Mr. Bell amuses himself with decorative art, having modelled many objects for the drawing-room table, and various utilities for the Colebrookdale company. All these things are valuable aids to art-civilization. Mr. Bell is married to the only daughter of Robert Sullivan, Esq., a gentleman of fortune and dramatist, novelist, poet, and artist to boot. Mr. Bell has done much to relieve us from the dreadful stone-weight of the old classical nightmare, the immaculate, the impossible, the wearisome, the straight-nosed, the expressionless, the un-English. Other men will advance further than Mr. Bell, but we must still be thankful to this Macadam for beginning a road over this dismal swamp. When shall we wish a long good-night to Venuses and Apollos, and see our own sinewy highland youth, and the simple modes and beauty of our own lowland girls done justice to?—W. T.
BELL, Robert, was born on the 10th January, 1800, at Cork, from whence his family soon afterwards removed to Dublin. His father, who was a magistrate high in the confidence of government, died while Robert was yet a boy; and his friends obtained for his son at a very early age an appointment in a government department. Official routine, however, was not very congenial to the taste of a youth, whose instincts had already indicated his future course; the passion for literary pursuits having displayed itself in numerous MS. plays, poems, and essays, written before he was fourteen years of age. At sixteen or seventeen he, in conjunction with two young college students, founded a magazine called the Dublin Inquisitor, and he revived outside the walls of the university the Historical Society of Trinity college, in which Burke, Plunkett, Curran, and other distinguished men had trained their oratorical powers. His dramatic ardour was gratified by the successful production at the Dublin theatre of two little pieces, called "The Double Disguise," and "Comic Lectures." During the administration of the marquis of Wellesley he was induced to undertake the editorship of the government journal, the Patriot; but he soon found that the sphere for literary exertion was too contracted; and the approaching close of the Marquis Wellesley's administration diminished his inducement to devote himself to local politics. In 1828 he removed to London, and becoming a contributor to the principal reviews and magazines, was soon invited to assume the editorship of the Atlas journal, which he continued to conduct for many years. It was distinguished as having inaugurated a new era in periodical literature, being the first weekly paper that combined literary criticism with the usual articles of political discussion and general intelligence—an example afterwards generally followed. In 1829 a criminal information was filed against him on account of an article which appeared in the Atlas, charging Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst with corruption in the bestowal of his church patronage. Mr. Bell conducted his own defence, which he founded upon the fact, that in writing the article in question, the authorship of which he avowed, he was actuated by no personal or party motive, but simply by the dictates of his public duty. This argument, though no justification in law, had its due weight with the jury, who acquitted Mr. Bell; and Lord Tenterden, who tried the case, complimented him on the ability and good taste of his defence. In 1841 Mr. Bell retired from the editorship of the Atlas. During his connection with that paper, and in subsequent years, he contributed to Dr. Lardner's Encyclopædia, the "History of Russia," 3 vols.; the "Lives of the English Poets," 2 vols.; and the last volume to the greatly-admired Naval History of England, which had been commenced, but left unfinished by Southey. He was also chosen to complete Sir James Mackintosh's History of England, of which the last volume is from his pen. In 1838, in conjunction with Dr. Lardner and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, he founded and latterly edited the Monthly Chronicle. He was the author also of the five act comedies, "Marriage," produced at the Haymarket in 1842; "Mothers and Daughters," produced at Covent Garden in the following year; and "Temper," acted at the Haymarket in 1847. Amongst his other works, which are numerous, may be mentioned, "The Ladder of Gold," a novel in 3 vols., published in 1850; "Heart and Altars," a collection of tales in 3 vols.; a "Life of Canning;" "Outlines of China;" "Memorials of the Civil War," 2 vols., consisting of the Fairfax Correspondence; and "Wayside Pictures through France, Belgium, and Holland," which has passed through three editions. In 1854 Mr. Bell undertook the most onerous and important labour in which he had hitherto been engaged, an annotated edition of the English Poets. The merit of the series was graciously acknowledged by the king of the Belgians, who presented the editor with a gold medal, as a token of his majesty's sense of his services to literature. Mr. Bell is known also to have been many years engaged upon a work, for which his special studies peculiarly fitted him, called "The Town Life of the Restoration." He died on the 12th of April, 1867.—J. F. C.
* BELL, Thomas, an eminent living naturalist. He was born at Poole in Dorsetshire, where his father was a general practitioner of medicine, in 1792. He received his early education in his native town, and at a boys' school in Shaftesbury. He then became a pupil with his father, and in 1814 came to London, and studied at Guy's hospital. In 1815 he passed the College of Surgeons, and became a fellow of the Linnæan Society, of which
