100 Bev. H. B. Haweis [Feb. 7, 



often recast for bells. And still so jealous are the Belgians of their 

 bells, that my utmost efforts to obtain the loan of a Hemony or Van 

 den Gheyn bell of 1650 from a disused carillon, for this lecture 

 proved fruitless ; under the best guarantees the people would not let 

 the bells leave the country. 



Bells rule and mark each impressive occasion of life. We can 

 perhaj^s hardly realize the extent to which the montonous life of the 

 old monks was bound up with the ringing of various bells. At the 

 sound of the signum, or tower-bell, the whole monastery was roused 

 from slumber at an early hour ; the squilla summoned them to their 

 frugal meal in the refectory ; but if any of the monks were pacing the 

 cloisters at the time and heard not the squilla, then the campanella or 

 cloister-bell was rung. The cymhalum was also used in the cloister. 

 The abbot had his codon, or small handbell, shaped like the orifice 

 of a Greek trumpet ; with this he summoned to his oratory or study 

 the servile brother whose duty it was to attend to his call, whilst the 

 petasius, or larger handbell, would be used occasionally to call the 

 monks in from cultivating the fields. The tiniolium, or dormitory- 

 bell, called the monks to bed. In the night-time the nodula or dupla^ 

 or clock-bell, struck to remind the brethren when they should rise and 

 pray ; whilst the dreaded corrigiuncula, or scourging-bell, summoned 

 the ascetics to their flagellatory devotions. But the bell of all others 

 which awoke, and ever awakes, in the breast of Catholics the pro- 

 foundest emotion is the silver-toned nola or choir-bell, rung at the 

 consecration of the elements : when that shrill and irregular ring is 

 heard through the church the monks fall prostrate and cross them- 

 selves ; the dread miracle is being at that moment consummated. 



The bells say, " Le roi est mort," and they say, " Vive le 

 roi ! " they ring for the decapitation of one king, and the coronation 

 of another ; for the marriage of one royal wife, and the execution of 

 another ; they rung for the massacre of eight thousand Catholics at 

 the Sicilian Vespers in 1282, and for the massacre of ten thousand 

 Huguenots on St. Bartholomew's day in 1571 



11. 



I pass to the history of hells. I have in the 'Encyclopaedia 

 Britanuica,' defined a bell as "an open percussion instrument, 

 varying in shape and material, but usually cup-like, globular, and 

 metallic ; so constructed as to yield one dominant note," a definition 

 intended to exclude gongs, drums, cymbals, metal plates, resonant 

 bars of metal or wood. I wish the English peojile to regard the 

 bell as a percussion instrument yielding one clear immistakable 

 musical note when struck. There should be no doubt about the 

 note — you should be able to hum it. This may not have been, nay, 

 is not, always the case with bells; still that is what the bell has 

 grown to, what it arrives at and realizes at its best. 



