Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/715

 . 22, 1860.] Opening the volume, though in anything but a spirit of gratitude to the donor, he perceived a note addressed to himself, and found that it had been slightly gummed between two pages to prevent its being lost. Tearing it out and open, he read:—

“I was forbidden to speak, but not to write. You have heard but half the truth. What most concerned yourself has been withheld.”

This, in the book of comfort, given by the hand of his darling, was Mrs. Berry’s parting blow.

bells, it may be said that they are a subject eminently English. Rabelais, in his description of the “Ringing Island,” has been supposed, by a variety of commentators (whose suggestions a variety of other commentators have indignantly repudiated), to have intended to typify England, whose bell-ringing propensities have been proverbial from very old times. Be this as it may, the bell has always been a favourite vocalist in this country, and any details connected with its history or capabilities are likely to be welcome, unless “a good tale be marred in the telling.” So, though “Great Ben of Westminster is mute,” I will pass on to bells in general, and endeavour to catch a few historic notes as I listen to them tolling, or pealing, or violently rung, as they sometimes are by people of various dispositions.

“Oh, the tintinnabulation of the bells—bells—bells!” from the Tsar Kolokol, or King of Bells, to the tiny bit of brass that tinkles in a baby’s doll’s-house: what countless shapes and sizes, what infinite concords and discords! Bells Pagan and bells Christian! huge monsters of bells that are rung by a congregation of unbelievers in Tartary, and which growl out their sounds as an elephant does when he is tortured; bells with great wooden clappers that are swayed by bearded Cossacks and Calmucks, or happy clusters of bells, whose notes run sprinkling the frosty air as the sledge glides merrily over the snow; bells that are hung under a roof of cedar, as at the Bermudas, or bells which are heard a hundred miles away at sea, as they say was the case with the bells of St. Salvador; bells that have been duly baptised, exorcised, and provided with godfathers and godmothers who shall be responsible for their conduct in the air, and bells in and round whose metallic cups a whole troop of fairies seems to whirl and dance; bells utterly heathen, conceived and born for the discomfort of all fine-nerved people, that ring us away from all that is pleasant; imprecatory college bells that hurry the “freshman” from his warm dreams and deep morning slumber; relentless railway bells that make us urge the cab-horse along the street, or which cut short our prandial efforts at the stations; fog-bells which sound desolately and with boding roar across the sea; fire-bells which seem to toss their torch-like sounds aloft like wild Mænades and startle a sleeping city; and bells which have garnered all the music of early summer into their throats, and ring us breezy recollections of lanes scented with hawthorn and roses and village sweetbriars, as we lean vacantly over the side of our becalmed vessel, or lie at full-length in our tent, so far away from England that we have even forgotten the day of the month.

The origin of bells, in connection with churches and divine worship, has been variously referred to the times of Constantine and of Paulinus of Nola. Be this, however, as it may, the first bell-tower on record was built by Pope Adrian in front of St. Peter’s at Rome. Southey somewhere says, that bells were not baptised under the idea of doing away with the original sin in the metal, for that nothing but recasting could effectually mend that. If not in their origin, in their use bells were always accounted sacred. The ancient Britons swore by them; and it is probable that Paulinus, who devoted himself to the composition of bells in the fourth century, was an estimable bishop. Bells, in those days, were better treated, and better made, apparently, than they are now. They had grand minster towers raised to receive them. They were hung in lofty chambers, and had plenty of access to the air and the light. They were not left alone, as they frequently are now, in the company of jackdaws; but grave and musical old persons had the care of them, and kept the bell-chambers sweet and clean, so that beams of golden sunlight stole in through the wide windows, and slid down the walls, and even kissed the big sonorous lips. Abbots, in those days, did not think bell-founding beneath them. Many anxious days and nights were spent when a weighty bell had to be cast; its destiny was not entrusted to “a clerk of the works;” but a bishop, or a prior at least, watched over its safe ascent, and the whole neighbourhood repeated aves and paters in its behalf; godfathers and godmothers stood ready with a napkin for the christening, and when all