—alone par excellence, as the thickest and thinnest friend of the cause, and moreover because
None but himself can be his parallel;
and last in order because the base note accords best with him; and because for the decorum and dignity with which he has at all times treated the Bishops, the clergy and the subject of religion, he must be allowed to bear the bell not from his compeers alone but from all his contemporaries.
CHAPTER XXXI. P. I.
MORE CONCERNING BELLS.
| Lord, ringing changes all our bells hath marr'd; Jangled they have and jarr'd So long, they're out of tune, and out of frame; They seem not now the same. Put them in frame anew, and once begin To tune them so, that they may chime all in. HERBERT. |
There are more mysteries in a peal of bells than were touched upon by the Bishop of Chalons in his sermon. There are plain bob-triples, bob-majors, bob-majors reversed, double bob-majors, and grandsire-bob-cators, and there is a Bob-maximus. Who Bob was, and whether he were Bob Major, or Major Bob, that is whether Major were his name or his rank, and if his rank, to what service he belonged, are questions which inexorable Oblivion will not answer, however earnestly adjured. And there is no Witch of Endor who will call up Bob from the grave to answer them himself. But there are facts in the history of bell-ringing which Oblivion has not yet made her own, and one of them is that the greatest performance ever completed by one person in the world, was that of Mr. Samuel Thurston at the New Theatre Public House in the City of Norwich, on Saturday evening, July 1, 1809, when he struck all these intricate short peals, the first four upon a set of eight musical hand bells, the last on a peal of ten.