870 B E 
The bells of Ofney-abbey near Oxford were very fa¬ 
mous ; their feveral names were Douce, Clement, Auffin, 
Hautefler [potius Hautcleri}, Gabriel, and John, 
The Ruffians', it is faid, have a great paflion for bell¬ 
ringing; and we are told, that the great bell of Mofcow 
weighs, according to Mr. Coxe, “432,ooolbs. and which 
exceeds in bignefs every bell in the known world. Its lize 
is fo enormous, that I could fcarcely have given credit to 
the account of its magnitude, if I had not examined it 
myfelf, and afcertained its dimenfions with great exaft- 
nefs. Its height is nineteen feet, its circumference at the 
bottom twenty-one yards eleven inches, its greateft thick- 
nefs't'wenty-thrce inches.” It was caft in the reign of the 
emprcfs Anne; but, the beam on which it hung being 
burnt, it fell, and a large piece is broken out of it; fo 
that it lately lay in a manner ufelef's. Mr. Bruce, in his 
late memoirs, mentions a bell at Mofcow, founded in czar 
Boris’s time, nineteen feet high, twenty-three in diame¬ 
ter, and two in th'icknefs, that weighed 336,ooolhs. 
Nankin in China was anciently famous tor the largenefs 
of its bells : but their enormous weight brought down the 
tower, the whole building fell to ruin, and the bells have 
ever fince lain on the ground. One of thefe bells is near 
twelve Englifh feet high, the diameter feven apd a half, 
and its circumference twenty-three ; its figure atmod cy- 
lindric, except for a fuelling in.the middle; and the thick- 
nefs of the metal about the edges feven inches’. From 
the dimenfions of this bell, its weight is computed at 
yo.coolbs. which is more than double the weight of that 
of Effort, faid by father Kircher to be the greateft bell 
in the world. Thefe bells were c.di by the fir.fi emperor 
of the preceding dynafiy, about 300 years ago. They 
have each tiieir name ; the hanger (tchoui), the ea’er (chs), 
the deeper fchouij, the will (Ji). Father le Compte adds, 
that there are feven other bells in Pekin, call in the reign 
of Youlo, each of which weighs i20,ooolbs. But the 
founds even of their biggeft bells are very poor; being 
ftruck with a wooden in lieu of an iron clapper. 
The following is the weight of fome of the larged bells 
in England. The Great Tom of Lincoln weighs 9,894.1b. 
when gauged, it will hold 4,024 gallons; its compafs is fe¬ 
ven yards and a half and two inches. The bell Dunftan, 
at Canterbury cathedra!, weighs 70 cwt. The great bell 
of Exeter cathedral weighs i2,5oclbs. The tenor-bell of 
St. Mary-le-Bow, London, weighs 53 cwt. That in \ oik 
minder, 53 cwt. St. Peter’s, Norwich, 41 cwt. St. Giles’s 
Cripplegate, London, 36 cwt. St. Michael’s, Coventry, 
31 cwt. St. Margaret’s, at Lynn, in Norfolk, 30 cwt. 
The practice of ringing bells in change, or regular peals, 
is faid to be peculiar to England ; whence Britain has been 
termed the ringing jland. The cudom Items to have com¬ 
menced in thb time of the Saxons, and was common be¬ 
fore the conqued. The ringing of bells, though a recrea¬ 
tion chiefly of the lower fort, is in itfelf not incurious. 
The tolling a bell is nothing mere than the producing a 
found by a droke of the clapper againd the fide of tlie 
bell, the bell, itfelf being in a pendant polition and at red. 
in ringing, the bell, by means of a wheel and a rope, is 
elevated to a perpendicular: in its motion to this fituation, 
the clapper drikes forcibly on one fide, and in its return 
downwards on the other fide of the bell, producing at each 
ltroke a found. There are in London feveral (ocienes of 
ringers, particularly one known by the name of th$ College 
Youths: of this it is faid Sir Matthew Hale, lord chief jus¬ 
tice of the court of King’s Bench, was, in his youthful 
days, a member; and in the life of this learned and up¬ 
right judge, written by bifhop Burnet, fome facls are men¬ 
tioned which favour this relation. In England the prac¬ 
tice of ringing is reduced to a fcience, and peals have beeii 
compoled which bear the name of their inventors. Some 
of the mod celebrated peals were compofed, about 50 years 
ago, by one Patrick, a barometer-maker. In 1684, Abra¬ 
ham Rudhall, of the city of Gloucefter, brought the art 
of bell-ioiwiding to great perfection. His del’cendants in 
3 
L L. 
fncceffion have continued the bufinefs of caft mg' bells; 
and by a lift publifhed by them it appears, that a*t Lady- 
day 1774 the family, in peals and odd bells, had caft to the 
amount of 3,594. The peals of St. Dunftan’s in the Ead, 
and St. Bride’s, London, and St. Martin’s in the Fields, 
Weltminfter, are in the number.. The nmfic of bells is 
altogether melody; but the pleafure arifing from it con- 
lids in the variety of interchanges, and the various fuc- 
cedion and general predominance of the confonances in the 
founds produced. Mufical authors, however, have writ¬ 
ten but little upon this fubjedl. 
The found ot a'bell is conjectured to confift in a vibra¬ 
tory motion of its parts, much like that of a mufical chord. 
The droke of the clapper mud necetTarily change the fi¬ 
gure of the bell, and of a round make it oval: but, the 
metal having a great degree of eladicity, that will return 
back again which the droke drove fart heft off from the 
centre, and that even fome imall matter nearer the centre 
than before ; fo that the two parts which before were ex¬ 
tremes of the longed diameter, do, then become thofe of 
the (hotted ; and thus the external furface of the bell un¬ 
dergoes alternate changes of figure, and by that means 
gives that tremulous motion to the air in which the found 
confids. M. Perrault maintains, that the found of the 
fame bell or chord is a compound of the founds of the fe¬ 
veral parts thereof; fo that where the parts are homoge¬ 
neous, and the dimenfions of the figure uniform, there is 
Inch a perfect mixture of all thefe founds as conditutes 
one uniform, fmooth, even, found; and tlie contrary cir- 
cumdances produce hurfhnefs. This lie proves from the 
bells diffet ing in tone according fq the part you (h ike ; and 
yet, (trike it any where, there is a motion of all the parts. 
He therefore c’onfiders bells as a compound of an infinite 
number of rings, which according to their different dimep- 
fions have different tones, as chords of different lengths 
have; and, when ftruck, the vibrations of the parts im¬ 
mediately (truck determine the tone, being fupported by 
a diffident number of confonant tones in the other parts. 
Bells are obfefved to be heard farther placed on plains than 
on hills; and dill farther in valleys than on plains: the 
reafon of which will not be difficult to difig 11, if it be con- 
fidered, that, the higher the fonorous body is, the rarer is 
its medium: confequently, the lefis impulfe it receives, 
and the let's proper vehicle it is to convey it to a didance, 
M. Reaumur, in his Memoirs of the Paris Academy, 
lias the following obfervations relating to the (hape molt 
proper for bells, to give them the louded and cleared found. 
He obferves, “ tiiat, as pots and other veffels more imme¬ 
diately neceffary to the fervice of life were doubtlefs made 
before bells, it probably happened that the obferving thefe 
veffels to have a found when ftruck gave occasion to ma¬ 
king bells, intended only for found, in that form ; but, 
that it does not appear that tins is the mod eligible figure ; 
for lead, a metal which is in its common date not at all fo¬ 
norous, yet becomes greatly fo 0:1 its being cad into a 
particular form, and that very different from the common 
(hape of bells. In melting lead for the common occafions 
of c.ading in final 1 quantities, it is ufualiy done in an iron 
ladle; and, as the whole is feldom poured out, the remain¬ 
der, which falls to the bottom of the ladle, cools into a. 
mafs of the (hape of that bottom. This is confequently 
a fegment of a fphere, thicked in the middle, and thinner 
towards the edges; nor is the ladle any neceffary part of 
the operation, fince, if a mafs of lead be cad in that form 
in a mould of earth or fand, in any of thefe cafes it is 
found to be very fonorous. Noto, if this (hape alone can 
give found to a metal which in other forms is perfeftly 
mute, how much more mud it neceffarily give it to other 
metals naturally fonorous in whatever form ? It fhould 
feem, that bells would much better perform their'office in 
this than in any other form : and that it muff particularly 
be a thing of great advantage to the (mail bells of com¬ 
mon houfe-clocks, which are required to have a (hrill 
note, and yet are not allowed any great iize.” He adds, 
