115 BELLS AND BELL-RINGING "Those evening bells, those evening bells, Of youth and home, and that sweet time When last I heard their soothing chime." MOORE. Such is part of a beautiful song by Moore, which most lovers of music know full well, and which appears to me proper to head this chapter, on a science peculiar to England. She was for ages known by foreigners, as "the bell-ringing Island." It is not that in Great Britain bells were first introduced and rung there. "Bells called Nolæ, were used as early as the fifth century. Bede informs us Campana (which means bells,) were employed at the funeral of Abbess Hilda, in 680; and ten years afterward, the art of casting them had so far advanced, that Croyland Abbey possessed a peal of bells, whose sounds were then regulated to the diatonic scale; but whether they were sounded by machinery, or by striking them by hammers, or according to the present mode, would be an interesting subject for enquiry." Gent. Mag. The custom of bell-ringing may be thus traced to the Saxons, and was common at the time of the Norman conquest. But the ringing of a peel of bells in changes, according to the principles of permutation, is the most delightful out of door harmony, that can possibly be conceived. And I doubt not, that if there was a peel of six or eight bells, in a proper elevated tower; "the bells, the music, nighest bordering on Heaven," on one of the islands in New York's beautiful bay, rung of an evening, the Battery gardens would be nightly crowded to hear them. The music of bells is altogether melody; and the pleasure arising consists in its interchanges, and the various succession and general predominance of the consonants in the sounds produced. The bells have furnished some of the most beautiful similes and comparisons of most of the English poets. Thus says Cowper: "How soft the music of those village bells, In cadence sweet, now dying all away, Clear and sonorous as the gale comes on." Wordsworth thus speaks of the entrance to an English country church yard: "Part shaded by cool leafy elms, and part Offering a cool resting place to those who seek the house of worship,* Then he enters." "There is a sublimity in the gradual increase of sounds. It is equally sublime to listen to sounds when they retire from us." In bell-ringing-Crescendo, and Diminuendo, so delightfully charming and so difficult of exquisite execution on any instrument, is by these performed with the air, in the highest perfection. Milton writes "Ring out ye metal spheres, And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow." And again— "With other echo late I taught your shades, 1 In the whole hemisphere of sound, there is no circumstance more strikingly curious, than that of an echo. Echoes are produced by a reflecting body-as a house, a hill, or a wood, and indeed on the main sail of a ship; for in Professor Silliman's Journal, vol. 19, there is recorded an instance of the bells of Saint Salvador, at Brazil, having been heard out at sea one hundred miles! How sublime would be the effect of a merry peal, their various melodious changes, being reflected back by the Neversink hills, the sails of the shipping, the various eminences of the Jersey shore, and the prominences of this large city. "Oft on a plat of rising ground, If such is the effect of the single curfew, how rich would it be with a well graduated lively peal, heard in the morning, when the ear has been refreshed by sleep. The notion of their sounds being much enhanced, when situated near to water, wants no confirmation, when we recount the case of the sentinel, who was charged with sleeping upon his post, on the ramparts of Windsor Castle. The life of this man was saved by the extraordinary circumstance of his having heard, at midnight, * Many of the pilgrims who visit Shakspeare's tomb in the church at Stratford-upon-Avon, speaks enthusiastically of the long avenue of wide spreading limes, which cover the seated walk to the principal entrance. I St. Paul's clock, London, strike thirteen, when it should have struck only twelve. The fact was proved by several witnesses, although the distance, twenty-two miles, apparently would have rendered the circumstance impossible. It was supposed that the course of the river, and the stillness of the night, assisted the conveyance of the sound, which, like a miracle, saved the delinquent from death. There are few persons who are not affected by the sounds of bells, when rung in a scientific manner. Of all musical sounds, they are among the first that present themselves to our attention; and for that reason, they make a deep impression upon us. When heard at a distance, they fall with a delightful the upon and in the midst of rural scenery, they powerfully excite the imagination, and recall the most pleasing scenes of our youth. softness ear, "So have I stood at eve on Isis banks, To hear the merry Christ church1 bells rejoice, And suffer'd the slow stream to bear me home, While Wykham's4 peal along the meadows ran." HURDIS. There is a pleasing loquaciousness about bells, appealing finely to every imagination; this loquacity has given rise to the following saying: "as the bell tinks, so the fool thinks ;" or vice versa, as the fool thinks, so the bell tinks. Man boasts of being the only creature endowed with language, but a piece of mere mechanism, can feelingly hold forth most sensible discoursing, as the verse from Moore so beautifully sets forth. We all know that a bell has a long tongue. What though it may have an empty head? That is, but the peculiarity of most of our verbose declaimers, who seldom teach anything worthy of our attention, or applause. While the applauding tongues of the clappers-"Gingeling in whistling winds, as clere and eke as loud as dothe the chappell bell." rouses in us thousands of by-gone associations. The sound of bells affect both animate and inanimate objects; there is a pillar in the cathedral at Rheims, trembles sensibly when the bell tolls. A dog belonging to a change ringer, used to accompany his master to the belfry of Saint Martin's, in Leicester; and upon commencing (upon one of the noblest 1 Christ church college. 2 Magdalen College. 3 Wolsey gave this peal. 4 William of Wyckham, Bishop of Winchester, died, 1404. + Chaucer. peal of ten bells in England,) a peal of changes, he would lay himself quietly down, nor attempt to stir, till the bells began to ring the finishing round. He would then get up and shake himself, and prepare to be off. The key of bells prove a fact, that the pitch has been gradually changing the last two centuries. It is higher in England than in other countries. The tone of St. Paul's bell, may be imitated by putting down the three following notes b upon the piano forte. This combination produces a rich and sweet sensa. tion upon the ear, called a concord. After which, we may try the following combinations, by which we obtain all the sounds of the octave; and which, played in succession, form the notes of a peal of eight bells, or what is called the diatonic scale. Love all good men. Every one must have remarked the cheerful gaiety of some bells, and the mournful tone of others. Who can have listened to the succession of five, without feeling their touching melancholy? e: One, two, three, four, five. or not have noticed that tone of regret we hear in the village peal of six ? How delightful at even tide to hear their plaintive song! It we would shun these mournful sensations, and court a livelier strain, we must seek the cheerful peal of eight : One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. or that of the sprightly ten, warbling forth their notes of joy: #吧: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. From the ringing of bells we derive an expression in music, of all others the most delightful, that increasing and dying away of the sounds, as they are wafted to or from us by the swelling breeze. In upland countries, we can enjoy these sublime effects in the highest perfection; where these tones wind round the hill, or down the woodland vale. How their voices come swelling upon the like the revelry of friends! but no sooner heard, than the wind has swept them away, and they retire in the faintest whispers, but only to be again heard in the never to be (exactly) twice repeated changes. These effects are highly poetic, and will forcibly touch the feelings as long as sounds remain. Bells. 2 3. ear, .2 4....24 Changes. 5....120 6....720 By the following table it appears that even in the plain and simple arrangement of natural sounds, according to the species of octaves, without any interventions of flats or sharps; eight notes or bells will furnish 40,320 different passages. Supposing 720 could be rung in an hour, it would occupy seventy-five years ten months and ten days, to ring the whole changes on twelve bells. To ring all the changes 39,916,800 on a peal of eight bells, is sufficiently 12....479,001,600 lengthy, and which requires much practice to properly perform. 7 9 10. .5,040 8....40,320 .362,880 ..362,8800 11. ... There have been many bell-ringing societies in Englnad, and men of consequence have been enrolled as members. The celebrated Judge Hale, at one period of his life, belonged to a society of change ringers, and many others -"Once famed, now dubious or forgot And buried, midst the wreck of things that were!" |