So much bell ringing and tolling naturally led to an inquiry of the several causes that gave rise to it. By some, the first morning and eight o’clock bell is called the “curfew bell,” and the practice of ringing it is said to have been continued from the time of William the Conqueror, who, by one of his laws, ordered the people to put out their fires and lights, and go to bed at the eight o’clock curfew bell; and others affirmed it to be, for the purpose of summoning the people to their labours.
The practice of ringing a church bell in the morning and evening is common in most towns where they have a bell, although its origin is seldom inquired about or noticed. I have often made inquiries on the subject, and have always received one of the above answers, and am inclined rather to believe its origin is the “curfew bell,” although it now serves more the purpose of warning people to their labours, than for the “extinction and relighting of all fire and candle lights.”
I am, &c.
R. T.[201]
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 59·22.
[199] Sussex paper.
[200] This bell is said to weigh 3 tons 5 cwt., and to be the treble of a ring of bells brought from Tournay by cardinal Wolsey, whereof one is at St. Paul’s, one at Oxford, one at Lincoln, and one at Exeter. The motto on the crown of this bell, which is called the great bell, is said to be—