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 honor. He is likewise celebrated, as every one 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, inviting him to dinner. Sir Launcelot, finding all his attempts to decypher 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, 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 it, 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?" {50} ROBINSON'S PRACTICE. _The Practice in Courts of Law and Equity in Virginia. By Conway Robinson. Vol. II, containing Practice in suits in Equity, pp. 648. Richmond: Printed by Samuel Shepherd. 1835._ The first volume of this work came out about three years ago; and received so earnest a welcome from the legal profession, that the author's tardiness in producing the second might be matter of wonder, were not his devoted attention to an unusually large practice well known. The present is destined, because it deserves, to be a much greater favorite with the law-book-reading public, than the former volume was. The arrangement is after a better classification of subjects; rendering it easier to find the doctrine desired, on any given point: and there is a larger proportion of valuable matter--matter not to be found in the Revised Code, or in Tate's Digest. Indeed there are few works, more copiously filled with useful, and _not-too-obvious_ learning. Industry and research are the author's manifest characteristics. He is a real _brownie_--if not for supernatural speed of workmanship, at least in the world of trouble he will save his brethren. Here, within 442 pages (for the other 206 of this tome--_horresco referens_--are _index_,) he has compressed matter, and inestimable matter too, for which the practitioner would otherwise have to hunt through, not only the thirty volumes of Virginia Reports (counting Chancellor Wythe's) but the numberless ones of New York, Massachusetts, the Federal Courts, and England.