IME NOT THE BELL I WAS BUT QUITE ANOTHER IME NOW AS RIGHT AND TRUE AS GEORGE MY BROTHER. On the other-- I’LL CRACK NO MORE NOW RING YOUR FILL MERRY GEORGE I WAS AND WILL BE STILL. This style of inscription is even more characteristic of the early eighteenth century; and we find at Meriden, in Warwickshire-- WHEN MY FIRST AND THIRD BEGIN TO RING MY THIRD WAS BROKE BEFORE WE ALL DID SING. There is a pun here on the name of the founder, William Brooke. An even worse punster is Henry Pleasant of Sudbury, who at All Saints’, Maldon, placed on four of the bells the following effusions-- (1) WHEN THREE THIS STEEPLE FIRST DID HOLD (2) WE WERE THREE EMBLEMS OF A SCOLD (3) NO MUSICK THEN BUT NOW [YOU] SHALL SEE (4) WHAT _PLEASANT_ MUSICK SIX WILL BE. Joseph Smith of Edgbaston, another would-be poet, has several inscriptions of this class, as at Alvechurch, Worcestershire-- IF YOU WOULD KNOW WHEN WE WARE RUNN IT WAS MARCH THE 22, 1711 [i.e., “seventeen-one-one”]. Yet another type of vulgarity is to be found at Bakewell, Somerset-- BILBIE AND BOOSH MAY COME AND SEE WHAT EVANS AND NOTT HAVE DONE FOR ME. When we reach the middle of the century a change comes over the inscriptions, though hardly one for the better. The frivolous doggerel rhymes are replaced by prim, though not always decorous, couplets which seem to be thoroughly characteristic of that period. In fact, so greatly was Methodism feared by the correct and worldly churchmen of Georgian days that we actually find on a bell at Welwyn, Herts.-- PROSPERITY TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND NO ENCOURAGEMENT TO ENTHUSIASM. The most typical specimens, however, are on the bells of the London founders at this period-- AT PROPER TIMES OUR VOICES WE WILL RAISE IN SOUNDING TO OUR BENEFACTORS’ PRAISE. WHEN FEMALE VIRTUE WEDS WITH MANLY WORTH WE CATCH THE RAPTURE AND WE SPREAD IT FORTH MAY ALL WHOM I SHALL SUMMON TO THE GRAVE THE BLESSINGS OF A WELL-SPENT LIFE RECEIVE. [Illustration: _Plate 33._ TOWER OF WALTHAM ABBEY CHURCH, ESSEX. The Bells of which inspired Tennyson’s well-known lines. (See page 90).] The last-named was composed by a Shropshire schoolmaster, who also devised verses of the same type for bells in his own church of High Ercall. One example may be given-- WHERE MEANDRING RODEN GENTLY GLIDES OR TURNE’S PROUD CURRENT FILLS ITS AMPLE SIDES HENCE MEDITATION VIEWS OUR CALM ABODE, HEALS THE SICK MIND, AND YIELDS IT PURE TO GOD. The Rudhalls of Gloucester, who were typical “Church and State” men, usually place on their tenor bells the familiar couplet-- I TO THE CHURCH THE LIVING CALL AND TO THE GRAVE DO SUMMON ALL. Perhaps the worst specimen of the taste of this period is to be found at Hornsey, in Middlesex-- THE RINGER’S ART OUR GRACEFUL NOTES PROLONG; APOLLO LISTENS AND APPROVES THE SONG.