employed "day and night in the service of your sons;" that he "takes from his usual hours of rest," and yet his fees are "not anything like the usual reward of mere boys who are employed as tutors." Besides,

Mr Bell has to be "every hour in the day with them," to prevent their extravagance from ruining them. The boys kept a servant out of livery," but Mr Bell himself was not paid.

Bell now began to take mathematical pupils. His first pupil was a nephew of Mrs Dempster's; but "the young man, going into the county of Angus, was put into a damp bed," and died of rheumatic fever. He, however, succeeded in at length collecting eight pupils; but the receipts were not satisfactory. He now thought of returning to Virginia, and wrote to Mr Braxton: "What prospects may I indulge"-this was the epistolary manner of the period "from a revisitation to Virginia? Any academies erected? Any encouragement in the line of the Church? Shall I come out in holy orders? What is now the mode of obtaining them in America? Can they be come at with you?" He was willing to do anything; but "the line of the Church" and holy orders that are "to be come at " strike one as a reminiscence of the days of currency and tobacco.

An event now occurred which turned the whole stream of his existence. A general election was at hand. The St Andrews burghs had to return a member to Parliament; and the constituency consisted entirely of the town-councillors of the burghs.1 The

1 Unlike the Spartan virtue of these modern days, the town

rival candidates were Mr Dempster of Dunnichen and a Mr Campbell, of the family of Breadalbane. Every engine of private and secret persuasion was put in motion; every kind of human weakness was appealed to; and most of the voters had been got at through their pockets. All the town-councillors had pledged themselves to the one or to the other candidate with one exception; and it so happened that an exactly. equal number had pledged themselves on both sides. The councillor who had refused to give any promise was Bailie Bell. With him virtually lay the whole power of electing. He was approached in every possible way; and at length the Breadalbane candidate went so far as to offer him £500 for his vote-a large sum in those days. The honest bailie sternly declined, and gave his vote for Mr Dempster. The new member was profuse in his thanks, and promised to take a fatherly interest in his son.

Bell now resolved to enter the Church of England. By the aid of his friend Berkeley he obtained an introduction to Dr Porteus, the Bishop of Chester, by whom he was ordained. Soon after this, a vacancy occurred in the Episcopal Chapel at Leith. Bell went there to preach; the congregation was satisfied; and he was engaged at a salary of fifty guineas a-year to act as curate. This salary was afterwards raised to £70.

Not long after this appointment, he was offered a situation as tutor to a son of Lord Conyngham, who was intended for Parliament or for diplomacy. He was councillors were not impervious to argument, if conveyed in a manner sufficiently weighty.

not only to teach the usual subjects, but also to direct the political studies of the lad; and on this occasion Mr Dempster wrote to him that "the old proverb, Honesty is the best policy, is worth Montesquieu, Bolingbroke, and De Lolme, all put together." There is always a populous school of "political thinkers" who deal largely in general statements and major premises; but they are not very happy or helpful in fitting everyday circumstances and actual cases to their wide and loose maxims. Honesty is not only the best policy, it is the necessary condition of the most moderate success. This agreement with Lord Conyngham was, however, never carried out; and Mr Dempster now urged Bell to go to India, to lecture there on natural philosophy, and to do work "in the way of tuition."

CHAPTER IV.

INDIA.

ANDREW BELL, now Dr Bell (his University, with thoughtful generosity, had given him an M.D.), sailed from the Downs for India on the 21st of February 1787 with £128, 10s. in his pocket; and on the 2d of June his ship reached Madras. His destination was Calcutta; but the committee for establishing a Military Male Orphan Asylum at Madras, believing they saw in Dr Bell "a person eminently qualified to superintend the education of children," asked him to stay in that city, and he accordingly cut short his journey.

Here promotion and appointments flowed in upon him all at once. Between August and October of that year he obtained one chaplainship to a regiment and three deputy-chaplainships-all offices with little work but certain pay; and he began also to give courses of lectures, which were very successful. Those were the days in India of the pagoda tree; and his first course of lectures brought him in the sum of 972 pagodas, or £360. The lectures even became the rage with the ladies of the town; and one correspondent writes that "the ladies are determined to encounter every incon

venience for fashion's sake." He redelivered his lectures in Calcutta, and there too with great success. Meanwhile another deputy-chaplainship came in, "being the fifth appointment conferred upon him in little more than a year and a half." Mr Southey goes on to point out, that "at this time Dr Bell partook largely of the blessings of pluralism. Besides five deputy-chaplainships, he held two full chaplainships; and he was also superintendent of undertakers;" and the poet compares him to "Kehama, who was in eight places at once." Most of these offices were sinecures, but all had salaries attached to them; and the same absorbing genius which had combined teaching with dealings in tobacco and American currency, was here to push its fortune in every possible or likely direction.

In 1789 he heard from St Andrews the news of his

father's death-" the death," he says, "of as good a father, and as just and upright a man, as ever lived."

The unpaid American tobacco began now to trouble him. He wanted to provide for his orphaned sisters, and it was advisable to look up every resource in his power. He wrote to Mr Braxton and other friends the most earnest letters, pointing out "the many sacrifices made of everything dear and valuable,-of youth, health, and fortune," to his pupils; but no answer ever came from any one. The fact is, the Braxtons had been ruined by the Revolution; all their property in Virginia was lost, and Bell's along with it. In spite of this, his success in India was so rapid and so great that he soon felt himself able to settle an annual allowance upon his only unmarried sister. As "the chaplain was the per