a small readership, of which her husband was the patron. This lady, being a catholic, upbraided him with his cowardice, and exhorted him to lead a life in accordance with his sacred profession. Moved by her words he sought reconciliation with the catholic church, and laboured zealously as a priest for two years among the poorer class of catholics. In January 1583-4 he was apprehended by a pursuivant, and was brought to trial at the Lent assizes at Lancaster. He behaved with great courage, and on being convicted said to the judge: 'I beg your lordship would add to the sentence that my lips and the tops of my fingers may be cut off for having sworn and subscribed to the articles of heretics, contrary both to my conscience and to God's truth.' He was executed at Lancaster on 20 April 1584. John Finch, a layman, suffered at the same time and place for being reconciled to the catholic church, and denying the queen's spiritual supremacy.
[Wood's Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 132; Dodd's Church Hist. ii. 102; Concertatio Eccl. Catholicæ in AngliA', ed. Bridgewater (1594), ii. 160164; Challhonor's Missionary Priests (1741), i. 160; Gibson's Lydiate Hall, Introd. xxxiv.]
BELL, JAMES (fl. 1551–1596), reformer, was a native of the diocese of Bath, Somersetshire, and was admitted a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, probably in 1547. He graduated B.A. in 1551, and on 30 May 1556 was nominated a fellow of Trinity College, when he was appointed rhetoric lecturer. The doubts expressed by Wood as to whether these details do not apply to James Bell, a Roman catholic priest executed in 1584 [q. v.], are set at rest by Bliss in a life of Bell added to the 'Athenæ.' Bell in the Michaelmas term of 1550 gave up his fellowship, and became a zealous partisan of the Reformation. In 1564 he wrote and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth 'An Account of Cæcilia, Princess of Sweden, travelling into England,' which exists only in a manuscript preserved in the British Museum (MS. Royal 17). From the character of his description it is probable that he accompanied the princess to England. The other works of Bell are translations from the Latin as follows:
- 'Sermon preached at the christening of a certain Jew at London,' by John Foxe, 1573.
- 'Sermon of the Evangelical Olive,' by John Foxe, 1578.
- 'Treatise touching the Libertie of a Christian Man,' by Luther, 1579.
- 'The Pope Confuted—the Holy and Apostolical Church Confuting the Pope—the First Action,' by John Foxe, 1580.
- 'Answer Apologetical to Hierome Osorius, his Slanderous Invectives,' by Haddon and Foxe, 1581.
On 13 Feb. 1595 Bell was presented to the prebend of Holcombe in the church of Wells, and on 11 Oct. 1596 to that of Combe in the same church. The date and place of his death are unknown.
[Wood's Athenie (Bliss), i. 661-2; Fasti, i. 132, 137; Tanner's BibL Brit. 94.]
BELL, JAMES (1769–1833), geographical author, was born in Jedburgh in 1769. At the age of eight he went to Glasgow, where his father, the Rev. Thomas Bell [see Bell, Thomas, 1733–1802], was appointed, in 1777, minister of Dovehill Chapel. During childhood and youth James suffered much from feeble health and sickness, and gave but little promise of either much bodily or mental vigour; but he managed to acquire a liberal education. As he grew up his constitution became stronger, and he evinced a remarkable propensity for desultory reading. His first employment was that of a weaver, to which business he served an apprenticeship. In 1790 he commenced trade on his own account, as a manufacturer of cotton goods, with a fair prospect of success, but, finding himself hindered by the mercantile depression of 1793, he gave up his business, and for some years worked as a warper in the warehouses of manufacturers. As his tastes and the uncommon simplicity of his character rendered him unfit to win his way in business pursuits, his father at length settled upon him a small annuity which enabled him to revert to those studies and researches to which his natural inclination led him in early life. About 1806 he quitted warping to earn a livelihood as tutor in Greek and Latin to advanced students attending the university. At the same time he, with untiring zeal, studied history, theology, and especially geography. To this science, around which the whole of his sympathies were gathered, he devoted the labour of his life. His first literary effort was made about 1815, when he contributed some chapters to the 'Glasgow Geography,' a popular work of the period, published by Khull, Blackie, & Co., now scarce. In 1824 he wrote 'An Examination of the various Opinions that have been held respecting the Sources of the Ganges and the Correctness of the Lama's Map of Thibet.' It was published as Article 2 in 'Critical Researches in Philology and Geography,' an anonymous volume in 8vo, now known to be the joint work of James Bell and a gifted young student in philology, one John Bell, a namesake but not a relative. The high encomiums that this article elicited from some of the leading periodicals of the day served at once to establish the reputation of James Bell as a writer upon geo- geo-
