68 



On Church Bells. 



Richard Goddard, were not aware until recently that he had given 

 this bell, and that he had been twice married. 



There is a remarkable bell in the church of St. Mary the Virgin, 

 Oxford, viz., the fourth, which bears this inscription: — 



"Be it knowne to all that doth me see 

 That Newcombe of Leicester made me. 1612." 



Then below this, and in two bands encircling the sides of the bell, 

 is a tune in the same relief as the letters of the legend. At the 

 commencement of the music in the upper line is a half-figure of a 

 man in the dress of the period with this inscription on a surrounding 

 label: " xKeepe tyme in anye case"; and at the beginning of the 

 lower line of music is a similar figure with " x Then let us singe 

 it againe." 



9. Bell ringing. Peal ringing is peculiar to England; it is not 

 known abroad. It was formerly considered, not only a healthy 

 but a gentlemanly recreation. Sir Matthew Hale, and Anthony 

 Wood who says that " he often plucked at them (Merton bells) 

 with his fellow colleagues for recreation," may be numbered among 

 the amateurs of this art. Anthony Wood 1 learnt to ring on a peal 

 of six bells, which had then been newly put up at Cassington. 



In our day, bell ringers have been ranked among the disre- 

 putable characters of almost every parish; but if we are to give 

 credit to Paul Neutzner, a traveller in this country between 1550 

 and 1560, they had become notorious even at that period. " The 

 people of England," he says, " are vastly fond of great noises that 

 fill the ear, such as firing of cannon, beating of drums, and the 



i " He and his mother and two brothers Robert and Christopher, gave £5 to 

 Merton College in 1656, towards casting their five bells into eight. These five 

 were ancient bells and were put in the Tower when it was built in 1421. The 

 Tenor was supposed to be the best bell in England, and every one, Anthony 

 Wood says, 'was against the altering it, and were for a treble being put to make 

 six, and old Sergeant Charles Holloway, who was a covetous man, offered money 

 to save it, but by the knavery of Thorn. Jones the Subwarden, (the Warden 

 being absent) and Michael Darby the Bellfounder, they were made eight. John 

 Wilson, Doc. Mus., had a fee from the College to take order about their tuning. 

 All the eight bells began to ring May 14, 1657, but they did not at all please 

 the critical hearer. They were recast in 1680 by Christopher Hodgson.' " ( See 

 Life, in Athence., Oxon. Yol. I., p. 27^. 



