483 
check trousers, very ill made, — a waistcoat buttoned up to his throat, 
and a cravat of the most primitive neglige . His aristocracy is 
certainly not in his dress. His manners are of absolute simplicity, 
amounting almost to want of style. He crosses his hands behind 
him and balances on his heels ; in conversation, his voice is low and 
cold, and he seldom smiles. Yet there is a certain benignity in 
his countenance, and an indefinable superiority and high breed- 
ing in his simple address, that would betray his rank after a few 
minutes’ conversation to any shrewd observer. It is only in his 
manner toward the. ladies of the party that he would be immedi- 
ately distinguishable from men of lower rank.” (N. P. Willis' Pen- 
cilling by the Way.) 
Here we find an American tourist brought into contact with the 
British nobleman, surprised at not finding a man exhibiting all the 
artificial graces which he had supposed were shadowed forth for 
all men of rank in England by Chesterfield’s Letters ; and yet the 
republican has acutness enough to discern, under the cold and simple 
demeanour of the peer, the high estimable qualities of head and 
heart by which his character was impressed. He feels how much 
lies beneath, and he is impressed with respect and admiration. 
He was right in the estimate he formed of him ; and further ac- 
quaintance would only have deepened the impression of his high 
qualities. From one who had the first opportunities of judging, I 
have this testimony, that “ he considered him the best man he ever 
knew. That he really believed he was incapable of even compre- 
hending anything mean or ignoble.” Such, then, was Lord Aber- 
deen in his various relations and features of character. He was no 
ordinary man, — consider him as a statesman or scholar, a man of 
property, or in his more private relations of life. It is a great bless- 
ing when men who are called upon to take so prominent a place 
in public affairs are really good men. The Royal Society of 
Edinburgh, of which he was a member for years, his family, his 
country, respect the memory of the late Earl of Aberdeen. 
Mr Robert Bell, was son of Benjamin Bell, the celebrated sur- 
geon. He was born in 1782, was educated at the High School of 
Edinburgh, and was called to the bar in 1809, He must soon have 
gained some reputation as a lawyer, as he appears in an early cari- 
cature of Kay as one of those advocates who pleaded in a wig. 
yol. iy. 3 T 
