Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/97

Rh of elaborating the expression of his thoughts, but wrote altogether without attention to effect, and as if there were no such things as order in thinking and method in composition. It would be doing him injustice, however, while on this point, not to allow that his later writings exhibit a closer connection of ideas, and greater succinctness of mental habits than his earlier productions.

Besides the earlier publications already adverted to, Mr. Bell edited an edition of "Rollin's Ancient History," including the volume on the "Arts and Sciences of the Ancients." This work, published in Glasgow, in three closely printed octavo volumes, bears ample evidence to the industry, research, and sagacity of the editor. The notes are of great extent, and many of them on the geography of the ancients, on the bearing of history, on prophecy, more particularly the prophecies of Daniel, or such as those on the retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks, the march of Hannibal across the Alps, and the ruins of Babylon, amount to discussions of considerable length.

His other great work was his "System of Geography," of which it is sufficient to say, that it has been pronounced decidedly superior as a popular work to that of Malte Brun, and on this account was subsequently republished in America. In this country it obtained a very extensive circulation. The preparation of these works, and of materials left incomplete for a "General Gazetteer," occupied a great many years of Mr. Bell's life. He also took a lively interest in the success of several scientific periodicals, and aided their progress by numerous valuable contributions from his own pen. In all his writings, from the causes already assigned, there is too little effort at analysis and compression. Much might with advantage have been abridged, and much pared off. In his "System of Geography" he occasionally borrowed the correcting pen of a friend, hence its composition is more regulated and chastened.

Mr. Bell's moral character was unimpeachable. He was remarkable for plain, undissembling honesty, and the strictest regard to truth. In all that constituted practical independence of character, he was well furnished; he could neither brook dependence nor stoop to complaint. He was in the strictest sense of the word a pious man. He was a humble and sincere Christian, and his impressions of a religious nature appear to have been acquired in early life. He had a deep sense of the corruption of human nature, and saw the necessity of man's justification by faith alone. He concurred with his whole heart in that interpretation of the doctrines of the Bible commonly called the Calvinistic; but in no sense of the word was he sectarian in spirit; he had no bigotry or intolerance of opinion on religious points, although few could wield the massive weapons of theological controversy with greater vigour and effect.

.—This distinguished metropolitan police magistrate, to whom London was so much indebted in that great blessing of civilization, the "sweet security of streets," was born at Banff, in the year 1760, and was the son of respectable parents. As they occupied a humble rank in society, their son, Richard, was destined to be a tradesman, and was placed apprentice to a saddler. After having served out the usual time, he repaired to London in quest of more profitable occupation than his own country could at that time supply, and soon obtained a situation as journeyman in the establishment of Macintosh & Co., saddlers and harness-makers in the Haymarket, where he was quickly noted by his employers as an active, industrious, and intelligent workman. This, however, promised little more than a rise of wages, with a shop of his own as the ultimatum of the perspective, when one of those accidents