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



Gheyn ; and from 1660 to 1730 we have tlie great violin period, 

 perfected from Nicolas Amati to Stradiuarius. 



Some of my friends are np in arms when I say the English bell- 

 founders are probably indebted to the Low Countries for their 

 successes in the art of bell-casting. I only wish they were still 

 more indebted to them. I do not mean to say that English bell- 

 founders have not made good bells — I never said any such thing ; 

 I said they could not make them in tune — that is a very different 

 matter. You may have an excellent bell, and it may be quite out of 

 tune with its fellows, and that is the case with most English bells. 

 One of the Westminster Abbey bells has this inscription — 



" Thomas Lester made me 

 And with the rest I will agi-ee 

 Seventeen hundred and forty-three." 



But the bell's resolution, like other good resolutions, has never been 

 fulfilled. Many fine bells there are in England, and well enough in 

 tune for the mechanical, arithmetical, and muscular exercise called 

 bell-ringing, but they are not fit for musical purposes. A rough 

 octave of bells is one thing ; a suite of forty, tuned accurately in 

 semitones, is quite another. The English have never aspired to this, 

 and they cannot do it. It has been done in the Low Countries for 

 centuries. 



I have no wish to detract from the merits of English bell- 

 founders : the Braziers and Brends of Norwich, the Churches of Bury 

 St. Edmunds, Myles Gray of Colchester, and later on Kuddle of 

 Gloucester, Phelps, the Lesters, the Eayres, Mears, Warner, and 

 Taylor of Loughborough. I rejoice to note that Mr. Raven has 

 issued a valuable notice of the Cambridge and Suffolk bells. Mr. 

 Lukis has dealt with Wiltshire, Mr. Tyssen with Sussex, Mr. 

 Ellacombe with Somerset and Devon, and Mr. North with Leicester ; 

 and, doubtless, all the other counties will be in due time canvassed, 

 and the merits of their bells done ample justice to. But still, it 

 is odd that when there is an English bell which gives particular 

 satisfaction, it bears a striking resemblance to the Belgian model. If 

 you will cast your eye first upon the section of the much-praised 

 Lavenham tenor, and then upon the section of Severin Van Aerschodt's 

 bell (the Hemony pattern), you will see some striking resemblances 

 between them, in the thickness of the sound-bow, the length of the 

 side, and the width of the crown. 



These features can of course only be compared by accurate 

 measurement ; but the difference between the shorter bells of Ruddall 

 or Ruddle and the eighteenth century school, and the longer bells of 

 Mylcs Gray appeals at once to the eye, and the longer bell is far 

 nearer the Hemony model than the later Ruddle. This is certainly 

 unfortunate for those who think that we owe nothing to the Dutch 

 masters. But, indeed, it would have been strange had bells remained 

 the only things unaffected by the constant intercourse between 



