This was the clock which, with few intervals, measured out by hours the life of Daniel Dove from the seventeenth year of his age, when he first set up his rest within its sound.
Perhaps of all the works of man sun-dials and church-clocks are those which have conveyed most feeling to the human heart; the clock more than the sun-dial because it speaks to the ear as well as to the eye, and by night as well as by day. Our forefathers understood this, and therefore they not only gave a Tongue to Time, but provided that he should speak often to us and remind us that the hours are passing. Their quarter-boys and their chimes were designed for this moral purpose as much as the memento which is so commonly seen upon an old clock-face,—and so seldom upon a new one. I never hear chimes that they do not remind me of those which were formerly the first sounds I heard in the morning, which used to quicken my step on my way to school, and which announced my release from it, when the same tune methought had always a merrier import. When I remember their tones, life seems to me like a dream, and a train of recollections arises, which if it were allowed to have its course would end in tears.
CHAPTER XXX. P. I.
THE OLD BELLS RUNG TO A NEW TUNE.
If the bell have any sides the clapper will find 'em.
BEN JONSON.
That same St. George's Church has a peal of eight tunable bells, in the key of E. b. the first bell weighing seven hundred, one quarter and fourteen pounds.