BELL, HENRY. 



BELL. 



ich pomp at Westminster. The large fortune he bad accumu- 

 lated be left almost entirely for educational purpose*. An estate of 

 oooeiderable value wu Irft to Capar, the capital of hi* native county, 

 for the MUbi iihmr nt of Tariom schools. To the proroit of St Andrews, 

 the two minuter* of the town, and the professor of Greek in the uni- 

 versity, be left 120.000J. of Three-per-Cent Stock, in trust, one-twelfth 

 to be giv*n to each of the town* of Edinburgh, Glaagow, Leith, Aber- 

 deen, and Inverne**, for founding and maintaining *chool upon the 

 lladra* system. Anothrr twelfth wu Riven to the Royal Naval School 

 upon the same condition*. Six-twelfths were given to St Andrews to 

 maintain schools, and to found and endow a college to be called the 

 Madru Coll-ge. Thi* bu been done. A quadrangular building, with 

 a pleating front, in the Tudor style, baring a corridor round the inner 

 court, has been erected, with house* for the principal master*. In it 

 is taught English grammar, Oreek and Latin, arithmetic and mathe- 

 matics, geography, writing, drawing, French, German, and Italian 

 language*, and church-music. Each department ha* a competent 

 muter, and some hare assistants. Small fee* are paid for each depart- 

 ment, and the tcholars usually average from 800 to 1000. 



BELL, HENRY, an individual whose name is connected with the 

 history of steam-navigation in this country, was born in Liulitbgow- 

 shire in 1767. Dr. Cleland, in hi* work on 'Glasgow,' speaks of him 

 as " an ingenious untutored engineer, and citizen of Glasgow," and 

 tat** that it may be said, without the hazard of impropriety, that 

 Mr. Bell ' invented ' the steam-propelling system, " for he knew nothing 

 of the principle* which had been so successfully followed out by Mr. 

 Fulton." Fulton however Uuncbed his first steam-boat on the Hudson 

 October S, 1 807, and it was not till more than four years after this date/ 

 that Bell successfully applied steam to the purposes of navigation. In 

 1811 he caused a boat to be constructed on a peculiar plan, which 

 was named the 'Comet,' in consequence of the appearance of a large 

 comet that year. lie constructed the steam-engine himself, and in 

 January 1812 the first trial of the 'Comet' took place on the Clyde. 

 Dr. Cleland adds "After various experiments, the 'Comet 'was at 

 length propelled on the Clyde by an engine of three-horse power, 

 which was subsequently increased to six. Mr. Bell continued to 

 encounter and overcome the various and indescribable difficulties 

 incident to invention, till hi* ultimate success encouraged other* to 

 embark in similar undertakings." 



Mr. Bell's experiments did not realise to himself those pecuniary 

 advantages which were due to his enterprise. From the city of 

 Glaagow he received in hi* latter year* a small annuity in acknow- 

 ledgment of his service* to commerce and civilisation, lie died at 

 Hvlensburgh on the Clyde in 1830. A monument has been erected 

 to bis memory on a rock in the Clyde, near Bowling. 



BELL, JOHN, generally called from bis Scottish estate Bell of 

 Antermony, ** born in the west of Scotland in the year 1691. He 

 was brought up to the medical profession, and passed as a physician in 

 the 23rd year of his age. Shortly afterwards he began those travels 

 to which alone he is indebted for his celebrity. 



He says himself, in the preface to his valuable book, "In my youth I 

 bad a strong desire of seeing foreign parts; to satisfy which inclination, 

 after having obtained from some persons of worth recommendatory 

 letter* to Dr. Areakine, chief physician and privy councillor to the 

 Czar Peter I., I embarked at London, in the month of July 1714, on 

 board the ' Prosperity of Ramagate,' Captain Emerson, for St Peters- 

 burg." Russia then stood in need of and welcomed foreigner* of 

 talent and acquirement*. Bell was exceedingly well received by Peter 

 the Gnat, for whom he ever afterward* entertained sentiment* of 

 veneration and singular affection. Peter was then preparing an em- 

 ba**y U> Persia, and Dr. Areakioe having introduced Bell to Artemy 

 Petrovicb Valensky, the ambassador, he wa* engaged to accompany 

 the expedition in quality of surgeon and physician. On the 15th of 

 July 1715 be left St Petersburg. The embassy was obliged by the 

 severity of the weather to halt at Kazan, which place it loft on the 

 4th of June 1710. It then proceeded by Astrakhan, the Caspian Sea, 

 and Taunu, to Ispahan, where the Persian monarch then held his 

 court, and where Bell arrived on the 13th of March 1717. He did 

 not return to St. Peter. burg until the 30th of December 1718, having 

 been absent in all three years and six months. His account of this 

 loo*; journey is exceedingly interesting. His love of travelling wu 



j further indulged by bi* being engaged on an embassy to China, 

 under Leoff Vasilovich Ismayloff, who, with Bell and a numerous 

 retinue, departed from St Petersburg on the 14th of July 17111. 

 They travelled by Moscow, Siberia, and the great Tartar deserte, to 

 tho celebrated Wall of China ; and did not reach Pekin until sixteen 

 month* after their departure from the Russian capital, having un.ler- 

 goo* imnxtue fatigue during the journey. On their return they left 

 the Chine*, capital on the 2nd of March 1721, and arrived at Moscow 

 00 the 6th of January 172i The account of this journey, and of 

 what be saw and learned during bis naideoce at the court of China, i* 

 UM mart valuable part of Bell's book, and one of the best and most 

 inUrwUat relations ever written by any traveller. He fully confirm* 

 many of the almost incredible things told of the Chlneae by the old 

 Venetian traveller Marco Polo, with whose work Bell doe* not appear 

 to have been acquainted. 



Hell had scarcely recovered from the fatigues of his Chine** expe- 

 dition, when, in May 1722, he itarted on a long and dangerous journey 



with the Russian emperor to Derbent, a celebrated pass between the 

 foot of the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea, This was the most original 

 and singular expedition in which Peter the Great wu ever engaged. 

 Having concluded peace with Sweden he resolved to aatist the Shah 

 of Persia, whose territories had been invaded by the fierce and war- 

 like Aflghans; and he accordingly marched with an army, taking the 

 empress with him. The Russians Buffered severely during their return 

 march, and even the emperor and his wife had some narrow escapes 

 from the ssvage mountain-tribes who infested the rear and flanks of 

 the retiring army. In the course of his account of this journey Bell 

 introduces a short but good description of Tzercaasia, or Daghestan 

 (Circassia), and at the end of it he draws a fine character of Peter tlia 

 Great, whose habits, both public and private, he had excellent oppor- 

 tunities of studying during the Derbent expedition. It appears that 

 shortly after this journey Bell visited Scotland ; and we do not hear 

 of him again until 1737, when, on the failure of uegociations for peace 

 between Russia and Turkey, he was sent on a confidential mission to 

 Constantinople, which he undertook at the earnest desire of Count 

 Oatermaii, the grand-chancellor of Russia, and of Mr. Rondeau, at that 

 time British minister at St Petersburg. Accordingly, on the 6th of 

 December 1737, Bell once more quitted the banks of the Neva, and 

 travelling in the midst of winter, and through countries exposed to 

 all the horrors of a barbarous warfare, arrived at Constantinople, 

 attended by only one servant, who understood the Turkish language. 

 On the 17th of May 1738 he returned to St Petersburg. (All his 

 dates are according to the old style.) 



We know very little more of this estimable man than what he tells 

 himself in his book of travels, wherein he is for from being commu- 

 nicative as to bis personal history. It appears however that he after- 

 wards settled for some years as a merchant at Constantinople ; that 

 he married about the year 1746, and in the following year returned to 

 Scotland, where he lived in ease and affluence on his estates of A 

 mony. He was a warm-hearted, benevolent, and sociable man, and he 

 obtained from bis friends and neighbours the appellation of ' Honest 

 John Bell.' He died on the 1st of July 1780 in bis eighty-ninth year. 



Although he had so much to tell he was by no means anxious to 

 distinguish himself as an author. For many yean the only record of 

 his travels was a simple diary, to which he occasionally referred to 

 refresh hi* memory, for he was fond of talking about his journeys and 

 adventures with his intimate associates. At length he was induced by 

 the solicitations " of a right honourable and most honoured friend," 

 to throw his notes together in the form of a regular narrative. Tho 

 work, in two volumes 4 to, was printed and published at Glasgow 

 by subscription, in 1763, under the title of ' Travels in Asia.' It has 

 been several times reprinted in various forms, and a French translation 

 of it has been widely circulated on the Continent It includes the 

 translation of a journal kept by M. de Lange, a gentleman who accom- 

 panied Ismayloff to Pekin, and who remained in that city to finish tho 

 negociations with the Chinese, for several months after the departure 

 of the ambassador. 



* BELL, JOHN, was born in Norfolk in 1800. Having completed 

 the usual course of professional instruction, Mr. Bell commenced the 

 practice of his art as a sculptor, by designing and modelling various 

 poetic figures, chiefly of a classical character. But after a time he 

 began to direct bis thoughts towards modern literature and the Scrip- 

 tures, and started on a new and more original career, by giving form 

 and expression to the characters contained in them. His efforts have 

 to a considerable extent been appreciated by the public, but Mr. Bell 

 can hardly be said to have become popular with the connoisseur* or 

 the patrons of art, and he hu received no academic honour- 

 most celebrated classical figure is his Andromeda; but he also 

 sculptured a Psyche, &c. In religious subjects he has executed 

 among others statues of John the Baptist, David with the Sling, and 

 the Madonna and Child. Among those illustrative of modern litera- 

 ture the most popular is the charming figure of Dorothea, which, in 

 the form of a pariau statuette, has been more widely distributed than 

 any similar work, but his Una and the Lion, and his Babes in the 

 Wood, similarly copied, have met with almost equal popularity. Of 

 subjects not directly taken from books, the most ambitious, and one 

 of the most admired, though, u we think, far from one of the most 

 successful, i* his Eagle Slayer; others are the Child's Own Alt. 

 now the property of the Queen ; a Child of Eve ; the Dreamer, &c. 

 Mr. Bell has also executed for the new houses of parliament some 

 historical portrait*, a* Lord Falkland, Shakspere, and one or two more ; 

 ami to the same class belongs his energetic figure of the Maid of 

 Sarsgo***. But none of these are quite satisfactory ; his great strength 

 lie* in the representation of graceful shrinking female figures, of a 

 somewhat homely poetical character. 



Besides bi* statue*, Mr. Bell ban mode numerous designs for manu- 

 factures, chiefly of work* to be executed in parian, bronze, and iron. 

 He has also prepared a ' Freehand Drawing Book,' which has boon 

 published by tho School of Design ; and he has published some poetic 

 sculpturesque design* in outline. Cuts of mo*t of his more popular 

 statue* are in the Crystal Palace at Sydonham. 



I'.I-'.LL is the name of a family of which three brothers rose to a high 

 rank in their several profession*. John Bell, the grandfather, was 

 mini-tor of Glndsmuir in East Lothian, the parish which wu after- 

 ward* held by the historian of Charles V. He died at the early age of 



