BELL, a well-known instrument, ranked by musicians among the musical instruments of percussion.
Bell-metal is an alloy of copper and tin, usually in the proportion of 80 parts of copper to 20 parts of tin. Zinc generally enters into the composition of small shrill bells. By analysis Dr Thompson found an English bell-metal to consist of 800 parts copper, 101 tin, 56 zinc, and 43 lead. The thickness of a bell's edge is usually 1-15th of the diameter, and its height is twelve times its thickness. The bell-founders have a diapason, or scale, wherewith they measure the size, thickness, weight, and tone of their bells.
The sound of a bell is produced by the vibratory motion of its parts, somewhat like that of a musical chord. The stroke of the clapper must necessarily change the figure of the bell, and from a circle convert it into an oval or ellipse; but the metal having a great degree of elasticity, that part
impinged on by the clapper, and driven farthest from the centre, will return, and even incline nearer the centre than before; so that the two parts which were extremes of the longest diameter become in turn those of the shortest; and thus the external surface of the bell undergoes alternate changes of figure, and by this means gives that tremulous motion to the air in which the sound consists. M. Perrault maintains that the sound of the same bell or chord is a compound of the sounds of its several composite parts; so that where the parts are homogeneous, and the dimensions of the figure uniform, there is such a perfect mixture of all these sounds as constitutes one uniform, smooth, even sound; while the contrary circumstances produce harshness. This he proves from bells differing in tone according to the part impinged on, although there is a motion of all the parts wherever the blow happens to be given. He therefore considers bells as a compound of an infinite number of rings, which, according to their different dimensions, have different tones, as chords of different lengths have; and when struck, the vibrations of the parts immediately impinged determine the tone, being supported by a sufficient number of consonant tones in the other parts.
Bells are heard at a greater distance when placed on plains than on hills, and still farther in valleys than on plains; the reason of which seems to be, that the higher the sonorous body the rarer is the medium, and, consequently, the less impulse it receives, and the less proper a vehicle it is to convey sound to a distance.
M. Reaumur, speaking of the shape most proper for bells, remarks, that as pots and other vessels more immediately necessary to the service of life were doubtless made before bells, it probably happened that the observing these vessels to have a sound when struck, gave occasion to making bells in that form; but that it does not appear that this is the most eligible figure: for lead, which in its ordinary state has no sonorous property, yet when cast in a melting ladle or otherwise into a segment of a sphere, acquires a certain degree of sonority; and hence he infers that such a figure is peculiarly adapted for small bells, such as those of house-clocks, &c.
The use of bells was very ancient. We find them among Jews, Greeks, Romans, Christians, and heathens, variously applied, as on the necks of men, birds, oxen, horses, and sheep. It is remarkable, however, that there is no appearance of bells in any of the Egyptian monuments. Bells were chiefly suspended in buildings, either religious, as in churches, temples, and monasteries; or civil, as in houses, markets, baths; or military, as in camps and frontier towns. In the museum at Naples are several kinds of ancient bells, one of which is a simple disk of metal.
Among the Jews it was ordained that the lower part of the blue tunic which the high priest wore when he performed religious ceremonies should be adorned with pomegranates and gold bells, intermixed alternately and at equal distances. (Exodus xxviii. 33, 34.) The number of the bells worn by the high priest is not specified; but the sacred historian has intimated the purpose they were intended to serve, viz., to give intimation both when he entered and came out of the holy place. The tinkling of a bell at the elevation of the host in the Roman Catholic sacrament of the mass is founded upon this circumstance.
Among the Greeks, those who went the nightly rounds in camps or garrisons, carried with them little bells, which they rung at each sentry-box, to see that the soldiers on watch were awake. A codonophorus or bellman also walked in funeral processions, some space in advance of the corpse, not only to keep off the crowd, but to advertise the flamen dialis to keep out of the way, lest he should be polluted by the sight, or by the funerary music. The priest of Proserpine at Athens, called hierophantes, rung a bell to call the people to sacrifice. There were also bells in the houses of great
men, to call up the servants in the morning. Zonaras informs us that bells were suspended along with whips on the triumphal chariots of victorious generals, in order to put them in mind that they were still liable to public justice. Bells were also put on the necks of criminals going to execution, that persons might be warned by the noise to avoid so ill an omen as the sight of the hangman or the condemned criminal, who was devoted to the dii manes.
Of bells on the necks of brutes, express mention is made in Phædrus; and taking them away was construed theft by the civil law.
With respect to the origin of church-bells, Mr Whitaker observes, that as bells were used by the Romans to signify the times of bathing, they were naturally applied by the Christians of Italy to denote the hours of devotion, and to summon the people to church. The first application of them to this purpose is ascribed by Polydore Virgil and others to Paulinus, bishop of Nola, a city of Campania, about A.D. 400. Hence, it is said, the names nola and campana were given them; the one referring to the city, the other to the country. In Britain, bells were applied to church purposes before the conclusion of the seventh century in the monastic societies of Northumbria, and even as early as the sixth in those of Caledonia. They were therefore used from the first erection of parish churches. Those of France and England appear to have been furnished with several bells. In France they were sometimes composed of iron; and in England, as formerly at Rome, they were frequently made of brass.
Ingulphus mentions that Turketulus, abbot of Croyland, who died about A.D. 870, gave to the church of that abbey a great bell, which he named Guthlac, and afterwards six others, two of which he called Bartholomew and Bettelin, two Turketul and Tatwin, and two he named Pega and Bega. All of them rang together; and the same author says, Non erat tunc tanta consonantia campanarum in tota Anglia. Not long after, Kinsens, archbishop of York, gave two great bells to the church of St John at Beverley, and at the same time provided that other churches in his diocese should be furnished with bells. Mention is also made by St Aldhelm, and William of Malmesbury, of bells given by St Dunstan to the churches in the West. The number of bells in every church gave occasion to the curious and singular architecture which is often found in the campanile or bell-tower; an addition which is perhaps more susceptible of architectural embellishment than any other part of the edifice. It was the constant appendage of every parish church belonging to the Saxons, and is distinctly mentioned as such in the laws of Athelstane.
The Greek Christians are usually said to have been unacquainted with bells till the ninth century, when the construction of these instruments was first taught them by a Venetian; but it is not true that the use of bells was entirely unknown in the ancient Eastern churches, and that they called the people to church with wooden mallets. In some learned dissertations on the Greek temples, Leo Allatius proves the contrary from several ancient writers. In his opinion bells first began to be disused after the taking of Constantinople by the Turks; the latter, it seems, having prohibited them lest their sound should disturb the repose of souls wandering in the air. Father Simon, however, thinks that the Turks prohibited the Christians the use of bells from political rather than religious motives; inasmuch as the ringing of bells might serve as a signal for revolts or popular commotions.
In the ancient monasteries we find six kinds of bells enumerated by Durandus, namely, squilla, rung in the refectory; cymbalum, in the cloister; nola, in the choir; notula or dupla, in the clock; campana, in the steeple; and signum, in the tower. Beletus very nearly agrees with Durandus, only for squilla he puts tintinnabulum, and places the campana in the tower, and campanella in the cloister.
Bell. Others place the tintinnabulum or tinniolum in the refectory or dormitory; and add another bell, called corrigiuncula, rung at the time of giving discipline, to call the monks to be scourged. The cymbalum is said to have been rung in the cloister, to call the monks to meals.
From the researches of a writer who has paid particular attention to this subject, we learn that bells frequently bore such inscriptions as the following:
Funera plango, Fulgura frango, Sabatta pango,
Exito lentos, Disipo ventos, Paco cruentos.
In the little sanctuary at Westminster, King Edward III. erected a clocher, and placed in it bells for the use of St Stephen's chapel, round the largest of which were cast in the metal these words:
King Edward made mee thirtie thousand weight and three.
Take me down and wey mee, and more you shall fynd mee.
But these bells having been ordered to be taken down in the reign of Henry VIII., some one wrote underneath with a coal:
But Henry the eight
Will bait me of my weight.
This last distich alludes to a fact mentioned by Stowe in his Survey of London, that near to St Paul's school stood a clocher in which were four bells called Jesus's Bells, the greatest in all England, against which Sir Miles Partridge staked a hundred pounds, and won them of King Henry VIII. at a cast of dice. Nevertheless, in foreign countries there were bells of greater magnitude. In the steeple of the great church at Rouen, in Normandy, was a bell with this inscription:
Je suis George d'Ambois,
Qui trente cinque mille pois.
Mais lui qui me pesera
Trente six mille me trouvera.
But it was probably destroyed when the greater part of the magnificent edifice containing it was consumed by fire. It is a common tradition that the bells of King's College chapel, in the university of Cambridge, were brought by Henry V. from some church in France soon after the battle of Agincourt. They were taken down and were afterwards sold to a bell-founder in Whitechapel, who melted them down.
The various uses of bells have been summed up in the following old distich:
Laudo Deum verum, plebem volo, congreco clerum,
Defunctos ploro, pestem fugo, festa decoro.
Matthew Paris observes, that anciently the use of bells was prohibited in time of mourning; at present, however, the tolling of them forms one of the principal ceremonies of interment. Mabillon adds, that it was an ancient custom to ring bells for persons about to expire, to advertise the people to pray for them. The passing bell, indeed, was anciently rung for two purposes; one, to bespeak the prayers of all good Christians for a soul just departing; the other, to drive away the evil spirits who were supposed to stand near the bed of the dying, or about the house, ready to seize their prey, or at least to molest and terrify the soul in its passage. By the ringing of the bell,—for Durandus informs us that evil spirits are greatly afraid of bells,—they were kept aloof; and the soul, like a hunted hare, gained the start, or had what is by sportsmen called lawe. This dislike of spirits to bells is mentioned in the Golden Legend by Wynkyn de Worde. "It is said, the evil spirytes that ben in the regyon of thayre, doute moche when they here the belles rongen: and this is the cause why the belles ben rongen when it thondreth, and whan grete tempeste and outrages of wether happen, to the ende that the feinds and wycked spirytes shold be abashed and flee, and cease of the movyng of tempeste." Lobineau observes, that the custom of ringing bells at the approach of thunder is of some antiquity; but that the design was not so much to shake the air, and so dissi-
pate the thunder, as to call the people to church to pray that the parish might be preserved from that terrible meteor.
In Roman Catholic times bells were baptized and anointed oleo chrismatis; they were also exorcised and blessed by the bishop, from a belief that, when these ceremonies were performed, they had power to drive the devil out of the air, to calm tempests, to extinguish fires, and to recreate even the dead. The ritual for these ceremonies is contained in the Roman pontifical; and it is still usual in such baptisms to give to bells the name of some saint. In Chauncy's History of Hertfordshire there is a relation of the baptism of a set of bells in Italy, which was performed with great ceremony a short time before that book was written. The bells of the parish church of Winnington, in Bedfordshire, had each its name cast about the verge, with these rhyming hexameters:
Nomina Campanis hæc indita sunt quoque nostris.
By an old chartulary, it appears that the bells of the priory of Little Dunmow, in Essex, were, in the year 1501, new-cast, and baptized by the following names:
Prima in honore Sancti Michaelis Archangeli.
Secunda in honore S. Johannis Evangelistæ.
Tertia in honore S. Johannis Baptistæ.
Quarta in honore Assumptionis beate Mariæ.
Quinta in honore sanctæ Trinitatis, et omnium sanctorum.
The bells of Osney Abbey, near Oxford, which were very famous, had the respective names of Douce, Clement, Austin, Hautecter, or rather Hautcleri, Gabriel, and John.
Nankin, in China, was anciently celebrated for the largeness of its bells. But their enormous weight brought down the tower which contained them. One of these bells was nearly twelve English feet in height, seven and a half in diameter, and twenty-three in circumference, its figure cylindrical, except a swelling in the middle, and the thickness of the metal about the edges, seven inches. From the dimensions, its weight was computed at 50,000 pounds. These bells were cast about four centuries ago. They were designated the hanger (chou), the eater (che), the sleeper (chou), the will (fi). Father le Comte adds, that there are seven other bells in Pekin cast in the reign of Youlo, each of which weighs 120,000 pounds. But the sound of even the largest Chinese bell is very poor, owing to the circumstance of its being struck with a clapper of wood, instead of iron. The bells of China, however, are far exceeded by those of Moscow. One presented by Czar Beris Godunof to the cathedral weighs 288,000 pounds, and the great bell of Moscow cast in 1653 by order of the Empress Anne, and still remaining on the ground, is computed to weigh 443,772 pounds. It is 19 feet high, and has a marginal circumference of 63 feet 11 inches English. In England the heaviest bell is that made for York Minster in 1845, which weighs 27,000 pounds, but is not more than 7 feet 7 inches in diameter. The Great Tom of Oxford weighs 17,000 pounds; the Great Tom of Lincoln weighs 12,000 pounds; the great bell of St Paul's in London is 11,500 pounds, and has a diameter of 9 feet, or more than 28 feet in circumference.
The practice of ringing bells in change, or regular peals, is said to be peculiar to England. The custom seems to have commenced in the time of the Saxons, and to have been common before the Conquest. The tolling of a bell is nothing more than the production of sound by a stroke of the clapper against the side of the bell, the bell itself being in a pendent position and at rest. But in ringing, the bell is elevated to a horizontal position, so that, by means of a wheel and a rope, the clapper strikes forcibly on one side as it ascends, and on the other side in its return downwards, pro-
Bell. ducing at each stroke a sound. In England the ringing of bells is reduced to a system, and peals have been composed which bear the names of the inventor.
Electrical Bells are used in a variety of entertaining experiments by electricians. The apparatus, which is originally of German invention, consists of three small bells suspended from a narrow plate of metal, the two outermost by chains, and that in the middle, from which a chain passes to the floor, by a silken string. Two small knobs of brass are also suspended by silken strings, one on each side of the bell in the middle, which serve for clappers. When this apparatus is connected with an electrified conductor, the outermost bells suspended by the chains will be charged, attract the clappers, and be struck by them. The clappers, becoming electrified, will likewise be repelled by these bells, and attracted by the middle bell, and discharge themselves upon it by means of the chain extending to the floor. After this they will be again attracted by the outermost bells, and thus, by striking the bells alternately, occasion a ringing, which may be continued at pleasure. Flashes of light will be seen in the dark between the bells and clappers, and if the electrification be strong, the discharge will be made without actual contact, and the ringing will cease.