our study, like Maturin with the wafer on his forehead, and strive, by portentous frown, to keep the young intruders, stealing in for book or pencil, in endurable check. And these little ones have to come to us, in succession, as the dearest of God-sent blessings; and when one was recalled, it was difficult to define how such a loss could have been so much felt. And when the time came that we looked for a successor, with apprehension probably unknown to those who can say with Cæsar

"Of all the wonders that I have yet heard,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear," we confess that the release from mis-giving, on its being announced to us that "a man was born into the world," was an emancipation inexpressibly charming.

To disengage our spirits from the excitement of long suppressed anxiety, we were soon bounding along the road with lighter step than we had trodden for some weeks past; and, just as we reached the top of a hill, about a quarter of a mile from our dwelling which, with the neighbouring sanctuary, then came prominently into view, from the tower of the latter there seemed to burst spontaneously, and in full sympathy with our feelings, the most joy-laden peal that

had ever gladdened our ears. On, on we hastened by a winding and undulating path-the sound of the bells being occasionally hushed by the intervening ground; and again it was borne up some valley, appearing to congratulate us from quite an opposite direction; and, as the distance varied, from our pursuing a circuitous route, an effect as of different peals was thus repeatedly produced. When we turned homewards some masterly changes were being rung round; and we can assure the reader, that Whittingham's ambitious hopes, as he sat on the milestone and fancied that he heard from the far-off belfry a summons to be Lord Mayor of London, were less enviable than the triumphant gladness of our heart on this occasion of domestic celebration. The honorarium to the ringers of course followed -a deodand in all such cases most freely bestowed.

It is worth mentioning that the word belfredus, signifying belfry, is derived by the learned from bell and frede, both Anglo-Saxon words, and respectively meaning "bell" and "peace." This meaning is extracted from the custom in olden times of ringing the large bell of a town to summon the stout burghers from their peaceful avocations-men of few words and substantial

wealth and dignity-to confer on occasions either of commercial difficulty or hostile invasion. The bancloche, or district bell of the Germans, compounded of the words bannus, a district or borough, and cloche, a bell, was the same kind of signal for all the influential inhabitants of the borough to meet.

Bells were also hung at an early period in castles and fortresses, to give alarm when the enemy approached. Thus we find that when Macbeth had shut himself in the fortress of Dunsinane, and it was announced to him that Birnam Wood was moving onward to the castle -the dreadful solution of the witches' prophecy -his desperate order was-"Ring the alarum bell."

CHAPTER V.

VARIOUS USES OF CHURCH BELLS.

"Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings." SHAKSPERE.

WELL, reader, would it be if all we had to say of the bell's performances was, that its highest duties had been in the service of God's sanctuary; its ordinary employment to give notices of civil convocation or military alarm; and that its worst frolic had been the occasional stunning which it inflicted on a neighbourhood in the nuisance of a ringing match. But, alas! it has sometimes rung the summons to indiscriminate massacre; -its notes have helped to drown the dying shrieks of human beings, of all ages and both sexes, butchered unresistingly by the tools of