BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 13
ANDREWB ELL,th e very odd-looking gentleman on the left, was an engraver ;
and however little flattering this representation of his person may be considered,
it is nevertheless perfectly correct-his nose to a hair's-breadth, and the angle of
his legs to a point. Mr. Bell began his professional career in the humble
employment of engraving letters, names, and crests on gentlemen's plates, dog's
collars, and so forth, but subsequently rose to be the first in his line in Edinburgh.
His success, however, can scarcely be attributed to any excellence he ever
attained as an engraver, but rather to the result of a fortunate professional
speculation in which he engaged. This was the publication of the Ewcyclopcediu
Britunnica, of which he was proprietor to the amount of a half; and to which
he furnished the plates. By one edition of this work he is said to have realised
twenty thousand pounds.
Mr. Bell did not possess the advantage of a liberal education, but this deficiency
he in some measure compensated in after life by extensive reading, and
by keeping the society of men of letters, of which aids to intellectual improvement
he made so good a use that he became remarkable for the extent
of his information, and so agreeable a companion that his company was in great
request.
A b . Bell was a true philosopher : so far from being ashamed of the unnecessary
liberality of nature in the article of nose, he was in the habit of making it
the groundwork of an amusing practical joke.
He carried abaut with him a still larger artificial nose, which, when any
merry party he happened to be with had got in their cups, he used to slip on,
unseen, above his own immense proboscis, to the inexpressible horror and amazement
of those who were not aware of the trick. They had observed of course,
at the fist, that Mr. Bell's nose was rather a striking feature of his face, but
they could not conceive how it had so suddenly acquired the utterly hideous
magnitude which it latterly presented to them.
. Mr. Bell was also remarkable for the deformity of his legs, upon which,
however, he was the first person to jest. Once in a large company, when some
jokes had passed on the subject, he said, pushing out one of them, that he
would wager there was in the room a leg still more crooked. The company
denied his assertion and accepted the challenge, whereupon he very coolly
thrust out his other leg, which was still worse than its neighbour, and thus
gained his bet.
Mr. Bell acknowledged he was but a very indifferent engraver himself, yet he
reared some first-rate artists in that profession. He died much regretted, at his
own house in Lauriston Lane, at the advanced age of eighty-three, on the 10th
of May 1809.
