of Lincoln, and in Great Tom (“the mighty Tom ") of Christ Church in Oxford. The Churchwardens' Accounts of St Laurence's Parish in Reading, for the year 1499, contain the following article: "It. payed for halowing of the Bell named Harry, vjs. viijd. and ovir that Sir Will Symys, Richard Clech, and Maistres Smyth, beyng Godfaders and Godmoder at the Consecracyon of the same Bell, and beryng all oth' costs to the Suffrygan." It may be interesting here to record that the bells of Little Dunmow Priory in Essex, which were newly cast in 1501, were baptized by the several names of Saint Michael the Archangel, Saint John the Evangelist, Saint John the Baptist, and the Assumption of blessed Mary; the fifth being dedicated to the Sacred Trinity and all the saints in a body. Egelrick, Abbot of Croyland about the time of King Edgar, cast a ring of six bells, to each of which he gave a separate name; and Collier is our authority for the statement that Egelrick's predecessor Turketul had led the way in this fancy. From the account we have of the gifts made by St Dunstan to Malmesbury Abbey, it appears that bells were not very common in that age; the liberality of that prelate consisting chiefly in such things as were then wonderful and strange in England, among which are reckoned his donations of large bells and organs. Bells were objects of great superstition to our ancestors. Each of them was represented to have its peculiar name and virtues; and many are said to have retained great affection for the churches to which they belonged and in which they were consecrated. When a bell was removed from its original situation, it was sometimes supposed to take a nightly trip thither unless it was exercised in the evening and secured with a chain or rope. The virtues of a bell are enumerated by Warner in his treatise on Hampshire. The lines are a translation of the two last of the monkish rhymes in A Helpe to Discourse (1633), which we also append "Men's deaths I tell Lightning and thunder I break asunder. On Sabbath all To Church I call. The sleepy head "En ego Campana, nunquam denuntis vana, Vox mea, vox vitæ, voco vos ad sacra venite. Funera plango, fulgura frango, Sabbatha pango: Googe's version of Naogeorgus supplies the following lines on Belles. "If that the thunder chaunce to rore, and stormie tempest shake, A wonder is it for to see the Wretches how they quake. Hove that no fayth at all they have, nor trust in anything, The Clarke doth all the Belles forthwith at once in Steeple ring: Till in the loftie heavens darke, the thunder bray no more. For in these christned Belles they thinke, doth lie such powre and might I sawe my self at Numburg once, a Towne in Toring coast, A Bell that with this title bolde hirself did proudly boast : By name I Mary called am, with Sound I put to flight The Thunder-crackes and hurtfull Stormes, and every wicked Spright. It is, if that the Papistes to their tolling alwayes flie. When haile, or any raging Storme, or Tempest comes in sight, Or Thunder Boltes, or Lightning fierce, that every place doth smight." In support of this representation, in the Churchwardens' Accounts of Sandwich for 1464 occurs a charge for bread and drink for "ryngers in the gret Thunderyng;" and in The Burnynge of Paules Church in London (1561), we find enumerated, among other Popish superstitions, "ringinge the hallowed Belle in great Tempestes or Lightninges." From Aubrey's Miscellanies we learn: "At Paris when it begins to thunder and lighten, they do presently ring out the great Bell at the Abbey of St Germain, which they do believe makes it cease. The like was wont to be done heretofore in Wiltshire. When it thundered and lightened, they did ring St Adelm's Bell at Malmesbury Abbey. The curious do say that the ringing of Bells exceedingly disturbs Spirits." Our forefathers, however, did not trust simply to the ringing of bells for the dispersion of tempests, for in 1313 a cross, full of relics of divers saints, was set on St Paul's steeple, as a preservative against tempests. Hering, in Certaine Rules, Directions, or Advertisments for this Time of pestilentiall Contagion (1625), advises: "Let the Bells in Cities and Townes be rung often, and the great Ordnance discharged; thereby the aire is purified." The custom of rejoicing with bells* on high festivals, Christmas Day and such like, is derived to us from Catholic times. The ringing of bells on the arrival of emperors, bishops, abbots, and other dignitaries at places under their own jurisdiction was also of high antiquity; and from this we seem to have derived the modern compliment of welcoming persons of consequence by a cheerful peal. Fuller's History of Waltham Abbey has the Churchwarden's Account for the year 1542, in which occurs: "Item. paid for the ringing at the Prince his coming, a Penny ;" and in the Churchwardens' Accounts of St Laurence's Parish, in Reading, is the following article for 1514: "It. payd for a Galon of Ale, for the Ryngers, at the death of the Kyng of Scots. ijd.” An old bell at Canterbury took twenty-four men to ring it; another required thirty-two men ad sonandum. The noblest peal of ten bells in England, whether tone or tune be considered, is said to be in St Margaret's Church, Leicester. When a full peal was rung, the ringers were said pulsare Classicum. At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the tolling of the great bell of St Nicholas' Church has been from ancient times a signal for the burgesses to convene on guild days, or on the days of electing magistrates. It begins at nine o'clock in the morning, and with little or no intermission continues to toll till three, when they begin to elect the Mayor and other officials; the popular notion being that it is for the old Mayor's dying, as they call his going out of office; the tolling, as it were, of his passing bell. Ruff head, in his Preface to the Statutes at Large, speaking of the Folc-mote Comitatus (or Shire-mote), and the Folc-mote Civitatis (or Burg-mote) says: "Besides these annual Meetings, if any sudden contingency happened, it was the duty of the Aldermen of Cities and Boroughs to ring the Bell called in English Mot-bell, in order to bring together the people to the Burgmote." The little carnival on pancake Tuesday, as we have seen under the head of Shrove Tuesday, commences at Newcastle with the same signal. A bell, usually called the thief and reever bell, proclaims the two annual fairs of that town; and a singular alarm is given by a bell in case of fire. A bell, moreover, is rung at six every morning, except Sundays and holidays, with a view, it should seem, of calling up the artizans to their daily employment. The inhabitants retain also a vestige of the old Norman curfew at eight in the evening. In Peshall's History of the City of Oxford we read: "The Custom of ringing the Bell at Carfax every night at eight o'clock (called CURFEW BELL, or Cover fire Bell), was by order of King Alfred, the restorer of our University, who ordained that all the inhabitants of Oxford should, at the ringing of that Bell, cover up their fires and go to bed, which Custom is observed to this day, and the Bell as constantly rings at eight, as Great Tom tolls at nine. It is also a Custom, added to the former, after the ringing and tolling this Bell, to let the Inhabitants know the day of the Month by so many Tolls." The curfew is commonly believed to have been of NORMAN origin. A law by William the Conqueror directed that all people should put out their fires and lights at the eight o'clock bell, and go to bed. The practice of this custom, we are told, was observed to its full extent, during that and the following reign only. Thomson has inimitably described its tyranny "The shiv'ring wretches, at the Curfew sound, And, through the mournful gloom of ancient times, In the second Mayoralty of Sir Henry Colet, Knt. (father of Dean Colet), A.D. 1495, and under his direction, the solemn charge was given to the Quest of Wardmote in every ward, as it stands printed in the Custumary of London— "Also yf ther be anye paryshe Clerke that ryngeth Curfewe after the Curfewe be ronge at Bowe Chyrche, or Saint Brydes Churche, or Saint Gyles without Cripelgat, all suche to be presented." Knight's Life of Dean Colet, p. 6. In the articles for the sexton of the Parish of Faversham agreed upon anil settled in 22 Hen. VIII. we read: "Imprimis, the Sexton, or his sufficient deputy, shall lye in the Church-steeple; and at eight o'clock every night shall ring the Curfewe by the space of a quarter of an hour, with such Bell as of old time hath been accustomed;" and in the accounts of the churchwardens and chamberlains for Kingston-upon-Thames "1651. For ringing the Curfew Bell for one Year, £1 10 0." We learn, however, in the old play of The Merry Devil of Edmonton, that the curfew was sometimes rung at nine o'clock. Thus the sexton says “Well, 'tis nine a clocke, 'tis time to ring Curfew ;" and Shakespeare, in King Lear, has fixed the curfew at a different time Edgar. "This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: He begins at Curfew and walks to the first Cock." In Bridge's History of Northamptonshire a bell is recorded to have been rung in Byfield Church, "at four in the morning, and at eight in the evening; for which the Clerk hath 20s. yearly, paid him by the Rector." The first used to be the practice at Newcastle-upon-Tyne also. So, in Hutchins' Dorset, in connection with Mapouder Church, mention occurs of a bequest of land "to find a Man to ring the Morning and Curfeu Bell throughout the year;" and under the head of Ibberton, we read of one acre given for ringing the eight o'clock bell, and £4 for ringing the morning bell. Macaulay, in his History and Antiquities of Claybrook in Leicestershire (1791), writes: "The Custom of ringing Curfew, which is still kept up at Claybrook, has probably obtained without intermission since the days of the Norman Conqueror." We find the Covre feu mentioned as a common and approved regulation. It was used in most of the monasteries and towns of the North of Europe, the intent being merely to prevent the accidents of fires. All the common houses consisted at this time of timber. Moscow, therefore, being built with this material, generally suffers once in twenty years. That this happened equally in London, Fitzstephen proves: "Sola pestes Lundoniæ sunt Stultorum immodica potatio, et frequens Incendium." The Saxon Chronicle also makes frequent mention of towns being burned, which might be expected for the same reason, the Saxon term for building being getimbpian. "The custom of covering up their Fires about sun-set in Summer, and about eight at night in Winter, at the ringing of a Bell called the Couvre-feu or Curfew Bell, is supposed by some to have been introduced by William I. and imposed upon the English as a badge of servitude. But this opinion doth not seem to be well founded. For there is sufficient evidence that the same Custom prevailed in France, Spain, Italy, Scotland, and probably in all the Countries of Europe, in this period; and was intended as a precaution against Fires, which were then very frequent and very fatal, when so many Houses were built of wood."—Henry's History of Britain. Barrington, in his Observations on the Antient Statutes, tells us: "Curfew is written Curphour in an old Scottish Poem, published in 1770, with many others from the MS. of George Bannatyne, who collected them in the year 1568. It is observed in the annotations on these Poems, that by Act 144, Parl. 13. Jam. I. this Bell was to be rung in Boroughs at nine in the evening; and that the hour was afterwards changed to ten, at the solicitation of the Wife of James Stewart, the favourite of James VI." And the Muse's Thernodie has: "There is a narrow street in the Town of Perth, in Scotland, still called Couvre-Feu-Row, leading West to the Black Friars, where the Couvre Feu Bell gave warning to the Inhabitants to cover their fires and go to rest when the Clock struck Ten." So also it is recorded in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1790: "At Ripon, in Yorkshire, at nine o'clock every evening a Man blows a large Horn at the Market Cross, and then at the Mayor's door." The bells at Newcastle-upon-Tyne are muffled on the thirtieth of January every year. For this practice of muffling we find no precedent of antiquity. Their sound is by this means peculiarly plaintive. The fact of the inhabitants of that town having been particularly loyal during the grand rebellion may account for the origin of this practice, which probably began at the Restoration. In Campanologia, or the Art of Ringing (1753) we have a description of "A Funeral or Dead Peal. "It being customary not only in this City of London, upon the death of any person that is a Member of any of the honourable Societies of Ringers therein, (but likewise in most Countries and Towns in England, not only upon the death of a Ringer, but likewise of any young Man or Woman,) at the Funeral of every such person to ring a Peal; which Peal ought to be different from those for mirth and recreation, (as the musick at the Funeral of any Master of Musick, or the Ceremony at the Funeral of any person belonging to military discipline,) and may be performed two different ways: the one is by ringing the Bells round at a set pull, thereby keeping them up so as to delay their striking, that there may be the distance of three notes at least, (according to the true compass of ringing upon other occasions,) between Bell and Bell; and having gone round one whole pull every Bell, (except the Tenor,) to set and stand; whilst the Tenor rings one pull in the same compass as before; and this is to be done whilst the person deceased is bringing to the ground; and after he is interred, to ring a short Peal of round ringing, or Changes in true time and compass, and so conclude. The other way is call'd buffeting the Bells, that is, by tying pieces of Leather, old Hat, or any other thing that is pretty thick, round the ball of the clapper of each Bell, and then by ringing them as before is shewn, they make a most doleful and mournful sound: concluding with a short Peal after the Funeral is over, (the clappers being clear as at other times:) which way of buffeting is most practis'd in this City of London." Misson writes of us: "Ringing of Bells is one of their great delights, especially in the Country. They have a particular way of doing this; but their Chimes cannot be reckoned so much as of the same kind with those of Holland and the Low Countries." Under the head of the parish of Inverkeithing, in Fife, we read in the Statistical Account of Scotland (1794) of the Castle of Rosyth |