At Bury St. Edmunds, one Stephen Tonne reigned from 1560 to 1580. His foundry was, however, destined to yield to the sway of that at Colchester, which begins with Richard Bowler about 1590, and reached its culmination between 1620 and 1640, under the great Miles Graye, who has been called “the prince of bell-founders.” Numbers of his bells remain in Essex and Suffolk, his masterpiece being, by common consent of ringers, the tenor at Lavenham, in Suffolk. At Colchester, as in other foundries, the seven years of storm and stress--1642-1649--while the Civil War between Charles I and the Parliament raged in England, practically put an end to bell-founding. Siege and other troubles certainly hastened the end of old Miles Graye, who died in 1649, worn out by privation and bodily suffering. His grandson Miles kept on the foundry until 1686. Turning to the West of England, we find the foundries at Bristol, Gloucester, Worcester, and Salisbury still in a flourishing condition. At Bristol George Purdue, a native of Taunton, was followed by Roger and William Purdue in the seventeenth century; the latter migrated to Salisbury about 1655, where he carried on the work of John Wallis and John Danton. Thomas Purdue, the last of the family, died at Closworth, in Somerset, in 1711, and on his tombstone are the words-- “HERE LIES A BELLFOUNDER, HONEST AND TRUE, UNTIL THE RESURRECTION, NAMED PURDUE.” In the West of England their place was filled by the Penningtons of Exeter, the Evanses of Chepstow, and the Bilbies of Chew-Stoke, Somerset. The Keenes of Bedford and Woodstock, John Palmer of Gloucester, and John Martin of Worcester, all did good work in their day, as did the Cliburys of Wellington, in Shropshire. Another important Midland firm was that of the Bagleys, of Chacomb, in Northamptonshire, whose foundry was opened in 1631, and flourished till the end of the eighteenth century; though in the latter period its owners became restless, and settled temporarily in London, Witney, and other places. In the North, York was again the chief bell-founding centre, and Samuel Smith and the Sellers were famous exponents of the art; in the East of England we have, besides Miles Graye, first the Brends of Norwich, then John Darbie of Ipswich, and Thomas Gardiner of Sudbury. Several founders between 1560 and 1700 were mere journeymen, who went about from place to place, doing jobs where they could. Of such was Michael Darbie, of whom it is said, “one specimen of his casting seems to have been enough for a neighbourhood.” At Blewbury, in Berkshire, a local man attempted to recast a bell in 1825. He failed twice, but was then successful, and placed on his work the appropriate motto, _Nil desperandum_. Apart from this, it was not at all uncommon for bells to be cast on the spot, as were Great Tom of Lincoln and the great bell of Canterbury, or at some convenient intermediate place. [Illustration: _Plate 10._