Inscriptions on Bells

It has been customary, from the Middle Ages to the present time, to place an inscription upon large bells. Some of these are curious, and all of them have some sort of interest. The famous bell of Flanders, "The Great Roland," was the alarm bell of Ghent in the days of its glory. It bears this inscription, "My name is Roland: when I am rung hastily, then there is fire; but when I resound in peals, there is a storm in Flanders." The "Great Tom," of Oxford University, England, is enormous. Tom's note is said to be B flat, and every night at nine o'clock and five minutes he tolls 101 strokes as a signal for closing the college gates. One hundred and one represents the original number of foundation students, which is now decreased to eighty. The inscription is, "Great Tom, the door-closer of Oxford." Tom's real age is about four hundred years, but he has been renewed at different times. The great bell of St. Clement Danes, London, owes its reputation to the nursery legend of--

The bells of St. Mary Le Bow, London, are famous, since persons born within sound of Bow Bells are called "Cockneys." Pope says--

"Far as loud Bow's stupendous bells resound."

The big bell in 1469 was rung nightly at nine o'clock, which marked the time of closing the shops. Being usually rung late, the young men of Cheapside set up a rhyme against it, as follows:--

Whereunto the Clerk, replying, wrote:--

Many other stories are told of the Bow Bells. The church is called St. Mary Le Bow from having been the first church in the city built on arches of stone.

In monkish mediaeval times, church bells enjoyed peculiar esteem. They were inscribed with Latin ejaculations and prayers. After the Reformation, the inscriptions on bells were addressed to man, not to Heaven, and were in English. At Sherborne, however, there is an exception to this rule, and the inscription on a fire bell (1652) is addressed conjointly to Heaven and man, and reads, "Lord, quench this furious flame: Arise, run, help put out the same."

The inscription on the great bell of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, is, "Richard Phelps made me, 1716." It is only tolled on the death of the sovereign or a member of the royal family, and for the Lord Mayor if he die during his mayoralty.

At Schaffhausen, in Switzerland, the Cathedral bell, cast in 1846, bears the inscription, "Vivos voco, mortuos plango, fulgura frango (I call the living, I toll for the dead, I break the thunderbolt.)" These words suggested to Schiller the idea of his beautiful "Lied von der Glocke," or "Song of the Bells."

The "Liberty Bell," still preserved in Independence Hall, at Philadelphia, was first cast in England, but owing to a flaw in it, it was re-cast in Philadelphia, being one of the first large bells cast in this country. It was hung in the belfry of the State House about the year 1755, and when twenty years later, in 1776, it announced, to the anxious throng outside, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it but fulfilled the prophecy contained in its inscription: "Proclaim liberty throughout the land and unto all the inhabitants thereof," which is a quotation from the Bible (Lev. xxv., 10).

The Chinese have long claimed to have the largest hanging bell in the world, in a Buddhist monastery near Canton; but one hung in the Moscow Cathedral is larger. The Canton bell was cast in 1400 A.D., and is said to have cost the lives of eight men, who were killed during the process of casting. The whole bell, both inside and out, is covered with an inscription in embossed Chinese characters about half an inch long, covering even the handle; the total number is 84,000. These characters tell a single story--one of the Chinese classics.

Thus bells have their literature and their legends. One will suffice:--

On the eve of the feast of Corpus Christi, to this day, the choristers of Durham Cathedral ascend the tower, and in their fluttering white robes sing the Te Deum. This is said to be in commemoration of the miraculous escape of the bell during a conflagration on that night A.D. 1429. The monks were at midnight prayer when the belfry was struck by lightning and set on fire. Though the fire raged until the middle of the next day, the tower escaped and the bells were uninjured--an escape that was imputed to the special interference of the incorruptible St. Cuthbert, enshrined in the cathedral.

The great bell in Glasgow Cathedral tells its own story in the following inscription: "In the year of grace 1583, Marcus Knox, a merchant in Glasgow, zealous for the interest of the Reformed Religion, caused me to be fabricated in Holland, for the use of his fellow citizens of Glasgow, and placed me with solemnity in the Tower of their Cathedral. My function was announced by the impress on my bosom; 'Me audito, venias, doctrinam sanctam ut discas,' and I was taught to proclaim the hours of unheeded time. One hundred and ninety-five years had I sounded these awful warnings, when I was broken by the hands of inconsiderate and unskilful men. In the year 1790, I was cast into the furnace, refounded at London, and returned to my sacred vacation. Reader! thou also that know a resurrection; may it be to eternal life! Thomas Mears fecit, London, 1790."

The introduction of bells into churches is usually ascribed to Saint Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, in Campania, 400 A.D. They were first heard in France about 550, and Benedict, Abbot of Wearmouth, brought one from Italy into England about 680. But it was not until the fourteenth century that church bells reached their present magnitude.

On the varied used of bells, a whole volume might be written. Many a bloody chapter of history has been rung in and out by bells. On Easter Monday, 1282, at the ringing of the Sicilian vespers, eight thousand of the French were massacred in cold blood by John of Procida, who planned to free the Island of Sicily from French rule. On the 24th of August (St. Bartholomew's day), 1572, a bell gave the signal for the massacre of the Huguenots in France, to the number of one hundred thousand. At the news of Lord Nelson's triumph and death at Trafalgar, the bells of Chester rang alternately a merry peal and a deep toll, to announce the joyful news and the sad. Striking incidents could be indefinitely multiplied.

A good bell, when struck, yields one note so clearly that any person with an ear for music can determine what not it is. This note is called its consonant.