they permitted even the trivial parody, "Prenez vos femmes, embrassez-les." Voyageur à Paris, i., 71.

Bells. It is well known that before the present principles of horology were established, a clock was nothing more than a piece of striking machinery, moved first by hydraulic pressure, and afterward by the action of a bell. Hence in German, Anglo-Saxon, French, and other languages the same word stood, and still stands, for a bell and for a clock. Hazlitt's Venetian Republic, iv., 344-6. The ancients had some sort of bells. I find the word "Tintinnabula," which we usually render bells, in Martial, Juvenal, and Suetonius. The Romans appear to have been summoned by these, of whatever size or form they were, to their hot baths, and to the business of public places. In 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, for he says the liberality of that prelate consisted chiefly in such things as were then wonderful and strange in England, among which he reckons the large bells and organs he gave them. 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, without exception, 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 paid pulsare Classicum. Durandus tells us that, "when any one is dying, bells must be softly tolled, that the people may put up their prayers: twice for a woman and thrice for a man: if for a clergyman, as many times as he had orders, and at the conclusion a peal on all the bells, to distinguish the quality of the person for whom the people are to put up their prayers. A bell, too, must be rung while the corpse 18 conducted to church, and during the bringing it out of the church to the grave." This seems to account for a custom still preserved in the North of England, of making numeral distinctions at the conclusion of this ceremony: i.e., nine knells for a man, six for a woman, and three for a child, which are undoubtedly the vestiges of this ancient injunction of popery.-Rationale, lib. i., c. 4. It appears from an account of Killin parish, co. Perth, printed in the end of the 18th century, in Sinclair's Statistical Account, that at that time there was a bell "belonging to the Chapel of St. Fillan, that was in high reputation among the votaries of that Saint in old Times. (says the writer) "to be of some mixed metal. It is about a foot high, and of an oblong form. It usually lay on a

It seems 29

When grave-stone in the Church-yard. mad people were brought to be dipped in the Saint's Pool, it was necessary to perform certain ceremonies, in which there was a mixture of Druidism and Popery. After remaining all night in the Chapel, bound with ropes, the bell was set upon their head with great solemnity. It was the popular opinion that, if stolen, it would extricate itself out of the thief's hands, and return home, ringing all the way." It is added: "For some years past this bell has been locked up, to prevent its being used for superstitious purposes. It is but justice to the Highlanders to say that the dipping of mad people in St. Fillan's pool and using the other ceremonies, was common to them with the Lowlanders. "The origin of the bell," pursues the author of the above narrative,

Ara

is to be referred to the most remote ages of the Celtic Churches, whose ministers spoke a dialect of that language. Trode, one of the most antient Icelandic historians, tells us, in his second chapter, that when the Norwegians first planted a colony in Ireland, about the year 870, Eo tempore erat Islandia silvis concreta, in medio montium et littorum: tum erant hic viri Christiani, quos Norwegi Papas appellant: et illi peregre profecti sunt ex eo quod nollent esse hic cum viris Ethnicis, et relinquebant post se Nolas et Baculos: ex illo poterat discerni quod essent viri Christiani.' Nola and Bajula both signify handbells. Far in the 19th century it is curious to meet with things which astonished Giraldus, the most credulous of mortals, in the 12th. St. Fillan is said to have died in 649. In the tenth year of his reign, Robert the Bruce granted the Church of Killin in Glendochart, to the Abbey of Inchaffray, on condition that one of the canons should officiate in the Kirk of Strathfillan." The bell of St. Mura, or Muranus, which long belonged to the Abbey of Mabian, near Innisbowen, c. Donegal, founded in the 7th century, during the reign of Abodle Slaine, was said to have descended from Heaven, ringing loudly, but that as it approached the earth, the tongue detached itself, and returned whence it came, till the bronze object was deposited in some holy receptacle. This bell was regarded with peculiar veneration by the local peasantry, and especially as a medium for mitigating the pains of childbirth. It was eventually sold to the late Lord Londesborough, and is figured (the size of the original) in Miscellanea Graphica, 1857, plate xxx. See some curious particulars upon the subject of bells in Spelman's "History of Sacrilege," p. 284, et seq. I find the following monkish rhymes on bells in "A Helpe to Discourse," edit. 1633, p. 63:

Misson, in his "Travels," says: "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." By the will of a mercer of London, named Donne, deposited in the Hustings Court, the tenor bel! of Bow Church, Cheapside, used long to be rung every day at six o'clock in the morning and eight in the evening. Mr. Tanswell has furnished the following extracts from the Churchwardens' Books of Lambeth:—“ 1579. Payd for making the great clapper to a smithie in White Chapel, it waying xxxi. lb. et dim. at vid. the pounde, 15s. 9d. 1598. Item, the olde great belle that was broken in the time of Roger Wynslo, Rychard Sharpe, and John Lucas, churchwardens, in 1598, did contain in weighte xiiii. cwt. one quarter, and xxii. lb. 1623. Payd for ryngynge when the Prince came from Spain, 12s. 1630. June 27. To the ryngers the day the Prince was baptized, 3s. 1633. October 15. Payd for ryngynge on the Duke's birthday, 7s 1705. Ap. 10. Gave the ringers when the siege of Gibraltar was raised, 15s."-History of Lambeth, p. 108. Du Cange quotes an authority to shew that in the time of Charles IV. of France, 1378, the ringing of bells was recognized as a royal salutation, and Kennett seems to establish that in this country it used, in the fifteenth century at least, to be looked upon as an affront to a bishop if the bells were not set in motion on his approach to any town within his diocese. Continuator Nangii, Anno 1378, Kennett MS, A.D., 1444, quoted by Ellis. In "Articles to be inquired of within the Archdeaconry of Yorke (any year till 1640), I find the following: Whether there be any within your parish or chapelry that use to ring bells superstitiously upon any abrogated holiday, or the eves thereof." The custom of rejoicing with bells on high festivals, Christmas Day, &c., is derived to us from the times of popery. The ringing of bells on the arrival of emperors, bishops, ab

bots, &c., at places under their own jurisdiction was also an old custom. Whence we seem to have derived the modern compliment of welcoming persons of consequence by a cheerful peaf. In the Churchwardens' Account of Waltham, 34 Hen. VIII. there is this: "Item. paid for the ringing_at_the Prince his coming, a Penny.' In similar accounts for St. Laurence's Parish, Reading, is the following article under 1514. "It. payd for a galon of ale, for the ryngers, at the death of the Kyng of Scots, ijd." The rejoicing by ringing of bells at marriages of any consequence, is every where common. On the fifth bell at the church of Kendal in Westmoreland is the following inscription, alluding to this usage:

"In Wedlock bands,

All ye who join with hands
Your hearts unite;

So shall our tuneful tongues combine To laud the nuptial rite." Nicolson and Burn's Westmoreland and Cumberland, i., 620. "I remember once that in the dead time of the night there great haste, intreating him to give order came a country-fellow to my uncle in a for knocking the bells, his wife being in labour, (a thing usual in Spain), my good curate' then waked me out of a sound sleep, saying, Rise, Pedro, instantly, and ring the bells, for child-birth, quickly quickly. I got up immediately, and as fools have good memories, I retained the words quickly, quickly, and knocked the bells so nimbly, that the inhabitants of the town really believed it had been for fire." The Lucky Idiot, transl. from Quevedo, 1734, p. 13. The small bells which mitages were most probably intended to are seen in ancient representations of herdrive away evil spirits. On the ringing of bells for this purpose, much may be col. lected from Magius "de Tintinnabulis." Brand writes: Durandus would have thought it a prostitution of the sacred utensils, had he heard them rung, as I have often done, with the greatest impropriety, on winning a long main at cock-fighting. He would, perhaps, have talked in another strain, and have represented these aërial enemies as lending their assistance to ring them. In 1461 is a charge in the Churchwardens' Accounts of Sandwich for bread and drink for " In "The Burnynge of Paules Church in ryngers in the gret Thanderyng." London,' "" 1561, we find enumerated, among other Popish superstitions:“ringing the hallowed belle in great tempestes of lightninges." Aubrey says: "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. Adhelm's bell at Malmesbury Abbey. The curious do say that the ringing of bells exceedingly disturbs spirits.' Miscellanies, p. 148. Our forefathers, however, did not entirely trust to the ringing of bells for the dispersion of tempests, for in 1313 a cross, full of reliques of divers saints, was set on St. Paul's steeple to preserve from all danger of tempests. In 1783, Frederic II. of Prussia prohibited the ringing of bells on such occasions.--News-letter of Nov. 3, 1783, cited by Brand.-Hering advises that "the bells in cities and townes be rung often, and the great ordnance discharged; thereby the aire is purified. Certain Rules for this time of Pestilential Observance, 1625. In Googe's translation of Naogeorgus, we have the following lines on the subject:

"If that the thunder chaunce to rore, and

stormie tempest shake,

A wonder is it not for to see the wretches how they quake,

Howe that no fayth at all they have, nor trust in any thing,

The Clarke doth all the bells forthwith at once in steeple ring:

With wond'rous sound and deeper farre, than he was wont before, Till in the loftie heavens dark, the thunder bray no more.

For in these christned belles they thinke, doth lie such powre and might As able is the tempest great, and storme to vanquish quight. I sawe myself at Naumburg once, a towne in Toring coast,

A belle 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. Such things when as these belles can do,

no wonder certainlie

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."'

WO

The popular rhyme of Oranges and

Lemons, in connection with church bells is too well known for repetition; but are told that there was in the eighteenth century a notice at Chiswick that from the music of the bells there could be made out "My dun cow has just calved." Sir Richard Phillips, Walk from London to Kew, 1817, p. 212. The bells of our early churches, as well as the general

fabrics, were under the supervision of the consistory court of the diocese. On the 24th October, 1617, the parochial authorities at Stratford-on-Avon were cited to appear at Worcester to answer a charge of having allowed the Church of the Holy Trinity and its bells to fall out of repair. Extracts by J. O. Halliwell from the Vestry Book of the Church of the Holy Trinity, 1865, p. 19.

The large kind of bells, now used invented by Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, in churches, are said to have been in Campania, whence the Campana of the lower Latinity, about the 400th Two hunyear of the Christian æra. dred years afterwards they appear to have been in general use in churches. Mr. Bingham, however, thinks this a vulgar error; and at the same time he informs us of an invention before bells of convening religious assemblies in monasteries: it and with the knock of a hammer calling was going by turns to every one's cell, the monks to church. This instrument was called the Night Signal and the Wakening Mallet. In many of the colleges at Oxford, the Bible-clerk knocks at every room door with a key to waken the students in the morning, before he begins to ring the chapel bell. A vestige, it should

seem, of the ancient monastic custom. The do not permit the use of them at all: the Jews used trumpets for bells. The Turks Greek Church under their dominion still follows their old custom of using wooden boards, or iron plates full of holes, which they hold in their hands and knock with a hammer or mallet, to call the people together to church. Durandus tells us, "In festis quæ ad gratiam pertinent, Campanæ tumultuosius tinniunt et prolixius concrepant."-Rationale, lib. i. cap. 4, p. 12. At Venice and elsewhere, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, wẹ find bells employed in lieu of clocks, and divided and notified by this process. A the hours of the day and night were decree of the Venetian Council of Ten

in 1310, ordered, "that no person whosolicence to walk abroad after the third bell ever shall be suffered without special lic, 1900, ii., 606. But this was part of an of the night. Hazlitt's Venetian Repubacute political crisis. exceptional restriction, as it was during an

China has been remarkably famous for its bells. Father Le Comte tells us, that at Pekin there are seven bells, each of which weighs one hundred Ditchfield's Old English Customs, 1896, ch. and twenty thousand pounds. Comp.

XV.

Bells, Baptism of.-Bells were a great object of superstition among 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 where they were consecrated. When a bell was removed from its original and favourite situation, it was sometimes supposed to take a nightly trip to its old place of residence, unless exercised in the evening, and secured with a chain or rope. Warner's Hampshire, ii., 162. In an Italian Ordinale of the fifteenth century, one of the miniatures represents the blessing of the bell by the bishop, or prelate, attended by his clergy, and by a person who wears a beard, and carries his cap in hand apparently a lay attendant. The bell is laid on a cushion or ottoman and is apparently of large dimensions. The presiding dignitary holds the servicebook before him, and reads from it the service, which follows in the text; he invokes the divine blessing on the water with which the bell is to be baptised. Egelrick, Abbot of Croyland, about the time of King Edgar, cast a ring of six bells, to all which he gave names, as Bartholomew, Bethlehem, Turketul, &c. The Historian tells us his predecessor Turketul had led the way in this fancy. The superstition is one which we find indicated in the "Beehive of the Romish Church," a compilation by George Gilpin, 1579, and which was followed in many other places at a later period, particularly at Winchester and at Christ-Church, Oxford. In the churchwardens' accounts of St. Laurence's Parish Reading, anno 14 Hen. VII., is the following article: "It. payed for halowing of the bell named Harry, vjs. viijd. and ovir that Sir Willm 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." Coates, Hist. of Reading, i., 214. Pennant, speaking of St. Wenefride's Well, (in Flintshire), says: "A bell belonging to the Church was also christened in honour of her. I cannot learn the names of the gossips, who, as usual, were doubtless rich persons. On the ceremony they all laid hold of the rope; bestowed a name on the bell; and the priest, sprinkling it with holy water, baptized it in the name of the Father, &c., &c. ; he then cloathed it with a fine garment. After this the gossips gave a grand feast, and made great presents, which the priest received in behalf of the bell. Thus blessed it was endowed with great powers, allayed (on being rung) all storms; diverted the thunder-bolt: drove away evil spirits. These consecrated bells were always inscribed." The inscription on that in question ran thus:

"Sancta Wenefreda, Deo hoc commendare memento, Ut pietate sua

cruento.'

nos servet ab hoste

And a little lower was another address: "Protege prece pia quos convoco, Virgo Maria."

"The following ceremonies," observes Mr. Tanswell, were formerly used at the baptism of bells:-1, the bell must be first baptized before it may be hung in the steeple; 2, the bell must be baptized by a bishop or his deputy; 3, in the baptism of the bell there is used holy water, oil, salt, cream, &c.; 4, the bell must have godfathers, and they must be persons of high rank; 5, the bell must be washed by the hand of a bishop; 6, the bell must be solemnly crossed by the bishop, 7, the bell must be anointed by the bishop: 8, the bell must be washed and anointed in the name of the Trinity; 9, at the baptism of the bell they pray literally for the bell. The following is part of the curious prayers used at the above ceremony:

666

'Lord, grant that whatsoever this holy bell, thus washed and baptized and blessed, shall sound, all deceits of Satan, all danger of whirlwind, thunder and lightning, and tempests, may be driven away, and that devotion may increase in Christian men when they hear it. O Lord, pour upon it thy heavenly blessing, that when it sounds in thy people's ears they may adore thee; may their faith and devotion increase; the devil be afraid and tremble, and fly at the sound of it. O Lord, sanction it by thy Holy Spirit, that the fiery darts of the devil may be made to fly backwards at the sound thereof, that it may deliver us from the danger of wind, thunder, &c., and grant, Lord, that all that come to the church at the sound of it may be free from all temptations of the devil."--History of Lambeth, 1858, p. 105. In the Diary of the Abbé Legrix of Saintes, under 1781, we read:-January 4. After High Mass, the blessing of a bell, weighing about 6 cwt., took place. M Delaage, the Dean, performed the ceremony, at which all the Canons and the M. le Marquis de under-choir assisted. Monconseil and Madame la Comtesse de la Tour du Pin were godfather and godfollowing is from the programme of the mother. Antiquary for 1898, p. 268. The ceremony of the blessing of the new bells in St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Newport : The ancient and solemn rite of blessing bells is full of meaning, and very expressive. The Bishop, vested with mitre and crozier, begins by intoning the 1. Psalm, Miserere mei Deus,' followed by the liii., lvi.. lxvi., lxix., lxxxv. and cxxix. Psalms, which he recites aloud together with his clergy These psalms are

ex