remain indifferent or passive spectators. Hence, it is by no means surprising, that Mr. Charles Bell, at that time ardent in the pursuit of higher objects, and harassed by the discordant jarrings of those around him, should have relinquished a field of professional enterprise where he must have felt it hopeless, by any merit on his part, however great, to counteract the prejudice, inseparable, in so contracted a society as that of Edinburgh, from the rancorous system of professional partizanship, in which his brother had taken so prominent a part.

It was under these circumstances, that in the year 1806 Mr. C. Bell left Edinburgh for the wider and more liberal field of exertion presented by the metropolis. Here he resolved to open his way to distinction, as a lecturer on anatomy and surgery. The task he had thus imposed on himself was an arduous one. The lecture rooms of London were at that time occupied by anatomists of the very highest repute; among whom were Cline, Cooper, and Abernethy. Yet, even in the encounter with such competitors, Mr. Bell had no reason to feel discouraged. His unwearied diligence, and the lively interest he took in his pupils, speedily procured for him a high reputation. Mr. Bell, from the outset, fearlessly took a place on a footing of perfect professional independence and equality; and to this circumstance, perhaps, it was owing, that he was very early invited to join the Anatomical Society, which at that time included amongst its members, Dr. Baillie, Sir William Blizard, Mr. Headington, Mr. Cline, Mr. Abernethy, Sir A. Cooper, Sir Everard Home, Mr. Wilson, and the anatomical professors of Oxford and Cambridge; and other no less gratifying proofs of the esteem in which he was held by the heads of the profession in London, were furnished with characteristic liberality.

About this period Mr. Bell associated himself with Mr. Wilson* in the school of Great Windmill-street; and at no time was that celebrated school, which had been the source of the fame of both the Hunters, conducted with higher approbation and greater success, than under the auspices of Mr. Bell. His mode of lecturing was admirably adapted to sustain the interest of the pupils. Even while engaged in repeating his demonstrations so as to make them intelligible to the students seated in the different quarters of the lecture-room, he always contrived, by slight variations in expression, or in the mode of illustration, to fix the attention of his auditors, and to impress his meaning in a manner wholly unattainable by a lecturer who confines himself to a monotonous repetition of what he has already said. His style of lecturing, when he had ceased to demonstrate from the subject before

* See Memoir of James Wilson, F.R.S.

him, partook indeed, more of the nature of animated and close reasoning, delivered by a person intent on carrying conviction to the minds of his hearers, than of those uninteresting details of minute facts, which too often render lectures on anatomy vapid and intolerable to the student.

Mr. Bell's lectures were of a higher grade, resembling rather those discourses which he afterwards delivered in the Royal College of Surgeons of London, before the seniors of his profession, and in the presence of distinguished visitors of all ranks and professions; with respect to which, my learned and excellent friend, the present Bishop of Durham, well observed, that they conveyed to him the impression, not so much of a lecture, as of a man thinking aloud. It did not satisfy Mr. Bell that his pupils should be made acquainted with the mere facts: he seemed farther desirous that they should be able to apply those facts to the general system which he was engaged in illustrating; and that they should feel, if possible, the same interest in the pursuit by which their teacher was animated. Hence it was that, like another highly distinguished lecturer in a different department, Mr. Bell was accustomed, occasionally, to stop short at what appeared to himself the most interesting and commanding stations, in order to open to the companions of his journey, such vistas, on either hand, as might afford them a glimpse of the fertility and beauty of the regions through which they were travelling.*

In the year 1812, by which time Mr. Bell's reputation in London was fully established, he was elected a surgeon to the Middlesex hospital by an open poll, at which one thousand two hundred governors voted; and the immediate consequence of his election was a very large increase of the annual income derived from the fees of the pupils. In this hospital he, from the first week of his appointment, delivered clinical lectures; many of which attracted notice in the Medical Gazette, no less from the excellence of principles inculcated, than as admirable examples of that invaluable mode of teaching; and similar attestations of their value were spontaneously offered by many of the most esteemed members of the profession. One of those with which Mr. Bell had much cause to be gratified, was a note addressed to him by the late Dr. Gooch, from his sick chamber, in which that eminent physician says, that he could not refrain from expressing his high admiration of those lectures.

Mr. Bell had long been anxious to make himself acquainted with the subject of gun-shot wounds; and, as the hospitals of the metropolis afforded few materials for this purpose, the same energy in the pursuit of profes

sional knowledge for which he had been always remarkable, led him on two several occasions to relinquish his engagements in London, in order to familiarise himself with this department of practice. The first of those occasions was in the year 1809, immediately after the battle of Corunna, when the wounded, hurried home in transports, were landed on the southern coasts of England, almost in the same condition in which they had been carried from the field. An opportunity was thus presented of becoming acquainted with the peculiarities of wounds received in battle, such as has rarely occurred to a medical man unconnected with the military service. Nor was the opportunity lost to Mr. Bell, for, after having fully availed himself of it, he published an "Essay on Gun-shot Wounds," as an appendix to his "System of Operative Surgery." At that time the Peninsular military surgeons had not returned to London; and we were not then possessed of those larger works which we owe to them. But every one who peruses Mr. Bell's Appendix must be struck with the remarkable evidence which it affords of his close and accurate observation of the practice of the army and navy surgeons; and with the acuteness with which he anticipates almost every point of interest in this department of surgery. Accordingly we observe, from his late work, on the "Institutes of Surgery," that, after the battle of Waterloo, Mr. Hennen informed him that this Appendix had been his practical guide, in the arrangement and treatment of the wounded under his charge.

The second occasion on which Mr. Bell availed himself of a similar opportunity was after the battle of Waterloo. On that event he, and his brother-in-law and favourite pupil, the late Mr. John Shaw, were the first professional men from England who arrived in Brussels. This journey was undertaken chiefly for the purpose of obtaining cases and sketches in farther illustration of the subject; but, on finding himself surrounded with so much suffering, he at once lost sight of every selfish and individual object, and offered his services wherever they could be useful. At that time, and after such a conflict, the ordinary supply of medical aid was necessarily inadequate to the emergency; and Mr. Bell's offer, as may be well supposed, was gladly accepted. He was immediately put in charge of an hospital, and, for three successive days and nights, was incessantly engaged in dressing wounds, and operating on the wounded. On that occasion he afforded his professional assistance to no fewer than 300 men: and the drawings with which he was thus enabled to enrich his portfolio, have been referred to as the finest specimens of water-colouring in the English anatomical school.

It is not unworthy of remark, that to this expedition of Mr. Bell we perhaps owe the interesting volume, in which Sir Walter Scott depicts the

same scenes, under a less appalling aspect than that which they presented to this eminent surgeon; for Mr. Lockhart, in his life of his illustrious relative,* informs us, that a letter addressed by Mr. Bell to his brother in Edinburgh, and written under the excitement which he had witnessed at Brussels, made so deep an impression on Sir Walter, that he immediately set off for the continent; and the volume which afterwards appeared under the title of "Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk," was the result. It is less gratifying to add that the requital justly due to Mr. Bell for these disinterested exertions was snatched from him by others, who, after all the arrangements, which the emergency required, had been made by those already on the spot, repaired to Belgium under official authority, and, having made their reports to Parliament, received the thanks of the nation for services which had been in effect performed before their arrival. I have reason to think, however, that, on this, as on other occasions, Mr. Bell met with a reward which, to a man of his temperament, more than compensated him for the disappointment (if he ever felt it as one) in the unqualified approbation of his professional brethren, and in the reflexion that his unceasing zeal in the pursuit of the great objects of his profession, had happily placed him in circumstances to render an important public service, on one of the most memorable occasions in our national history.

Hitherto Mr. Bell had not deemed it necessary to become a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of London, being already a fellow of the Royal College of Edinburgh. But, as his reputation advanced, it was intimated to him, that, in order to avoid a question of professional privilege, he ought to become a member of the college; and, in the year 1812 he was admitted.†

A few years afterwards, he was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Surgery to the Royal College of Surgeons, and, after a considerable interval, a member of the council. To lecture before such men as Cline, Cooper, Abernethy, and others equally eminent in their profession; and not unfrequently before men, no less distinguished in other professions, can be to no man an easy task; and in Mr. Bell's case, the difficulty was enhanced by

* Vol 3, p. 347. This letter was addressed by Sir C. Bell to his brother G. J. Bell, Esq., who transmitted it to Sir W. Scott. "When I read it," said he, "it set me on fire."

↑ When Mr. Bell, in compliance with the regulations of the College, presented himself for examination, his reception was flattering in the extreme. It was on this occasion that the Examiners facetiously acquitted themselves by asking, with suitable gravity, Mr. Bell's opinion of the probable fate of Napoleon Buonaparte. And, immediately on receiving his answer, they declared themselves satisfied with the candidate's proficiency.

the comparative failure of many excellent members of the college, who towards the close of their courses had been left with empty benches. But it was otherwise with the subject of this memoir. The theatre in which he lectured was crowded to the last; nor is it wonderful that this should have been the case, for these lectures were remarkably imbued with that exciting degree of interest which Sir C. Bell so felicitously imparts to his discourses. One of those lectures in particular made a lasting impression on all who heard it. Its object was to invite attention to the evidences of creative wisdom and design, afforded by anatomical researches; and, with that view, in a demonstration of the bones of the skull, and a comparison of their structure with the mechanical inventions of the architect, and the mason, the lecturer presented what was, at that time, a novel and beautiful illustration of a great truth which careless observers of nature are too apt to overlook. This lecture, and several others directed to the same object, were intended to remove a false impression then prevalent, as to the scepticism of medical men, and the sceptical tendency of their enquiries; and nothing could be better timed, or more triumphant, than the eloquent refutation of this fallacy, made by Sir Charles Bell in the course of these lectures; and since then, amplified and rendered generally accessible in more than one of the most popular of his many valuable publications.

Lord Brougham, who was, at that time, as he ever has been, in search of talent to aid him in the accomplishment of one of the favourite objects of his indefatigably active life, knew and appreciated Sir Charles Bell. He had previously applied to him for some papers on the animal economy, for insertion in the publication called The Library for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; and the lectures to which I have just alluded, suggested to his Lordship the value of a more enlarged comparison of the mechanism of the body, with the ordinary mechanical inventions of men. This suggestion gave rise to the publication of Sir Charles Bell's two papers on "Animal Mechanics," which became so deservedly popular, and eventually led to the illustrated edition of Paley's Evidences of Natural Religion, in which Sir C. Bell had the honour of co-operating with Lord Brougham-a task not unworthy of these distinguished co-editors, and towards which Sir Charles contributed much interesting matter.

As connected with this branch of the literature of his profession, and at the same time as indicative of the high reputation as a Physiologist which Sir Charles Bell had attained; it may be mentioned that he was one of the first in the list of those eminent men, in various departments, who were selected to fulfil the bequest of the late Earl of Bridgewater. That remarkable personage, as is well known, left a sum of £8000 in trust to the