LETTERS OF SIR CHARLES BELL.* WHEREVER this book is enjoyed
at all, there must surely be great heartiness in the welcome afforded it. We do not say that it might not have been better than it is. The publication of Sir Charles Bell's most intimate correspondence having been so long delayed, it seems to need a little more of preface than is given. few details of some interest respecting his birth and parentage are no doubt, inserted ; but, for the satisfaction of allowable curiosity, the reader would like to know how he came by the professional knowledge which, when he was set down at thirty years of age, a stranger in London, with scarcely any personal friends, and only a few introductions in his pocket, made him almost immediately an object of interest and attention. It would have been more fair to himself and to his first teacher, his elder brother John, to have given some slight sketch of his course of study under this instructor; and this might surely have been done without any trespass upon the privacies and peculiarities of family life. The only approach to information on these points we gain from a short foot-note at page 20, where it is said that Charles was associated with John in his works on anatomy, and had already published two volumes of his "System of Dissection," with plates taken from his own draw- ings, in 1799 and 1801, and had also in 1801-2 published engrav- ings of the arteries, brain, and nerves, the great and life-long subjects of his interest.
John Bell, able man as he was, we learn from other sources,t had involved himself in disputes with the Edinburgh Medical School, and this probably was the strongest motive for Charles's departure for London. From that time the field is left entirely clear for the two brothers, one in heart and soul, whose divided yet united course forms great part of the interest of the whole. George Joseph, four years older than Charles, must have been a man not only of ability and sound principle, but of the most persevering generosity and sympathy. From the hour in which be comes to the conclusion that Charles had better try his fate in London, he seems to put away every spark of selfishness :-
"'I felt,' he writes, ' when he went away Nov. 23rd, 1804] that he had left me never to meet again but for a visit ; that our long brotherly life of uninterrupted companionship was at end. Yet I believed this to be most manifestly for his advantage, and forced my inclination to advise and promote it. My correspondence with Charles I have kept regularly—at least, his letters to me—and they show his progress."
It is not, so far as we can find, noted in what year these brothers lost their mother, who had been long a widow, left with six children in straitened circumstances, but the two younger sons seem to have lived on with her and her sister till Mrs. Bell's death. After that time the aunt made a home for them, and she is always lovingly spoken of by both.
The series of letters, beginning from the day of their separation and carefully preserved by George Joseph, seems to have remained all these years in private hands. Through their often hasty, but graphic outlines, the reader follows Charles to London, and has almost day by day his communications to George. He tells his adventures, little and great, recording, with allowable though amusing minuteness, the impressions he thinks he has made as well as those received, and the blunt as well as kind remarks of medical men upon him. The letters are (for a man of thirty), not only very naive, but somewhat boyish ; sometimes they are boastful, sometimes depressed ; but it should be borne in mind that but one social circle had up to this time been familiar to Charles Bell, that the London world was entirely new to him, that his early school education had been very defective, and that the means of winning his way depended on his own in- dustry, genius, and determination. To these qualities justice was soon done. It is plain that the leading surgeons found something was to be gained from him as well as imparted. We very soon see that Abernethy, Astley Cooper, &c., feel they have got hold of something worthy of their notice in the young Scotchman, and he is soon made free of their lecture-rooms and houses. At first he has modest lodgings in Fludyer Street, Westminster. Then find- ing house pupils and larger rooms very important, he, with his brother's assent, takes a large old house in Leicester Street, Leicester Square, an anxious undertaking, especially for a man so ignorant of money matters ; but it is thought likely to promote his interest, and George Joseph is ever willing to do his part. One can hardly help dwelling on the numerous instances of his kind- ness. Here is one among many. It seems that Charles greatly needed his books of cases and sketches, collected when in Edin- burgh, and left there. His brother John refused to part with them ; George therefore took upon him out of his little leisure to
• Leiters of Sir Charles Bell, A.II. F.R.S., .tc. Selected from his Correspondence with his Brother. George Joseph Bell. London : Murray. 1870. See Penny Cyclopedia, article - John Bell." Vols. In. and IV. copy them all for Charles, drawings as well as MSS. " I am
astonished," says his brother, warmly thanking him, " at the accuracy of your sketches of some of my own drawings."
But George's own family cares were now increasing. Late in 1806 he married Miss Barbara Shaw, and in 1811 Charles married her sister Marion. Thus another tie was formed, but the second was, of course, deferred until the professional career in London had improved, and meanwhile great was the anxiety to be rich, not for riches' sake, but to ward off all fear of being a drag upon his brother. It is almost comic to see the glee with which he enumerates his fees, the handsome figure he is able to cut, &c., but above all, the delight he has in his house pupils, particularly in the brothers of his future wife, John Shaw, and the younger brother, Alexander. It is impossible not to be carried along with him in these details. He must have been the model master for medical pupils. Full of life, a real humourist, sketching, model- ling, dissecting before them, entering into their minds, yet hold- ing complete ascendancy over them, what wonder if the pupils almost adored him? What wonder if he resolutely refused to give up what was by some of his friends considered to be either beneath his status or below his power of work? He could not and he would not do without his beloved " boys," and the letter in which be pleads with George for their continuance after his proposed marriage is really one of the most touching appeals that ever was written. No one, we think, can read it without feeling that be was right, nor without admiring the independence which kept him steady to his " plan of life," and made even the arguments of his oracle, George Joseph, ineffective. It is pleasant to think that the point was conceded readily and gracefully.
So far we have left unnoticed the substantial claims to renown which will always hand down the name of Charles Bell among those of great discoverers. It is not in our power or province to to enter minutely upon these; suffice it to say that even while in Edinburgh he had obtained a glimpse of the light which was after- wards to shine fully upon him, and that he never lost sight of his grand subject, the structure of the brain, and the distinction between the nerves of motion and those of sensation. His dissec- tions, his drawings, his experiments led him on step by step, retarded perhaps in some degree by his prevailing humanity of nature, which made him intensely averse to inflict pain upon either men or animals, and, in fact, never, to the end of his life, ceased to -make every severe operation a great source of suffering to himself. Any one pretending to give an account of what this book makes known to us about him who is mainly the subject of it, would fail moat completely if the combination of singular, even contradictory, elements in his- character were not pointed out. Vivacity, mobility, considerable irritability, evidently were in large pro- portions ; a strong desire also for renown ; but above all reigned the deep-seated longing after Truth. No effort was too great, no trial of patience too protracted for him when trying to read the mysteries of structure. His wife, the constant witness of his enthusiasm, and now the simple natural chronicler of a part of his career (see "Recollections," appendix), bears her testimony to this leading endeavour :—
" From his faith in 'design,'" she says, "ho believed that in the works of Creation there is no confusion, and that all is arranged with simplicity if we could find it out. He would say to me, as if thinking aloud, $ I wonder how it was given to me to see all this ?' or, Well, if I read this for the first time of some one else, I should say he was a clever fellow.'" In fact, so strong was his bias towards investieation that it needed all the versatility of his nature to make him what he was—a hard,
practical worker, labouring at his class lectures, drawing per- petually, seeing patients and performing operations. The various labours told upon him, and he would certainly have broken down long before his time but for his many country excursions. Nothing -delighted bim more than to accompany bis wife on rural expedi- • tions,—sleeping for a night or two at Chenies, at Seven Oaks, at Box Hill, &c., and then the rising early in the morning to sketch, or, still earlier, as life went on, to fish. His love of nature was a perpetual spring of enjoyment. As to worldly affairs, we cannot but infer from the " Recollections " that he was too generous and too intent on unremunerating labours to prosper like many of his professional brethren in the race.
" The only distinction,' his wife tells us, $ that he made in patients was the importance of the case. If it were difficult, he was unremitting in attendance. If trifling, whoever the patient might be, he gave offence by omitting to visit as often as he was wished for. His attendance at the Middlesex Hospital for twenty-four years was regular and unceasing. He was alert to every call there, yet nobody suffered more than he did from a disturbed night."
The year 1827 was a sad one to him and his wife. First, her sister, the wife of George, died ; and then his most efficient pupil and secretary, John Shaw, after a short illness, expired ; and the grief of his brother-in-law is described as terrible. He would waken in the night weeping, and although the surviving brother Alexander, also very much beloved, did everything for him that could be done to lighten the stroke, it is our own impression that he never was quite the same man again, and that in all the difficult crises of his career the thought of what " Johnnie " had been to him was never absent. He was knighted in 1831, at the same time with several other scientific men, and continued to live in Lon- don until August, 1836, when, wearied of the strain upon him, and, above all things, wishing to pass his latter days near his first friends, he removed to Ainslie Place, a most pleasant residence in Edinburgh. Here he lived, lectured, assisted iu examinations, listened to pleasant readings, saw old friends, and went out on beautiful country excursions. Life passed happily, and though the series of letters to his brother is suspended, he writes to other friends, specially to John Richardson, Esq., late of Kirklauds, of Ancrum, the most attached friend of his youth. Always the letters are affectionate, often playful and happy, but they are not without touches of saddened thought.
Much has, of course, been omitted in this brief notice of a book really of no common interest. We have preferred dwelling ou traits of character, and on the singularly beautiful devotion of two brothers to each other ; but there is a great deal of collateral interest, and while the discoveries and the excellent works of Sir Charles Bell receive their ineed of honour, many readers will pause for a time upon the spirit displayed in his visit to Brussels after the battle of Waterloo, and especially on the active humanity with which he devoted himself to the service of the wounded French soldiers.
This we must say, in conclusion, that to have one's miud filled with such details as these is a boon for which we are heartily thankful, and wo believe it may act as a cordial and a comfort to those who are well nigh sickened of life through the experiences of human selfishness.$
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