We toll."
I think it probable (though I have no direct proof of it) that the great bell, or tenor, was always RUNG when a sermon was to be preached, which was not the case when there was to be only prayers. I believe it is so at this day at St. Mary's, Oxford; it is very certain that the great bell, being so rung, is in some places called the Sermon Bell, though I remember two legends on tenor bells, which seem to imply that they were intended to call to prayers, viz.:—
"Come when I call,
To serve God all."
"For Christ, his flock, I aloud do call,
To confess their sins, and be pardoned all."
The difference between ringing the tenor (or any bell for prayers), and ringing it as a knell, is, that in the latter case the bell is set at every pull or stroke, which causes a solemnity in the sound very different from that produced by the very reverse mode of ringing it. Oh! what language there is in bells. In ringing, the bell is swung round; in tolling, it is swung merely sufficiently for the clapper to strike the side. Chiming is when more bells than one are tolled in harmony; if this be correct, to toll can be applied only when one bell is sounded, and Horne Tooke's definition of the word, from tollere, to raise up, must be wrong (humiliter loquor).
With regard to the present use of the old Sanctus Bell, which is called at Ecclesfield Tom Tinkler, the same is often called the Ting Tang.
H. T. ELLACOMBE.
Clyd St. George.
Extraordinary North Briton ([Vol. iii., p. 409.]).—In answer to the inquiries of the reviewer in the Athenæum of May 17, and your correspondent, the writer of the Extraordinary North Briton appears to have been an individual of the name of William Moore, not, as apparently supposed, the poet William Mason. I have, amongst a complete series of the London newspapers of the day, a set of the Extraordinary North Briton, beginning Tuesday (May 10, 1768) and terminating with the 91st No. (Saturday, January 27, 1770). Whether it was continued further I do not know. The early numbers are published by Staples Steare, 93. Fleet Street, and the subsequent ones by T. Peat, 22. Fleet Street, and by William Moore, 55., opposite Hatton Garden, Holborn. The second and subsequent numbers are entitled, The Extraordinary North Briton, by W—— M——. In the last three numbers the W—— M—— is altered to William Moore, and at the end of each is "London, printed and sold by the author, W. Moore, No. 22., near St. Dunstan's Church, Fleet Street." In the 90th number is the following advertisement: