"thunderous yet silver-sweet peals began only five years after Columbus landed at San Salvador, charmed Luther onward from his fourteenth year, and has been charming myriads ever since. Schaffhausen, 1486, Cologne, 1448, Breslau, 1507, and Amiens, 1748, have them weighing eleven tons each; and Bruges has one of ten tons.

Cologne now has a bell larger than either of the European bells above mentioned, the "Kaiserglocke " or Emperor's Bell, cast from twenty-two large cannon captured during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1. It is nearly twelve feet high, seventeen feet in diameter, and weighs 55,000 pounds; the tongue weighs 1,600 pounds, and it takes sixteen men to ring it. It has an inscription in Latin, a translation of which is as follows:

"William, His Imperial Highness, German Emperor and King of Prussia, in pious commemoration of the Heavenly assistance that was meted to him in the fortunate direction and termination of the last French war, has, after the reconstruction of the German Empire, ordered a bell to be cast, of captured cannon, to the weight of 50,000 pounds, that shall be hung in this magnificent House of God, approaching its completion; and in the endeavor to meet the pious intention of this victory-crowned ruler, the society organized for the completion of the cathedral has caused the same to be constructed. Under the Roman Pope Pius IX, and the Archbishop of Cologne, Paul Melchers, in the year of our Lord, 1874."

Many of the churches on the Rhine have had bells cast from similar cannon. A poem has been written called "Song of the Rhine Bells," one stanza of which is:

"Not Death, but Life, our love-fraught mission now!

Not War, but Peace, the message we proclaim!

The lips whose blast once laid a thousand low,

Now breathes melodious the Redeemer's name!"

Spain has some famous bells. The great one at Saragossa is said to ring spontaneously before the death of a sovereign. The bell-master in the Giralda at Seville, which is three hundred and sixty feet high, is blind, as are other bellringers of Spain. Of all the bells in Spain. that belonging to the Cathedral of Toledo

is most celebrated for its size and the stories connected with it. In a volume by Hans Christian Anderson, In Spain, we are told that fifteen shoemakers could sit under it, and draw out their cobbler's thread without touching. The weight is said to be seventeen tons. There is another story about this bell. A rich count of Toledo had a son, who, having killed a man in a duel, sought refuge in the cathedral, while his father went to Madrid to petition the king for his pardon. "No," said the king, "he who has killed a man must die!" The count continued to petition, and the king to refuse, till at length the king said, wishing to get rid of him: "When you can make a bell at Toledo that I can hear at Madrid, I will pardon the young man." Now Toledo is nearly sixty miles from Madrid. The count went home, and some time after, as the king was sitting in his palace, at the open window, he heard a distant roll. "God help me!" he cried; "that's the bell of Toledo !" and so the young count obtained his pardon.

There are other large bells on the continent which might be enumerated. The largest bell in England is

GREAT PAUL.

"Bells stand in a somewhat anomalous position; they are not musical instruments, from an artistic point of view, and yet no more beautiful music can be heard than the rising and falling tones of the church peal, winding along the sloping valley-side, or floating fitfully along the surface of a river, now swelling aloud on the evening breeze, now hushed almost to silence."

So says Dr. John Stainer, organist of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, in his introductory chapter to S. J. Mackie's Great Paul, from its Casting to its Dedication. This monster bell was cast in 1882, by John Taylor & Co., of Loughborough, 108 miles from London. It is eight feet, eight inches in height; nine feet, six inches in diameter; eight and three-quarters inches in thickness at the bow; and weighs sixteen tons, fourteen hundredweight, two quarters, nineteen pounds.

On it are cast the coat of arms of the dean and chapter of St. Paul's, and the inscription from first Corinthians: Vae mihi si non Evangelisavero — "Woe to

me if I preach not the Gospel." It hangs in the southwest tower of the cathedral, to enter which a portion of the masonry had to be removed. In the opposite tower hangs a peal of twelve bells, said to be one of the finest in all England's many chimes. The great bell of Saint Paul's only sounds when the king is dead. This fact is noticed in Julia C. R. Dorr's poem, The Bell of St. Paul:

"Toll! toll, thou solemn bell!
A royal head lies low,

And mourners through the palace halls
Slowly and sadly go.

Lift up thine awful voice,

Thou, silent for so long!
Say that a monarch's soul has passed
To join the shadowy throng.

"Ah! happier far than thou

In all thy silent pride,
The humblest village bell that rings
For bridegroom and for bride;
That calls the babe to baptism,

The weary soul to prayer,

And tolls when loved ones spring from earth To heaven's serener air!"

Another large bell is "Big Ben" of Westminster, which hangs in the great clock tower of the House of Parliament, and weighs thirteen and one-half tons. "Great Tom," of Oxford, cast in 1681, the "Mighty Tom" of Dean Aldrich's "Bonny Christchurch Bells," weighs seven tons, and during college term it gives one hundred and one strokes each evening. "Great Tom" of Lincoln, cast in 1610, weighs five tons; Big Peter" of York, twelve and one-half tons; and "Great Peter" of Exeter, cast in 1676, its predecessor was dated 1484 - six

tons.

The largest bell in America is that of Notre Dame Cathedral, Montreal, which hangs in the south tower. It is six feet high, eight feet, seven inches in diameter, and weighs twenty-four thousand seven hundred and eighty pounds. It is ornamented with images of the Blessed Virgin and St. John the Baptist, together with emblems of Agriculture, Commerce and Industry. It was cast in London, and bears this inscription in Latin: "I was cast in the year of the Christian era 1847, the two hundred and second since the foundation of Montreal, the first of Pius the Ninth's pontificate, and the tenth of

the reign of Victoria, Queen of England. I am the gift of the merchants, the farmers, and the mechanics of 6 Ville Marie.' In the opposite tower hangs a chime of ten bells, the smallest weighing eight hundred and ninety-seven pounds, the largest six thousand and eleven, total twenty-one thousand six hundred and ninety-six pounds.

The largest bell in the United States is the alarm bell on City Hall, New York, which was cast by Blake of Boston. It is 6 feet high, 8 feet in diameter, and weighs 23,000 pounds.

St. Patrick's Bell.

CHIMES AND CHANGE RINGING.

It has been computed that in England there are fifty peals of ten bells, three hundred and sixty peals of eight, five hundred peals of six, and two hundred and fifty of five bells, which, to say nothing of the single bells scattered over the land, would amount to nearly eight thousand bells, which are in chimes, sending their melody over hill and vale. The art of ringing these peals in England has been reduced to a system, and hence its name of the "Ringing Island."

"There's not a sound can e'er resound,
In which such rapture dwells,
As in Britain's native music,
Old England's merry bells,"

It

Societies of ringers were formed as early as 1603, when we have "The Company of the Schollers of Chepeside;" then "The Companie of Ringers of Our Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln," in 1614; the "Society of College Youths," in 1637; and many others afterwards formed. is a matter of pride to be able to ring an immense variety of changes, and these increase enormously with the number of the bells. Southey, who was fond of the curiosities of the art, many of which he has given in The Doctor, says that a peal of twelve bells will give 479,001,600 changes, and that it would take ninetyone years to ring them, two strokes to a second; that it would require 16,575 years to ring the changes upon fourteen bells; and for twenty-four bells the ringer would require 117,000 billions of years.

John Bunyan was once a bellringer, and much might be said about bellringers in general, the system of change ringing, the odd names given some of the performances, and the enjoyment of the performers. The following is one of many rhymes:

"Come ringers all, and view this church, within the steeple door,

Twelve thousand Oxford Treble Bob was rung in eighty-four,

In hours nine and minutes five, the Cumberlands did compleat,

And on the twenty-seventh day of March, the College Youths they beat.

Success unto the Cumberlands wherever they do

go,

That they may always have success to beat their haughty foe."

There must have been a time in England's history when the subject of dispensing with the chimes of bells scattered over the land was agitated, for Southey in his Book of the Church says,

"Somerset pretended that one bell in a steeple was sufficient for summoning the people to prayer; and the country was thus in danger of losing its best music, à music hallowed by all circumstances, which according equally with social exultation and with solitary pensiveness, though it falls upon many an unheeding ear, never fails to find some hearts which it exhilarates, and some which it softens."

But this attempt did not succeed, and England has its many, many chimes, as it has had for centuries. Crowland Abbey, which was destroyed by fire in 1091, had

one of seven bells, named Pega, Bega, Tatwin, Tusketyl, Betelin, Bartholomew and Guthlac; these were succeeded by two small bells, given to the monks by one Fergus, a brazier, of Boston. In an Anglo Saxon MS. (of St. Æthelwold's benedictional, by Cadmon) of a still earlier date, a tower is shown in which hang four bells. Egbert, in 750, commanded "every priest at the proper hour to sound the bells of his church, and then go through the sacred offices of God."

The tower of the chapel at Eaton Hall, the seat of the Duke of Westminster, possesses a unique peal of twentyeight silver bells, said to have cost £30000. The largest bell weighs more than two tons, and bears this inscription: "This peal of twenty-eight bells was cast at Louvain, for his Grace, the Duke of Westminster, by S. Van Aerschodt, A. D., 1877."

:

On All Saint's Day, Nov. 1, 1878, a chime of twelve bells was raised in St. Paul's Cathedral, London. They were dedicated in the presence of the Archdeacon of London, the Dean, the Bishop of London, and many others. The bells were gifts, as follows the largest, or tenor bell, weighing sixtythree hundred weight, was given by the city of London; the next largest, forty-five hundredweight, was from the Grocers' Company; the next, thirty-three hundredweight, by the Clothworkers; the next by the Fishmongers; the next by the Merchant Tailors; the next by the Salters; the four next by the Turner's Company and Lady Burdett Coutts; and the two smallest by the drapers "as their contribution to the glorious peal then dedicated to the praise of God."

Of continental chimes there are

many.

Campanile of Giotto has one of six large bells. Of this beautiful structure, Charles Eliot Norton, in his Church Building in the Middle Ages, speaks as "the most exquisite building of modern times, the one in which the classic art is most completely and beautifully harmonized with the spirit and fancy of the modern times

the unsurpassed bell-tower of the Duomo, known and admired by all men as the Campanile of Giotto, the most splendid memorial of the arts of Florence." And Longfellow has sung:

"In the old Tuscan town stands Giotto's tower, The lily of Florence blossoming in stone,A vision, a delight, and a desire, — The builder's perfect and centennial flower, That in the night of ages bloomed alone, But wanting still the glory of the spire." In the Cologne Cathedral chime, in which belongs the "Emperor's Bell" already spoken of, there are two other large and old bells, "Pretiosa," cast in 1448, weighing over eleven tons; and "Speciosa," 1449, over six tons.

Old Scandinavian Bell,

The