abolition, "a bow always kept bent will grow feeble and lose its force," is a very old and true simile. It is attributed to the profligate Charles II., the abolition of one of these festivals, and that one, in the eyes of a Christian, the one of the most importance:

"The good old fashion, when Christmas was come,

To call in his neighbours with bag-pipes and drum."

to warm, to exhilarate, and to cheer them at that chill season, "While every shrub, and every blade of grass,

And every pointed thorn seem'd wrought of glass."

Man must have time for relaxation and reflection, and also for fun and frolic; if authority is wanting, to whom can I better refer than to Solomon, who has said, "there is a time for everything." Statesmen should think of this before it is too late; the present state of Great Britain offers to their review such a state of things as was never offered to their contemplation before, viz. a nation of individuals, where the mass of the labourers are obliged to be incessantly occupied at their labours, from morning till night, all the year round, like the lowest of animals, to procure a bare existence. It was a remark of Aristotle, that "poverty leads to sedition and crime." From the humble origin of the present minister, Sir Robert Peel, one should suppose he could not fail to perceive this very important circumstance, but he, alas! seems only to have his mind bent upon raising the means to pay the interest of the national debt, and when that fails, as fail it will, without " an equitable adjustment," who can predict the confusion which will follow ? "While silent their discontent is visible." Cicero.

England has been a great, a powerful, and a happy nation; other nations have often appealed to her, in the noble character of an arbitrator; and at those periods she had her fairs, wakes, and festivals, these customs, therefore, could not have demoralised her. If days of leisure and relaxation may be subject to abuse, they may also be periods of improvement. How many of the young are inspirited to their duty, as well as cautioned and advised by their parents, masters, and guardians, with more effect, to make some extra exertion, or to refrain from expending their money on less useful things, but to reserve it to buy clothes or other needful articles, which will add to their decency or respectability at those annual periods. Those who can be so far inspirited may be farther improved, it advances them one step in the up-hill of life, and constantly appeals to them as a warning to avoid a descent which will make them feel loss and degradation.

But, on the other hand, if there is to be no relaxation, no prospect of ease, either for body or mind, what ean they care for? what can they possess which they value? Hopes, expectations, and rewards, those stimulants which rouse the most torpid soul to everything great and noble, which makes it form and fix its most holy resolves, and most durable praiseworthy resolutions, cease their heavenly influences, and they descend to the lowest scale in God's creation, mere senseless, sinful, sensual animals.

For ages there have been Statute fairs, for the annual hiring of male and female servants.* A servant so hired is bound to obey during the whole term of the year; the contract is binding on both sides; if any circumstance arises by which either the master or servant is dissatisfied, the jurisdiction of a magistrate can alone arrange it.

This has a very powerful political bearing, and produces as well a great moral effect; hence the servant cannot help but have steady habits, and learn due obedience, while he or she is sure to be supplied with good food, a good bed, and the wages secured, and good examples kept constantly before them.

And hence, in case of war, here is a sailor, or soldier, or militia-man, half drilled; for subordination is become part of his very nature. It was this political system which formed those brave men who could thrice be led on to the fatal assault of the cotton bags at New Orleans, on the memorable 8th of January, 1815. But without this order, subordination and good discipline, they would not have obeyed their orders twice; and although the repetition of those orders was useless, still it shows how such orders were obeyed, and the why and the wherefore such discipline and such bravery could be brought into action. Tully wisely observes, "All our civil virtues, all our studies, all our pleadings, industry, and commendations, lies under the protection of our warlike virtues.”

* In the year 1831 their number was as follows:

In England, 77 in a thousand females, 16 in a thousand males.

Wales, 102

Scotland, 88

Ireland, 63

It also operates upon the whole labouring population, for the amount, see vol. i. p. 15. See more about this law and the apprentices, vol. i. p. 227.

115

BELLS AND BELL-RINGING.

"Those evening bells, those evening bells,
How many a tale their music tells,

Of youth and home, and that sweet time

When last I heard their soothing chime." MOORE.

Such is part of a beautiful song by Moore, which most lovers of music know full well, and which appears to me proper to head this chapter, on a science peculiar to England. She was for ages known by foreigners, as "the bell-ringing Island." It is not that in Great Britain bells were first introduced and rung there.

"Bells called Nolæ, were used as early as the fifth century. Bede informs us Campana (which means bells,) were employed at the funeral of Abbess Hilda, in 680; and ten years afterward, the art of casting them had so far advanced, that Croyland Abbey possessed a peal of bells, whose sounds were then regulated to the diatonic scale; but whether they were sounded by machinery, or by striking them by hammers, or according to the present mode, would be an interesting subject for enquiry." Gent. Mag. The custom of bell-ringing may be thus traced to the Saxons, and was common at the time of the Norman conquest.

But the ringing of a peel of bells in changes, according to the principles of permutation, is the most delightful out of door harmony, that can possibly be conceived. And I doubt not, that if there was a peel of six or eight bells, in a proper elevated tower; "the bells, the music, nighest bordering on Heaven," on one of the islands in New York's beautiful bay, rung of an evening, the Battery gardens would be nightly crowded to

hear them.

The music of bells is altogether melody; and the pleasure arising consists in its interchanges, and the various succession and general predominance of the consonants in the sounds produced.

The bells have furnished some of the most beautiful similes and comparisons of most of the English poets. Thus says Cowper:

"How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear;

In cadence sweet, now dying all away,
Now peeling loud again, and louder still,

Clear and sonorous as the gale comes on."

Wordsworth thus speaks of the entrance to an English coun try church yard:

"Part shaded by cool leafy elms, and part

Offering a cool resting place to those who seek the house of worship,*
While the bells that ring with all their sweet and plaintive voices,
Or before the last hath erased its solitary knoll-

Then he enters."

It

"There is a sublimity in the gradual increase of sounds. is equally sublime to listen to sounds when they retire from us." In bell-ringing-Crescendo, and Diminuendo, so delightfully charming and so difficult of exquisite execution on any instrument, is by these performed with the air, in the highest perfection. Milton writes.

"Ring out ye metal spheres,
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time,

And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow."

And again

"With other echo late I taught your shades,
To answer and resound far other song."

In the whole hemisphere of sound, there is no circumstance more strikingly curious, than that of an echo. Echoes are produced by a reflecting body-as a house, a hill, or a wood, and indeed on the main sail of a ship; for in Professor Silliman's Journal, vol. 19, there is recorded an instance of the bells of Saint Salvador, at Brazil, having been heard out at sea one hundred miles!

How sublime would be the effect of a merry peal, their various melodious changes, being reflected back by the Neversink hills, the sails of the shipping, the various eminences of the Jersey shore, and the prominences of this large city..

"Oft on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far off curfew sound,
O'er some wide water'd shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar."

If such is the effect of the single curfew, how rich would it be with a well graduated lively peal, heard in the morning, when the ear has been refreshed by sleep. The notion of their sounds being much enhanced, when situated near to water, wants no confirmation, when we recount the case of the sentinel, who was charged with sleeping upon his post, on the ramparts of Windsor Castle. The life of this man was saved by the extraordinary circumstance of his having heard, at midnight,

* Many of the pilgrims who visit Shakspeare's tomb in the church at Stratford-upon-Avon, speaks enthusiastically of the long avenue of wide spreading limes, which cover the seated walk to the principal entrance.

St. Paul's clock, London, strike thirteen, when it should have struck only twelve. The fact was proved by several witnesses, although the distance, twenty-two miles, apparently would have rendered the circumstance impossible. It was supposed that the course of the river, and the stillness of the night, assisted the conveyance of the sound, which, like a miracle, saved the delinquent from death.

There are few persons who are not affected by the sounds of bells, when rung in a scientific manner. Of all musical sounds, they are among the first that present themselves to our attention; and for that reason, they make a deep impression upon us. When heard at a distance, they fall with a delightful softness and in the midst of rural scenery, they the upon powerfully excite the imagination, and recall the most pleasing scenes of our youth.

ear,

"So have I stood at eve on Isis banks,

To hear the merry Christ church1 bells rejoice;
So have I sat, too, in thy honour'd shades
Distinguish'd Magdalen,2 on Cherwell's banks;
To hear thy silver Wolsey's3 tones, so sweet;
And so, too, have I paused and held my oar,

And suffer'd the slow stream to bear me home,

While Wykham's4 peal along the meadows ran." HURDIS.

There is a pleasing loquaciousness about bells, appealing finely to every imagination; this loquacity has given rise to the following saying: as the bell tinks, so the fool thinks ;" or vice versa, 66 as the fool thinks, so the bell tinks. Man boasts of being the only creature endowed with language, but a piece of mere mechanism, can feelingly hold forth most sensible discoursing, as the verse from Moore so beautifully sets forth.* We all know that a bell has a long tongue. What though may have an empty head? That is, but the peculiarity of most of our verbose declaimers, who seldom teach anything worthy of our attention, or applause. While the applauding tongues of the clappers-" Gingeling in whistling winds, as clere and eke as loud as dothe the chappell bell." rouses in us thousands of by-gone associations.

it

The sound of bells affect both animate and inanimate objects; there is a pillar in the cathedral at Rheims, trembles sensibly when the bell tolls. A dog belonging to a change ringer, used to accompany his master to the belfry of Saint Martin's, in Leicester; and upon commencing (upon one of the noblest

1 Christ church college. 2 Magdalen College. 3 Wolsey gave this peal. 4 William of Wyckham, Bishop of Winchester, died, 1404. * See Appendix, 600, + Chaucer.