It would take 91 years to ring the changes upon twelve bells, at the rate of two strokes to a second; the changes upon fourteen could not be rung through at the same rate in less than 16575 years; and upon four and twenty they would require more than 117,000 billions of years. Great then are the mysteries of bell-ringing! And this may be said in its praise, that of all devices which men have sought out for obtaining distinction by making a noise in the world, it is the most harmless. CHAPTER XXXII. P. I. AN INTRODUCTION TO CERTAIN PRELIMINARIES ESSENTIAL TO THE PROGRESS OF THIS WORK. _Mas demos ya el asiento en lo importante, Que el tiempo huye del mundo por la posta._ BALBUENA. The subject of these memoirs heard the bells of St. George's ring for the battles of Dettingen and Culloden; for Commodore Anson's return and Admiral Hawke's victory; for the conquest of Quebec; for other victories, important in their day, though in the retrospect they may seem to have produced little effect; and for more than one Peace; for the going out of the Old Style, and for the coming in of the New; for the accession, marriage and coronation of George the 3d; for the birth of George the 4th; and that of all his royal brethren and sisters;—and what was to him a subject of nearer and dearer interest than any of these events,—for his own wedding. What said those bells to him that happy day? for that bells can convey articulate sounds to those who have the gift of interpreting their language, Whittington Lord Mayor of London Town knew by fortunate experience. So did a certain Father Confessor in the Netherlands whom a buxom widow consulted upon the perilous question whether she should marry a second husband, or continue in widowed blessedness. The prudent Priest deemed it too delicate a point for him to decide; so he directed her to attend to the bells of her church when next they chimed—(they were but three in number)—and bring him word what she thought they said; and he exhorted her to pray in the mean time earnestly for grace to understand them rightly, and in the sense that might be most for her welfare here and hereafter, as he on his part would pray for her.—She listened with mouth and ears, the first time that the bells struck up; and the more she listened, the more plainly they said “_Nempt een man, Nempt een man!_—Take a Spouse, Take a Spouse!” “Aye Daughter!” said the Confessor, when she returned to him with her report, “If the bells have said so, so say I; and not I alone, but the Apostle also, and the Spirit who through that Apostle hath told us when it is best for us to marry!” Reader thou mayest thank the Leonine poet Gummarus Van Craen for this good story. What said the Bells of Doncaster to our dear Doctor on that happy morning which made him a whole man by uniting to him the rib that he till then had wanted? They said to him as distinctly as they spoke to Whittington, and to the Flemish Widow,