This style of inscription is even more characteristic of the early eighteenth century; and we find at Meriden, in Warwickshire—
WHEN MY FIRST AND THIRD BEGIN TO RING
MY THIRD WAS BROKE BEFORE WE ALL DID SING.
There is a pun here on the name of the founder, William Brooke. An even worse punster is Henry Pleasant of Sudbury, who at All Saints’, Maldon, placed on four of the bells the following effusions—
(1) WHEN THREE THIS STEEPLE FIRST DID HOLD
(2) WE WERE THREE EMBLEMS OF A SCOLD
(3) NO MUSICK THEN BUT NOW [YOU] SHALL SEE
(4) WHAT PLEASANT MUSICK SIX WILL BE.
Joseph Smith of Edgbaston, another would-be poet, has several inscriptions of this class, as at Alvechurch, Worcestershire—
IF YOU WOULD KNOW WHEN WE WARE RUNN
IT WAS MARCH THE 22, 1711 [i.e., “seventeen-one-one”].
Yet another type of vulgarity is to be found at Bakewell, Somerset—
BILBIE AND BOOSH MAY COME AND SEE
WHAT EVANS AND NOTT HAVE DONE FOR ME.