While nominally following his practice at the bar, Mr. Bell still continued to attach himself to literary pursuits. There are some rather good stories told of his attachment to the Temple of Thespis, of which, while in Edinburgh, he had always been a regular attender. When a well-known actor, made his first appearance at the Edinburgh Theatre-Royal, it is said that Bell wrote a slashing criticism of the performance, his article concluding with the significant remark: "_N.B._--Steamers sail from Leith for London twice a week," meaning, of course, that however well the new actor might satisfy the London critics, he did not come up to the standard of the Edinburgh drama. Indeed, Mr. Bell made the drama a special study, and his opinion on any new play or actor was always asked and listened to with the utmost deference. He was on very intimate terms with the late Mr. William H. Murray, manager of the "Royal," and through him furnished a number of prologues for that theatre in its palmiest days. He also established for himself a high reputation as a lecturer on the Fine Arts; and his prelections on music, poetry, sculpture, painting, and the drama were universally admitted to be of a high order of merit. Until the present hour, Sheriff Bell continues to manifest a great attachment to the Fine Arts, and amid the pressure of his official duties, he often finds leisure to visit the theatres either in Glasgow or in Edinburgh. In 1839, Mr. Bell was appointed a Sheriff-Substitute of Lanarkshire, with a salary of L400 per annum. The appointment lay with Sir Archibald Alison, who is said to have been favourably impressed with his successor's conduct while acting as junior counsel for the Glasgow cotton-spinners when they were brought to trial in the spring of 1838 for conspiracy. When Mr. Bell became Sheriff-Substitute, the duties of the office were very light compared with what they are at the present time. For a number of years his only colleague was the late Mr. George Skene, who subsequently became Professor of Law in Glasgow University. Indeed, the duties of the Sheriffs continued to be comparatively easy up to 1853, when the passing of the Sheriff Court Act, which compelled Sheriffs to take all notes of evidence in their own handwriting, rendered the work much more laborious. Their salaries were raised from time to time, in proportion to the increased irksomeness and responsibility of their duties; and it is a fact worth noting, that whereas Mr. Bell, as Sheriff-Substitute, had only L400, Mr. Dickson, in the same sphere of labour, has now L1400 per annum.