Dec. 25. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



609 



" BOMBASTES FURIOSO." 



(Vol. vi., p. 287.) 

 This popular burlesque, if the author's avowal 

 to his own family and friends at the time of its 

 appearance is to have any weight, was undoubtedly 

 written by Wm. Barnes Rhodes, whose valuable 

 dramatic library was dispersed by auction some 

 twenty-five years since. I think I can carry the 

 proof of ownership a little farther. It was first 

 performed at the Haymarket Theatre ; and was 

 so little appreciated in the Green Room, that he 

 used to say, it was only reluctantly that Liston 

 allowed his wife to perform the part of Distaffina; 

 and that he had some trouble in the alterations 

 required by some of the other performers. He 

 presented the MS. for publication to Rodd of 

 l^ewport Street, in acknowledgment of services 

 rendered in the way of book-collecting, by whom 

 it was first printed in 8vo., of which I possess the 

 only copy I have ever seen, given to me by his 

 brothei;; but unfortunately it is at present inac- 

 cessible, and, as it does not appear in the Brit. Miis. 

 Catalogue, or in Lowndes, I cannot give the date, 

 or say whether the author's name is on the title- 

 page. A smaller edition, with Cruickshank's illus- 

 trations, which Rodd afterwards published in 1830, 

 has the name on the title-page, and a slight memoir 

 (" N. & Q." Vol. vi., p. 422.) ; and so also has the 

 edition published in Cumberland's Acting Drama. 

 That he was capable of writing it, I have good 

 evidence in the possession in MS. of another bur- 

 lesque drama of his, which has never been printed 

 or published, entitled The Argonauts, or the Golden 

 Fleece, Barbara may have been acquainted with 

 Rhodes, and I have a faint recollection of having 

 heard as much : hence, perhaps, may have arisen 

 the adoption of some of the ludicrous names of his 

 characters ; but as an old friend of his, who was 

 also a great friend of my father's, I am anxious to 

 vindicate his literary reputation, and to prevent 

 any stigma on the morality of the acknowledged, 

 and I believe hitherto unchallenged, author of 

 Bomhastes Furioso. John IMiland. 



BELLS VERSUS STORMS. 



(Vol. vi., p. 509.) 



The custom of ringing church bells in storms is 

 of very high antiquity in Christian times, and its 

 origin may, perhaps, be found in a still more an- 

 cient belief of heathen nations. 



The Roman herdsmen in the time of Strabo 

 were accustomed (as he tells us) to attach a bell 

 to the necks of their flocks, and it was believed 

 that noxious wild beasts were kept away by the 

 sound. So, too, it was believed that evil spirits 

 would likewise flee from the sound of bronze in- 

 struments. Hence the custom of beating bronze 

 vessels during an eclipse, which is mentioned in 



the Prollemata of Alex. Aphrodiseus, and referred 

 to by Ovid, Livy, and Lucan. An old scholiast 

 on Theocritus says it was the custom to beat 

 bronze vessels and ring bells on a person's death, 

 because the sound was believed to frighten away 

 spectres and demons. The ancients certainly at- 

 tributed mysterious virtues to bronze instruments, 

 and deemed their sound obnoxious to evil spirits. 



In early ages, as is well known, evil spirits of 

 the air were believed to be the cause of storms 

 and tempests. In the time of St. Augustine it 

 was believed that the demons of the air were 

 driven away by the sound of church bells ; so we 

 find that the metal to which heathens had attached 

 mysterious virtues was thought to become, by 

 consecration at the hands of Christian prelates, a 

 preservative against the powers of evil. The or- 

 dinance of blessing church bells has existed from 

 a very early time, and one of its objects was de- 

 clared to be that the demons might be terrified by 

 their sound. This, for example, is referred to in 

 the fourteenth chapter of Decrees of the Council 

 of Cologne. Durandus, in his Rationale (written, 

 I believe, about 1786), says the church rings the 

 bells on the approach of a storm, to the end that 

 the devils, hearing the trumpets of the Eternal 

 King (so were the bells deemed), might flee away 

 in fear, and cease from raising the storm. Many 

 proofs might be cited to show that it was the 

 custom in England before the Reformation to ring 

 the church bells in thunderstorms. Latimer, in 

 one of his sermons, alludes to it ; and my notes 

 show that the custom prevailed at St. Paul's, 

 London, at Oxney Abbey, at Malmesbury, and in 

 several parish churches. On the Continent the 

 custom was common. In Dyer's Life of Calvin, 

 it is stated that in and before 1537, and until his 

 preaching, the citizens of Geneva believed that the 

 convent bells preserved all within their sound from 

 storms and evil spirits. In Spain, France, and 

 Italy, in the seventeenth century (and after as 

 well as before that time), the church bells were 

 held powerful for driving away evil spirits and 

 dispelling storms. Aubrey, in his Miscellanies 

 (written about 1696), mentions the custom at 

 Paris at that time, of ringing the great bell of St. 

 Germains when a thunderstorm began. I believe 

 the practice is continued in many parts of France 

 at this day, but that it has ceased in what are 

 called Protestant countries. 



Ancient bells may be mentioned on which the 

 supposed virtue of church bells in dispersing 

 storms is proclaimed in the inscriptions they bear, 

 as (ex. gr.) in the well-known inscription men- 

 tioned by Fuller : 



" Funera plango — Fulgura frango — Sabbata pango. 

 Excito lentos — Dissipo ventos — Paco cruentos." 



This very inscription, or one to a similar effect, is 

 said to be on the bell of the Great Minster of 



