for us in our troubles; they inform Heaven of the necessities of the earth."

Now were this edifying part of the Roman Catholic ritual to be reintroduced in the British dominions-as it very possibly may be now that Lord Peter has appeared in his robes before the king, and been introduced by his title-the opportunity would no doubt be taken by the bishop or Jesuit who might direct the proceedings, of complimenting the friends of their cause by naming the first "holy and happy family" after them. And to commemorate the extraordinary union of sentiment which that cause has brought about between persons not otherwise remarkable for any similitude of feelings or opinions, they might unite two or more names in one bell, (as is frequently done in the human subject,) and thus with a peculiar felicity of compliment, show who and who upon this great and memorable occasion have pulled together. In such a case the names selected for a peal of eight tunable bells might run thus:

-alone par excellence, as the thickest and thinnest friend of the cause, and moreover because

None but himself can be his parallel ;

and last in order because the base note accords best with him; and because for the decorum and dignity with which he has at all times treated the bishops, the clergy, and the subject of religion, he must be allowed to bear the bell not from his compeers alone but from all his contemporaries.

CHAPTER XXXI. P. I.

MORE CONCERNING BELLS.

Lord, ringing changes all our bells hath marr'd;
Jangled they have and jarr'd

So long, they're out of tune, and out of frame;
They seem not now the same.
Put them in frame anew, and once begin

To tune them so, that they may chime all in!

HERBERT.

THERE are more mysteries in a peal of bells than were touched upon by the Bishop of Chalons in his sermon. There are plain bob-triples, bob-majors, bob-majors reversed, double bob-majors, and grandsire bob-cators, and there is a Bob-maximus. Who Bob was, and whether he were Bob Major, or Major Bob, that is whether Major were his name or his rank, and if his rank, to what service he belonged, are questions which inexorable Oblivion will not answer, however earnestly adjured. And there is no Witch of Endor who will call up Bob from the grave to answer them himself. But there are facts in the history of bellringing which Oblivion has not yet made her own, and one of them is that the greatest performance ever completed by one person in the world, was that of Mr. Samuel Thurston at the New Theatre public house in the city of Norwich, on Saturday evening, July 1, 1809, when he struck all these intricate short peals, the first four upon a set of eight musical hand bells, the last on a peal of ten.

But a performance upon hand bells when compared to bellringing is even less than a review in comparison with a battle. Strength of arm as well as skill is required for managing a bell rope. Samuel Thurston's peal of plain bobtriples was nobly brought round" in two minutes and three quarters, and his grandsire bob-cators were as nobly finished in five minutes and fourteen seconds. The reader shall now see what real bellringing is.

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The year 1796 was remarkable for the performance of great exploits in this manly and English art-for to England the art is said to be peculiar, the cheerful carillons of the Continent being played by keys. In that year, and in the month of August, the Westmoreland youths rang a complete peal of 5040 grandsire triples, in St. Mary's Church Kendal, being the whole number of changes on seven bells. The peal was divided into ten parts, or courses of 504 each; the bobs were called by the sixth, a lead single was made in the

middle of the peal, and another at the conclusion which brought the bells home. Distinct leads and exact divisions were observed throughout the whole, and the performance was completed in three hours and twenty minutes. A like performance took place in the same month at Kidderminster in three hours and fourteen minutes. Stephen Hill composed and called the peal, it was conducted through with one single, which was brought to the 4984th change, viz., 1,267,453. This was allowed by those who were conversant in the art to exceed any peal ever yet rung in this kingdom by that method. Paulo majora canamus. The society of Cambridge youths that same year rang in the Church of St. Mary the Great, a true and complete peal of Bob-maximus, in five hours and five minutes. This consisted of 6600 changes, and for regularity of striking and harmony throughout the peal was allowed by competent judges to be a very masterly performance. In point of time the striking was to such a nicety that in each thousand changes the time did not vary one sixteenth of a minute, and the compass of the last thousand was exactly equal to the first.

Eight Birmingham youths (some of them were under twenty years of age) attempted a greater exploit, they ventured upon a complete peal of 15,120 bob-major. They failed indeed, magnis tamen ausis. For after they had rung upward of eight hours and a half, they found themselves so much fatigued that they desired the caller would take the first opportunity to bring the bells home. This he soon did by omitting a bob, and so brought them round, thus making a peal of 14,224 changes in eight hours and forty-five minutes, the longest which was ever rung in that part of the country, or perhaps anywhere else.

In that same year died Mr. Patrick, the celebrated composer of church-bell music, and senior of the Society of Cumberland Youths-an Hibernian sort of distinction for one in middle or latter life. He is the same person whose name was well known in the scientific world as a maker of barometers ; and he it was who composed the whole peal of Stedman's triples, 5,040 changes; (which his obituarist says had till then been deemed impracticable, and for the discovery of which he received a premium of 50l. offered for that purpose by the Norwich amateurs of the art;) "his productions of real double and treble bob-royal being a standing monument of his unparalleled and superlative merits." This Mr. Patrick was interred on the afternoon of Sunday, June 26, in the churchyard of St. Leonard, Shoreditch; the corpse was followed to the grave by all the ringing societies in London and its environs, each sounding hand bells with muffled clappers, the church bells at the same time ringing a dead peal

“Ως οἶγ ̓ ἀηφίεπον τάφον Πατρίκας βοββοδάμοιο.”

James Ogden was interred with honours of the same kind at Ashton under Line, in the year of this present writing, 1827. His remains were borne to the grave by the ringers of St. Michael's Tower in that town, with whom he had rung the tenour bell for more than fifty years, and with whom he performed "the unprecedented feat" of ringing five thousand on that bell (which weighed 28 cwt.) in his sixty-seventh year. After the funeral his old companions rang a dead peal for him of 828 changes, that being the number of the months of his life. Such in England are the funeral honours of the Βελτισοι.

It would take 91 years to ring the changes upon twelve bells, at the rate of two strokes to a second; the changes upon fourteen could not be rung through at the same rate in less than 16,575 years; and upon four-and-twenty they would require more than 117,000 billions of years.

Great then are the mysteries of bellringing!

And this may be said in its praise, that of all devices which men have sought out for obtaining distinction by making a noise in the world, it is the most harmless.

CHAPTER XXXII. P. I.

AN INTRODUCTION TO CERTAIN PRELIMINARIES ESSENTIAL TO THE PROGRESS OF THIS WORK.

Mas demos ya el asiento en lo importante,
Que el tiempo huye del mundo por la posta.

BALBUENA.

THE subject of these memoirs heard the bells of St. George's ring for the battles of Dettingen and Culloden; for Commodore Anson's return and Admiral Hawke's victory; for the conquest of Quebec; for other victories, important in their day, though in the retrospect they may seem to have produced little effect; and for more than one peace; for the going out of the old style, and for the coming in of the new; for the accession, marriage, and coronation of George the Third; for the birth of George the Fourth; and that of all his royal brethren and sisters: and what was to him a subject of nearer and dearer interest than any of these events-for his own wedding.

What said those bells to him on that happy day? for that bells can convey articulate sounds to those who have the gift of interpreting their language, Whittington, lord mayor of London town, knew by fortunate experience.

So did a certain father confessor in the Netherlands whom a buxom widow consulted upon the perilous question whether she should marry a second husband, or continue in widowed blessedness. The prudent priest deemed it too delicate a .point for him to decide; so he directed her to attend to the bells of her church when next they chimed, (they were but three in number,) and bring him word what she thought they said; and he exhorted her to pray in the mean time earnestly for grace to understand them rightly, and in the sense that might be most for her welfare here and hereafter, as he on his part would pray for her. She listened with mouth and ears, the first time that the bells struck up; and the more she listened, the more plainly they said, "Nempt een man, Nempt een man!-Take a spouse, take a spouse!" Ay, daughter!" said the confessor, when she returned to him with her report, "if the bells have said so, so say I; and not I alone, but the apostle also, and the spirit who through that apostle hath told us when it is best for us to marry!" Reader, thou mayst thank the Leonine poet Gummarus Van Craen for this good story.

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What said the bells of Doncaster to our dear doctor on that happy morning which made him a whole man by uniting to him the rib that he till then had wanted? They said to him as distinctly as they spoke to Whittington, and to the Flemish Widow

But whither am I hurrying? It was not till the year 1761 that that happy union was effected; and the fourteen years whose course of events I have reluctantly, yet of necessity, pretermitted, bring us only to 1748, in which year the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was made. Peter Hopkins and Mrs. Hopkins were then both living, and Daniel had not attained to the honours of his diploma. Before we come to the day on which the bells rung that joyful peal, I must enter into some details for the purpose of showing how he became qualified for his degree, and how he was enabled to take it; and it will be necessary, therefore, to say something of the oppor tunities of instruction which he enjoyed under Hopkins, and of the state of society in Doncaster at that time. And pre