Another benefit formerly supposed to be derived from the sounding of the passing-bell, and which, from the scene of Cardinal Beaufort's death, was probably a part of Shakspeare's creed, consisted in the discomfiture of the evil spirits, who were supposed to surround the bed of the dying person; and who, terrified by the tolling of the
holy bell, were compelled to keep aloof; accordingly Durandus mentions it as one of the effects of bell-ringing, ut dæmones timentes[233:A] fugiant; and in the Golden Legende, printed by Wynkyn de Worde 1498, it is observed that "the evill spirytes that ben in the regyon of the ayre, doubte moche when they here the bells rongen: and this is the cause why the belles ben rongen—to the ende that the feindes and wycked spirytes shold be abashed and flee."[233:B]
That these opinions, indeed, relative to the passing-bell, continued to prevail, as things of general belief, during the greater part of the seventeenth century, is evident from the works of the pious Bishop Taylor, in which are to be found several forms of prayer for the souls of the departing, to be offered up during the tolling of the passing-bell. In these the violence of Hell is deprecated, and it is petitioned, that the spirits of darkness may be driven far from the couch of the dying sinner.[233:C]
So common, indeed, was this practice, that almost every individual had an exclamation or form of prayer ready to be recited on hearing the passing-bell, whence the following proverbial rhyme:
"When the Bell begins to toll
Cry, Lord have mercy on the soul."
In the Vittoria Corombona of Webster, this custom is alluded to in a manner singularly wild and striking. Cornelia says:
"Cor. I'll give you a saying which my grand-mother
Was wont, when she heard the bell, to sing o'er unto her lute.
Ham. Do an you will, do.