Why should we smother a good thing with _mystifying dashes_, instead
of plain English high-sounding names, when the subject is of
"honourable men?" "_Recte facta refert._"--Horace forbid it! The
learned Chancery Barrister, John Bell, K.C., "_the Great Bell of
Lincoln_," as he has been aptly called, was _Senior Wrangler_, on
graduating B.A., at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1786, with many
able competitors for that honour. He is likewise celebrated, as every
body knows, for writing three several hands; one only he himself can
read, another nobody but his clerk can read, and a third neither
himself, clerk, nor any body else can read! It was in the latter hand
he one day wrote to his legal contemporary and friend, the present Sir
Launcelot Shadwell, Vice-Chancellor of England (who is likewise a
Cantab, and graduated in 1800 at St. John's College, of which he
became a Fellow, with the double distinction of Seventh Wrangler and
Second Chancellor's Medallist) inviting him to dinner. Sir Launcelot,
finding all his attempts to decipher the note about as vain as the
wise men found theirs to unravel the Cabalistic characters of yore,
took a sheet of paper, and having _smeared_ it over with ink, he
folded and sealed it, and sent it as his answer. The receipt of it
staggered even the Great Bell of Lincoln, and after breaking the seal,
and eyeing and turning it round and round, he hurried to Mr.
Shadwell's chambers with it, declaring he could make nothing of it.
"Nor I of your note," retorted Mr. S. "My dear fellow," exclaimed Mr.
B., taking his own letter in his hand, is not this, as plain as can
be, "Dear Shadwell, I shall be glad to see you at dinner to-day." "And
is not this equally as plain," said Mr. S., pointing to his own paper,
"My dear Bell, I shall be happy to come and dine with you."
* * * * *