THER ON BELLS. "Therefore I'd have ye not to vapour, Inscription in Gulval Church. HERE are more mysteries in a peal of bells than are dreamt of in our philosophy. To the uninitiated, the very names of the different changes are appalling. What will the unlearned say to plainbob-triples, bob-majors, bob-majors-reversed, double-bob-majors, double bob-royals, and treble-bob-royals? Now who was Bob? Was there only one eccentric Bob who composed these peals? or a legion of Bobs, or six bell-ringing Bobs, whose friends invented this ingenious method of distinguishing them? We have heard of the three old men of Keswick, all named Tommy Potts, who lived in three houses at the foot of Skiddaw and who, to prevent confusion (?), answered to the appellations of Near Tommy, Middle Tommy, and Far Tommy; but the Bob family-major, minor, double and triple, royal and plain, we have not, so far, had the pleasure of meeting. But though these Bobs sound sufficiently mysterious, two worse Bobs still remain. These tremendous peals are called grandsire-bob-cators, and bob-maximus. Grandsire-bob consists of seven hundred and twenty changes, rung in one thousand four hundred and forty different ways. Bob-maximus we dare not inquire into at all. It is almost impossible to imagine the time when bells were not; but such was the benighted state of the old world, that the ancient Greeks and Romans, not to mention the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Antediluvians, celebrated their royal marriages and birthdays, thanksgiving days, and fifths of November, without a single tinkle ringing out from the clouded heights of the tower of Babel, the apex of their pyramids, or the classic heights of their Acropolis. Nothing but a state of heathenism can account for such a want of tuneful taste. Even the Chinese were evidently more civilized, for a pagoda without its bells would be an anomaly not to be imagined, and the celestials no doubt were ringing their joyous carillons when the rest of the barbarians were still without a single peal. Europe, indeed, was not long to remain in such a blissful state of ignorance, or rather silence, for about A.D. 400, one Paulinus, Bishop of Nosa in Campania, invented, or cast, the first church bells. The ancient Britons, however, having at that far-away time scarcely emerged from their mud huts and blue paint, were too busy erecting houses and adorning themselves, to profit as they might have done by this wonderful invention; and it was not till two centuries later on, when, having clothed themselves à-la-mode, amended the error of their ways, and submitted quietly to the barbarians, that the venerable Father Bede chronicles the advent of the first peal of bells. For many centuries, bell founding, like most other scientific pursuits, was carried on exclusively in the monasteries; so that these clamorous lively bantlings were bien élevé from their earliest youth; and, from their first baptism till their final hoisting up, the tone of their morals was rigidly watched and tested. The infant bell, even in a molten state, was subjected to a special consecration. This preliminary ceremony was sufficiently curious: all the brethren in the monastery were ranged in order round the furnace; the 150th Psalm was sung and certain prayers offered; the liquid metal was blessed and a petition put up that the saint whose name it was destined to bear would even now take it under his, or her, special protection. When the bell had safely arrived at man's estate came the christening, a long and important ceremony; the bells having godfathers and godmothers, like any other right-minded Christians.* This second baptism was performed in church before the whole congregation: two vessels, one containing holy oil and the other holy water, were prepared; the priest, dipping a linen cloth into the water, washed the bell within and without, the bell being suspended over a larger vessel, that no drop of the holy water might touch the ground. The same ceremony was gone into with the holy oil, the attendant monks meanwhile chanting the 96th, and other psalms; the bell was then named, after which the whole was repeated five times with various additions of incensing, anointing, ringing, &c. When this six-fold baptism was disposed of; and for a whole peal it must have been an uncommonly long performance; the priest explained to the people the reason of the ceremony, which was that the bells might act as preservatives against hail, wind, thunder, lightning, and storms, and above all drive away evil spirits. Truly the office of the old bells could have been no sinecure, so tremendous a task as scaring away the devil depending on the vigilance of their clappers. Sometimes, with all these edifying precautions, the old bells did not keep their legitimate names. The celebrated Great John at Oxford was christened Mary, in honour of the most Catholic queen. The Vicechancellor's exclamation on first hearing it ring has been recorded. "Oh! delicate and sweet harmony; oh, beautiful Mary, how musically she sounds, how strangely she pleaseth mine ear!" In spite of all this admiration, Mary refused to retain her name; probably the deep, sonorous tone was too powerful for a feminine bell; she assumed the name of John and keeps it, christening notwithstanding. * Southey. The inscriptions on bells are sometimes very curious. The oldest are in the Lombardic, or black-letter character; but, as no dates were added till the sixteenth century, it is impossible to tell their ages. The following is a transcript of a black-letter inscription: “Sum Rosa Pulsata Mundi Katerina Vocata.” Another old bell bears the following very similar lines, quoted by Longfellow in the "Golden Legend: "Sabbata Pango, Funera Plango, Solemnia Clango;" of which a free translation is still to be seen on a bell in Durham Cathedral : "To call the folks to church in time-I chime. An old writer says, "Fame often makes a great deal of a little. Loud was the lie which that bell told, hanging in a clock-house at Westminster, and usually rung at the coronation and funeral of princes, having this inscription about it: But when this bell was taken down at the doomsday of abbeys, this and two more were found not to weigh twenty thousand. of fame are found to shrink accordingly." + An ambitious little bell at St. Mary's, Devizes, says, "I am the first, altho' but small, I will be heard above you all;" And at Aldbourne, on the fourth bell, "Humphrey Symsin gave xx pound to buy this bell, And the parish gave xx more to make this ring go well." Many tales A delicate insinuation that Humphrey Symsin's bell was cracked. Gentle reader, were you ever in a belfry when a peal of tuneful bells was ringing? when the chiming melody floated away on the outside breeze, far above the light and murmur of the town, in sweet modulations of rhythmic sound? If so, you will know to your cost that within the effect is not so perfectly harmonious. The liquid golden notes swelling so deliciously on the ear in the open air, are a clamorous jangling and wrangling confusion in the echoing arches of the steeple, + Fuller. Namely, pounds. and the belfry a very pandemonium of turbulent uproar, from the deep booming bass and shrill tenor bells. Very strange, weird places are some of those old belfries, dim with the mists and cobwebs of bygone years, full of quaint echoes and fancies that belonged to generations of forgotten people, whose shadows, gravely dark and mysterious, still seem to haunt the place where they once rang many a joyous peal. In the old towers and steeples, up many a step worn by feet that now are silent, past airy arch and narrow loop-hole in the very home of the ancient peals of bells, are to be found many a curious recollection of these dead and gone bell-ringers; odd jingling rhymes inscribed on the lasting stone, and telling of longforgotten customs, and long-forgotten people; curious relics and old personal belongings of these professors of a joyous science whose music is of the far past, but whose memories are even yet present with us. There were regular codes of laws and customs in use among these old bell-ringers, many of which are still to be found, generally in outof-the-way country churches and chapels. It is somewhat amusing to find in these codes considerable proof of the mirth and conviviality with which the originators seasoned their tuneful labours; and the fines, inflicted for various breaches of belfry etiquette, invariably went towards the filling of an immense beer-jug for their refreshment and consolation. Not a few of these famous pitchers are still in existence, they are of considerable size, holding from four to six gallons, and are generally inscribed with a line or two of doggerel rhymes in praise of good beer and good fellowship. At Swansea, the Ringers' Jug bears these two lines: "Come fill me full with liquor sweet, for that is good when friends do meet ; When I am full then drink about, I ne'er will fail till all is out." One of these ancient relics is the Hadleigh jug, a curiosity that has belonged from time immemorial to the Hadleigh bell-ringers. This famous pitcher is of brown earthenware, circular in shape, swelling out in the middle, but contracted at each end, and having two ears. It holds sixteen quarts, and bears this inscription-no doubt the names of the eight ringers-rudely indented, apparently with a chisel, in Roman capitals : "Me, Thomas Windle, Isaac Bunn, John Mann, Adam Sage, George Bond, Thomas Goldborough, Robert Smith, Henry West." Below the names, "If you love me doe not lend me, Euse me often, and keep me clenly, If it be strong, and not with small." This benevolently-disposed pitcher is still used on extraordinary occasions, and is filled every Christmas by mine host of the "Eight Bells Inn" with strong beer, which goes by the name of "King William." Any stranger going in is expected to pay sixpence to assist in replenishing this capacious measure. A still older jug is in the Norwich Museum. It is dated 1676, has but one handle, and is curiously ornamented. The inscription is, "John Wayman, Come, brother, shall we join? Give me your twopence-here is mine." At one time, about the seventeenth century, campanology was a gentleman's recreation, and a particularly laborious one it must have been, for very hard work it is that goes on up in the belfry. An amount of physical force and scientific skill is required in the management of a bell-rope that ought to be respectfully spoken of. Ben Jonson says, "If the bells have any sides, the clapper will find 'em:" but a long pull and a strong pull is necessary to beguile a single tinkle from either bell or clapper; and to ring in perfect time and tune is an accomplishment so difficult of attainment, that months of daily practice are necessary to produce even a respectable amount of excellence. Those knights and squires of auld lang syne must have been made of stern stuff when they took to bell-ringing as a mere amusement; but that this is an undoubted fact is attested by the old inscriptions in belfries, which repeatedly mention their bells as being rung by gentlemen, and this at a time when the term was not quite so indiscriminately applied as at present. At the church of Chapel-en-le-Frith, near Manchester, is a complete set of rules, especially agreed upon by these gentlemanly ringers for their own use. They are too long for insertion entire, but the most striking are as follows,— And whoso doth these orders disobey, Unto the stocks he shall be brought straightway, To pay his forfeit and the clerk a shilling." The special notice against hats and spurs is curious. Probably the hats were of the gorgeous type-feathered, and looped with jewels |