forty bells. The reason of this is
not far to seek. The fact is, it is no easy matter to get at the bells
when once they are hung, and many an antiquarian who will haunt tombs
and pore over illegible brasses with commendable patience will decline
to risk his neck in the most interesting of belfries. The pursuit, too,
is often a disappointing one. Perhaps it is possible to get half way
around a bell and then be prevented by a thick beam, or the bell's own
wheel from seeing the outer half, which, by perverse chance, generally
contains the date and the name of the founder.

"Perhaps the oldest bell is quite inaccessible, or, after a half hour's
climbing amid the utmost dust and difficulty, we reach a perfectly blank
or commonplace bell."

He gives the date of 1620, as that when the family of Van den Gheyns
were bringing the art of bell founding to perfection in Louvain, and
notes that the tower and bells of each fortified town were half civic
property. Thus the curfew, the carolus, and the St. Mary bells in
Antwerp Cathedral belong to the town.

"Let us," he says, "enter the town of Mechlin (Malines) in the year
1638. The old wooden bridge (over the river Dyle) has since been
replaced by a stone one. To this day the elaborately carved facades of
the old houses close on the water are of incomparable richness of
design. The peculiar ascent of steps leading up to the angle of the
roof, in a style borrowed from the Spaniards, is a style everywhere to
be met with. The noblest of square florid Gothic towers, the tower of
St. Rombauld (variously spelled St. Rombaud, St. Rombaut, or St. Rombod)
finished up to three hundred and forty-eight feet, guides us to what is
now called the Grand' Place, where in an obscure building are the
workshops and furnaces adjoining the abode of Peter Van den Gheyn, the
most renowned bell founder of the seventeenth century, born in 1605. In
company with his associate, Deklerk, arrangements are being made for the
founding of a big bell.

"Before the cast was made there was no doubt great controversy between
the mighty smiths, Deklerk and Van den Gheyn: plans had to be drawn out
on parchment, measurements and calculations made, little proportions
weighed by fine instinct, and the defects and merits of ever so many
bells canvassed. The ordinary measurements, which now hold good for a
large bell, are, roughly, one-fifteenth of the diameter in thickness,
and twelve times the thickness in height. Descr