Part 6

Mr. William Andrews, in his "Antiquities and Curiosities of the Church" (London, 1897), gives many examples of "People and Steeple Rhymes."

There is a never-ending romance connected with the subject of spires. Every one possesses some story or legend. Spirits are supposed to inhabit their gloomy recesses, and are even credited with their construction. There is certainly an uncanny feeling connected with the interior of a spire, even on a sunny summer's day, and given sufficient stress of howling winds and gloomy darkness, one can almost imagine a situation conducive to the acutest kind of devilry. So much for the interior of spires. What sensations may be produced by climbing the exterior is given to few to experience. The vast majority of mankind must perforce content themselves with a position on _terra firma_, whence they may with pleasure and safety combined behold

"----the spires that glow so bright In front of yonder setting sun."

The Five of Spades and the Church of Ashton-under-Lyne.

By John Eglington Bailey, F.S.A.

On the old tower of the church of Ashton-under-Lyne there was formerly an old inscription, which incidently testifies to the popularity of cards in England at a period when the notices of that fascinating means of diversion are both few and of doubtful import. Cards were given to Europe by the Saracens at the end of the fourteenth century, and the knowledge of their use extended itself from France to Greece. The French clergy were so engrossed by the pastime that the Synod of Langres, 1404, forbad it as unclerical. At Bologna, in 1420, S. Bernardin of Sienna preached with such effect against the gambling which was indulged in, that his hearers made on the spot a large bonfire with packs of cards taken out of their pockets. Under the word [Greek: Chartia] Du Cange quotes extracts from two Greek writers, which show that cards were popular in Greece before 1498. Chaucer, who died in 1400, and who indirectly depicted much of the every-day life of his countrymen, does not once mention cards. But they begin to be noticed about the time of Edward IV. and Henry VI. The former king prohibited the importation of "cards for playing," in order to protect the English manufacture of them. An old ale-wife or brewer, in one of the Chester plays or mysteries, is introduced in a scene in Hell, when one of the devils thus addresses her:--

Welcome, deare darlinge, to endless bale, Usinge cardes, dice, and cuppes smale With many false other, to sell thy ale Now thou shalte have a feaste.

A more interesting notice of cards occurs in the _Paston Letters_, where Margery Paston, writing on "Crestemes Evyn" of the year 1484, tells her husband that she had sent their eldest son to Lady Morley (the widow of William Lovel, Lord Morley), "to hav knolage wat sports wer husyd [used] in her hows in Kyrstemesse next folloyng aftyr the decysse of my lord, her husbond [who died 26th July, 1476]; and sche sayd that ther wer non dysgysyngs [guisings], ner harpyng, ner lutyng, ner syngyn, ner non lowde dysports; but pleyng at the tabyllys, and schesse, and cards: sweche dysports sche gaue her folkys leve to play and non odyr." The lady adds that the youth did his errand right well, and that she sent the like message by a younger son to Lady Stapleton, whose lord had died in 1466. "Sche seyd according to my Lady Morlees seyng in that, and as sche hadde seyn husyd in places of worschip [_i.e._, of distinction: good families] ther as [= where] sche hath beyn." This letter opens up an interesting view of the amusements which at the time were introduced into the houses of the nobility and gentry during Christmas-tide. At that festival cards from the first formed one of the chief amusements. Henry VII., who was a great card player, forbad cards to be used except during the Christmas holidays. Their ancient association with Christmas is seen in the kindness of Sir Roger de Coverley, who was in the habit of sending round to each of his cottagers "a string of hogs'-puddings and a pack of cards," that good old squire being doubtless of the opinion of Dr. Johnson, who, with a deeper human insight than S. Bernardin and Henry VII., could see the usefulness of such a pastime: "It generates kindness and consolidates society."

The inscription I have alluded to takes us back to the reign of an earlier English king than those named--Henry V., who reigned 1413-1422. In his time, it seems, viz., in 1413, the steeple of Ashton Church was a-building; when a certain butcher, Alexander Hyll, playing at noddy with a companion, doubtless in the neighbourhood of the church, swore that if the dealer turned up _the five of spades_ he would build a foot of the steeple. The very card was turned up! Hyll, like a good Catholic, performed his promise, and had his name carved, a butcher's cleaver being put before _Alexander_, and the five of spades before _Hyll_. A new tower was erected in 1516, when the church was enlarged; but the stone containing the curious inscription was somewhere retained, for it was visible in the time of Robert Dodsworth, the industrious Yorkshire antiquary, and the projector and co-worker with Dugdale of the _Monasticon_. Dodsworth, being at Ashton on the 2nd of April, 1639, copied the inscription, stating that it was on the church steeple. He wrote down the tradition, adding that its truth was attested by Henry Fairfax, then rector there, second son of Thomas Fairfax, Baron de Cameron (Dodsworth's MSS. in Bibl. Bodl., vol. 155, fol. 116). The eldest son of Lord Fairfax was Ferdinando, the celebrated general of the Commonwealth, and the generous patron of Dodsworth. Henry, the younger son, at whose rectory-house Dodsworth was entertained on the occasion of his Lancashire visit, is described by Oley (in his preface to George Herbert's _Country Parson_) as "a regular and sober fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge, and afterwards rector of Bolton Percy in Yorkshire." He held, besides, the rectory of Ashton from, at least, 1623 till 1645, when he was forcibly ejected; and that of Newton Kyme. He was a correspondent of Daniel King, author of _The Vale Royal_, for he had antiquarian tastes like his brother. He died at Bolton Percy 6th April, 1665. The tower of Ashton Church, as Rector Fairfax knew it, was taken down and re-built in 1818, by which time all recollection of that ancient piece of cartomancy in connection with the steeple had passed out of mind. Let it be hoped that while the tradition was lively, pleasanter things were said of Hyll, when the five of spades was thrown upon the card tables of Ashton, than assailed the name of Dalrymple when the nine of diamonds--the curse of Scotland--came under the view of Tory Scotchmen. We may bestow on Hyll the card-player's epitaph:--

His card is cut--long days he shuffled through The game of life--he dealt as others do: Though he by honours tells not its amount, When the last trump is played his tricks will count.

"Noddy" is, of course, the very attractive game of "cribbage." A great aunt of mine still living at Ashbourne, with whom I used to play when a boy, always called it by that name. It is one of the Court games, _temp._ James I., noticed by Sir John Harrington:--

Now noddy followed next, as well it might, Although it should have gone before of right; At which I say, I name not anybody, One never had the knave yet laid for noddy.

The same is also alluded to in a satirical poem, 1594, entitled, _Batt upon Batt_:--

Shew me a man can turn up Noddy still, And deal himself three fives, too, when he will; Conclude with one and thirty, and a pair, Never fail ten in Hock, and yet play fair; If Batt be not that night, I lose my aim.

Bells and their Messages.

By Edward Bradbury.

Do not imagine that this is an essay on campanology, on change-ringing, grandsires, and triple bob-majors. Do not fancy that it will deal with carillons, the couvre-feu, or curfew bell, with the solemn Passing bell, the bell of the public crier, the jingling sleigh bell, the distant sheep bell, the noisy railway bell, the electric call bell, the frantic fire bell, the mellow, merry marriage peal, the sobbing muffled peal, the devout Angelus, or the silvery convent chimes that ring for prime and tierce, sext, nones, vespers, and compline. Do not conclude that it will describe bell-founding; and deal with the process of casting, with technical references to cope, and crook, and moulding, drawing the crucible, or tuning.

It is of bells and their associations and inscriptions that we would write, the bells that are linked with our lives, and record the history of towns, communities, and nations; announcing feasts and fasts and funerals, interpreting with metal tongue rejoicings and sorrowings, jubilees and reverses; pæans for victories by sea and land; knells for the death of kings and the leaders of men. As we write, the bells of our collegiate church are announcing with joyous clang the arrival of Her Majesty's Judge of Assize. Before many days have passed another bell in the same town will tell with solemn toll of the short shrift given by him to a pinioned culprit, the only mourner in his own funeral procession.

Bells are sentient things. They are alike full of humour and pathos, of laughter and tears, of mirth and sadness, of gaiety and grief. One may pardon Toby Veck, in Charles Dickens' goblin story, for investing the bells in the church near his station with a strange and solemn character, and peopling the tower with dwarf phantoms, spirits, elfin creatures of the bells, of all aspects, shapes, characters, and occupations. "They were so mysterious, often heard and never seen, so high up, so far off, so full of such a deep, strong melody, that he regarded them with a species of awe; and sometimes, when he looked up at the dark, arched windows in the tower, he half expected to be beckoned to by something which was not a bell, and yet was what he had heard so often sounding in the chimes." The bells! The word carries sound and suggestion with it. It fills the air with waves of cadence. "Those Evening Bells" of Thomas Moore's song swing out undying echoes from Ashbourne Church steeple; Alfred Tennyson's bells "ring out the false, ring in the true" across the old year's snow, and his Christmas bells answer each other from hill to hill. There are the tragic bells that Sir Henry Irving hears as the haunted Mathias; "Les Cloches de Corneville" that agitate the morbid mind of the miser Gaspard; and the wild bells that Edgar Allen Poe has set ringing in Runic rhyme.

"Bell," says the old German song, "thou soundest merrily when the bridal party to the church doth hie; thou soundest solemnly when, on Sabbath morn, the fields deserted lie; thou soundest merrily at evening, when bed-time draweth nigh; thou soundest mournfully, telling of the bitter parting that hath gone by! Say, how canst thou mourn or rejoice, that art but metal dull? And yet all our sorrowings and all our rejoicings thou art made to express!" In the words of the motto affixed to many old bells, they "rejoice with the joyful, and grieve with the sorrowful"; or, in the original Latin,

Gaudemus gaudentibus, Dolemus dolentibus.

An old monkish couplet makes the bell thus describe its uses--

Laudo Deum verum, plebem voco, congrego clerum: Defuncto ploro, pestum fugo, festa decoro.

"I praise the true God, call the people, convene the clergy; I mourn for the dead, drive away pestilence, and grace festivals." Who that possesses--to quote from Cowper--a soul "in sympathy with sweet sounds," can listen unmoved to

----the music of the village bells Falling at intervals upon the ear, In cadence sweet--now dying all away, Now pealing loud again, and louder still, Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on.

The same poet makes Alexander Selkirk lament on his solitary isle--

The sound of the church going bell These valleys and rocks never heard, Ne'er sigh'd at the sound of a knell, Or smiled when a Sabbath appeared.

Longfellow has several tender references to church bells. He sets the Bells of Lynn to ring a requiem of the dying day. He mounts the lofty tower of "the belfry old and brown" in the market place of Bruges--

Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour, But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.

From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high; And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky.

Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times, With their strange unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes.

Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir; And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.

Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain; They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again.

Who does not remember Father Prout's lyric on "The Bells of Shandon"? We venture to quote the four delicious verses _in extenso_--

With deep affection and recollection I often think of the Shandon bells, Whose sounds so wild would, in days of childhood, Fling round my cradle their magic spells-- On this I ponder where'er I wander, And thus grow fonder, sweet Cork, of thee; With thy bells of Shandon, That sound so grand on The pleasant waters of the River Lee.

I have heard bells chiming, full many a chime in Tolling sublime in cathedral shrine; While at a glib rate brass tongues would vibrate, But all their music spoke naught to thine; For memory dwelling on each proud swelling Of thy belfry knelling its bold notes free, Made the bells of Shandon Sound far more grand on The pleasant waters of the River Lee.

I have heard bells tolling "old Adrian's mole" in Their thunder rolling from the Vatican, With cymbals glorious, swinging uproarious In the gorgeous turrets of Notre Dame; But thy sounds were sweeter than the dome of Peter Flings o'er the Tiber, pealing solemnly. Oh! the bells of Shandon Sound far more grand on The pleasant waters of the River Lee.

There's a bell in Moscow, while on tower and kiosko, In St. Sophia the Turkman gets, And loud in air, calls men to prayer, From the tapering summits of tall minarets, Such empty phantom I freely grant them, But there's an anthem more dear to me-- It's the bells of Shandon That sound so grand on The pleasant waters of the River Lee.

"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day," in Gray's "Elegy," the best known, and, in its own line, the best poem in the English language. More dramatic is Southey's story of the warning bell that the Abbot of Aberbrothock placed on the Inchcape Rock. James Russell Lowell has a beautiful thought in his little poem "Masaccio"--

Out clanged the Ave Mary bells, And to my heart this message came; Each clamorous throat among them tells What strong-souled martyrs died in flame, To make it possible that thou Should'st here with brother sinners bow.

* * * * *

Henceforth, when rings the health to those Who live in story and in song, O, nameless dead, who now repose Safe in Oblivion's chambers strong, One cup of recognition true Shall silently be drained to you!

In the belfry of Tideswell and of Hathersage, in the Peak of Derbyshire, are a set of rhymed bell-ringing laws. Those at Hathersage we give below; the Tideswell ones are almost word for word similar.

You gentlemen that here wish to ring, See that these laws you keep in everything; Or else be sure you must without delay The penalty thereof to the ringers pay. First, when you do into the bellhouse come, Look if the ringers have convenient room, For if you do be an hindrance unto them, Fourpence you forfeit unto these gentlemen. Next, if here you do intend to ring, With hat or spur do not touch a string; For if you do, your forfeit is for that Just fourpence down to pay, or lose your hat. If you a bell turn over, without delay Fourpence unto the ringers you must pay; Or, if you strike, miscall, or do abuse, You must pay fourpence for the ringers' use. For every oath here sworn, ere you go hence, Unto the poor then you must pay twelve pence; And if that you desire to be enrolled A ringer here these orders keep and hold. But whoso doth these orders disobey, Unto the stocks we will take him straight way, There to remain until he be willing To pay his forfeit, and the clerk a shilling.

Churchwardens' accounts abound with bell charges. We have before us the accounts of the churchwardens of Youlgreave, in the Peak of Derbyshire, for a period of a century and a half. Under the year 1604 we have "Item to the ringers on the Coronation Day (James I.), 2s. 6d.; for mending the Bels agaynst that day, 1s.; and for fatchinge the great bell yoke at Stanton hall, 6d." In 1605 there is "Item for a rope for a little bell, 5d." In the following year is "Item to the Ringers the 5th day of August, when thanks was given to God for the delyvering of King James from the conspiracye of the Lord Gowyre, 5s." In 1613 we find the sum of 6d. expended in purchasing "a stirropp for the fyrst bell wheele, 8d." The year 1614 is prolific in charges connected with the belfry, as the following enumeration will show: "Item for the bellefonder, his dinner, and his sonnes, with other chargs at the same time, 10d.; at the second coming of the sayd bellfonder, 9d.; at the taking downe of the bell, 6d.; for castyng the fyrst bell, £4; for the surplus mettall which wee bought of the bellfounder because the new bell waeghed more than ye old, £3 15s. 10d.; to the bellfounder's men, 4d.; for the carryage of our old bell to Chesterfield, 3s.; for carrying the great bell clapper to Chesterfield, 4d.; for carrying the new bell from Chesterfield, 2s. 8d.; to Nicholos Hibbert, for hanging the said bell, 1s. 1d.; to Nicholas Hibbert the younger, for amending the great bell yoke and wheele, 6d.; spent at Gybs house at the bellfounder's last coming, 3d.; for amending the great bell clapper, 10d."

The inscriptions on church bells would make an interesting chapter. On the second bell at Aston-on-Trent appears in Lombardic capitals, the words, "Jhesus be our spede, 1590," and on the fourth bell is inscribed, "All men that heare my mournful sound, repent before you lye in ground, 1661." The fourth bell of S. Werburgh's at Derby is inscribed--

My roaring sounde doth warning geve That men cannot heare always lyve.--1605.

The third bell at Allestree bears the words--

I to the church the living call, And to the grave do summons all.--1781.

The second bell on the old peal at Ashbourne was inscribed--

Sweetly to sing men do call To feed on meats that feed the soul.

The fifth bell at Dovebridge has the words: "Som rosa polsata monde Maria vocata, 1633." This is--according to the Rev. Dr. John Charles Cox--a corrupt reading of "Sum Rosa pulsata mundi Maria vocata," a legend occasionally found on pre-Reformation bells, and which may be thus Englished--

Rose of the world, I sound Mary, my name, around.

A similar inscription--similarly mis-spelt--occurs on the third bell at Ibstock, Leicestershire, the date of which is 1632. Mr. Sankey, of Marlborough College, gives it a graceful French rendering--

Ici je sonne et je m'appelle, Marie, du monde la rose plus belle.

The fourth bell at Coton-in-the-Elms has the inscription--

The bride and groom we greet In holy wedlock joined, Our sounds are emblems sweet Of hearts in love combined.

The sixth bell is inscribed--

The fleeting hours I tell, I summon all to pray, I toll the funeral knell, I hail the festal day.

The seventh bell at Castleton has the following legend--

When of departed hours we toll the knell, Instruction take, and spend the future well. James Harrison, Founder, 1803.

The second bell at Monyash is inscribed: "Sca Maria o. p. n." (Sancta Maria ora pro nobis.)

The old curfew custom is still kept up in the Peak district of Derbyshire, notably at Winster, where the bell is rung throughout November, December, January, and February at eight o'clock every work day evening, except on Saturdays, when the hour is seven. There are Sanctus bells at Tideswell, Hathersage, Beeley, Ashover, and other Derbyshire churches. All Saints' Church, at Derby ("All Saints," _i.e._, "the unknown good"), has a melodious set of chimes. They play the following tunes: Sunday, "Old One Hundred and Fourth" (Hanover); Monday, "The Lass of Patie's Mill"; Tuesday, "The Highland Lassie"; Wednesday, "The Shady Bowers"; Thursday, "The National Anthem"; Friday, Handel's "March in Scipio"; Saturday, "The Silken Garter." They all date from the last century.

Church bells have the subtle charm of sentiment. When they swing in the hoary village tower, and send their mellifluous message across the country side and down the deep and devious valley, or when they make musical with mellow carillon the dreamy atmosphere of moss grown cathedral closes, they have a poetical influence. How pleasant it is to listen to the chimes which ring out from time to time from the towers of Notre Dame, in the city of Rubens, and from the Campanile at Venice!

Through the balmy air of night How they ring out their delight! From the molten golden notes, And all in tune, What a liquid ditty floats To the turtle dove that listens, while she gloats On the moon!

Church bells in large towns, where one section of the community are night workers and seek their rest in the day-time, are by no means invested with sentiment. We have in our mind a church which is set in a dense population of railwaymen, engine drivers, stokers, guards, porters, &c. It possesses a particularly noisy peal of bells. They begin their brazen tintinnabulations at breakfast time, and ring on, at intervals, until past the supper hour. Sometimes the sound is a dismal monotone, as if the bellman had no heart for his work. At other times a number of stark mad Quasimodos seem to be pulling at the ropes to frighten the gilded cock on the vane into flapping flight. Sunday only brings an increase of the din, distracting all thought, destroying all conversation, defying all study, turning the blessed sense of hearing into a curse, and making you envy the deaf. It is well known that upon many persons in health the clangour of bells has a very depressing effect; but at night, when narcotics are given and the sick are wearied out, it is very easy to imagine how irritating these bells must be both to the invalids and their attendants. One is inclined to exclaim with the Frenchman--

Disturbers of the human race, Whose charms are always ringing, I wish the ropes were round your necks, And you about them swinging.

How very wise those Spanish innkeepers were who, in the olden time, used to make "ruido" an item in their bills, charging their guests with the noise they made!

Stories about Bells.

By J. Potter Briscoe, F.R.H.S.