was duly done, and the magnificent infant gave forth a Christian voice, some oratorical person exclaimed:—“O blessed Tom or Peter! how dulcet are thy tones! How melodiously thou tinklest! How abundantly thou gratifiest the ear!” Then properly hoisted up in “the calm and serene air,” and quite removed from the smoke and noise of neighbouring house-tops, a bell of the olden time led a noble and stately life; it felt the gloom or the radiance of the great passing cloud; its vibrations were supposed to ward off the storm and the thunder, and it heard strange news from the meteors and the stars. There was a fine sonorousness in the names of the old bells. Abbot Egelric of Croyland gave to his monastery seven great bells, of which Ingulphus tells us the names. They were Pega, Bega, Tatwin, Turketul, Betelin, Bartholomew, and Guthlac. The names of the bells of the Abbey of Osney have a softer sound:—Douce, Clement, Austin, Haut-Clair, Gabriel, and John. Our later bells, if they are not continually appealing to the rate-payers and asking, with the bells of St. Martin’s, “Who’ll lend me five farthings?” are boastful, like the bell of St. Bene’t’s, at Cambridge, which announces—
Of—all—the—bells—in—Bene’t—I—am—the—best,
And—yet—for—my—casting—the—parish—paide—least.
Occasionally, too, they neglect the rules of grammar, commemorating their author, as the third bell does at Himbleton, Worcestershire—
John Martin of Worcester he made wee—
Be it known to all that do we see.
The third bell at Calne makes a very singular economical communication—
Robert Forman collected the money for casting this bell
Of well-disposed persons, as I do you tell.
This is different from the tone of the great Roland at Ghent—
Mynen naam is Roland,
Als ik klep is er brand,
And als ik ring is er victorie in het land.
[My name is Roland,
When I toll there’s a fire-brand,
And I ring when there’s victory in the land.]
Guy of Rouen and Great Tom of Oxford do not speak with “bated breath,” the first making “a lusty boom” and ringing a challenge to any mortal who can take him down and weigh him; and the latter sounding “bim bom” to the praise of St. Thomas and for the admonition of members of the University, in a punctual, moral, and very cogent manner. The old bells, for the most part, do not raise their clappers “to sound the good subscriber’s praise,” or implore, as per inscription, that Carolus Secundus or Georgius Quartus may have a long and happy reign, nor do they desire local or parochial prosperity, or “prosperity to the Church of England as in law established,” or testify, as a bell at Alderton does, their belief in the Trinity and “the Worshipful Charles Goare, Esq.,” nor do they ever advertise the gratifying circumstance that
John Taylor and Son
The best prize for church-bells won,
At the Great Ex-hi-bi-ti-on
In London, 1—8—5—and—1.
Yet, making due allowance for their date, they are far from being unchristian bells. The earliest of them bear simply the names of saints. “Sancta Anna,” for instance, or “Sancte George,” or “Gabriel.” Inscribed on some of them we find the letters of the alphabet, or the founder’s arms or initials, or, as on a bell at St. Mary’s, Oxford, an effigy of Time in high relief with the half figure of a man in the dress of the period, and the appropriate inscription, “Keep tyme in anye case.” Mr. Lukis mentions the curious, and, as it would seem, purely accidental, circumstance, “that the key-notes of the several peals in Oxford form nearly all the notes of the chromatic scale.” From the harmony and beauty of its bells, England was once called “the ringing island,”—perhaps in distinction from the practice of the continent, where bells are only chimed or tolled. Durandus gives us the names of the monastic bells, and enables us easily to fill up the tones. “Squilla” rang in the refectory, “Cymbalum” sounded in the cloister, “Nola” tinkled in the choir, “Nolula” or “Duplex” chimed in the clock, “Campana” tolled in the belfry, “Signum” swung in the tower, “Tintinnabulum” summoned the monks into the dormitory, and the quick, petulant tones of Corrigiuncula were heard whenever it was necessary for the flesh of some peccant brother to have bestowed upon it a rather uncomfortable amount of “the discipline.”
Wonderful, as an old chronicler relates, was the ringing in those days. “Fiebat mirabilis harmonia, erat tunc talis consonantia campanarum in Angliâ.” Either from the amount of ringing and the potency of bells, or from some other occult cause, Englishmen of that time were comparatively free from evil spirits. The ringing of bells was accounted curative. The sound of Guthlac, Fuller tells us, was good for the headache. Nervous English folk now and then thought to remove bodily or mental ailments by pealing the bells. It was commonly said,
In Heaven angels sing,
On earth bells do ring.
“The curious do say,” avers an ancient believer, “that the ringing of bells does exceedingly disturb spirits.”
The psychological experience of Wynkyn de Worde enabled him to add a still stronger fact: “Evil spirits do doubt moche when they hear the bells rongen.” The louder the passing-bell was rung, so much the better chance had a poor disembodied soul of escaping the grip of the foul fiend. Evil spirits were kept at bay by the potent and dulcet notes of the bell; and the wind favouring, and a prayerful and sufficiently stout ringer tolling, there was little probability of the soul’s being made a prize of on its way to the celestial haven. There is a touching verisimilitude in that German print of Retsch, representing an old ringer in the belfry. The light of the sun, too low for the spectator to see, is glistening in through the western window, as the old man has dropped down on the rough bench, after ceasing the bell. Death has silently taken his place, and in another moment or two the dull slow vibrations will be