eet, was a great bell of splendid tone, bearing the
following inscription: "Claes Noorden Johan Albert de Grave me fecerunt
Amstel--odamia, MDCCXIV."

Haweis mentions also the names of Bartholomews Goethale, 1680, who made
a bell now in St. Stephen's belfry at Ghent; and another, Andrew
Steilert, 1563, at Malines (Mechlin). The great carillon in the belfry
at Bruges, thus far spared by the iconoclasts of 1914, consisting of
forty bells and one large Bourdon, or triumphal bell, is from the
foundry of the great Dumery, who also made the carillon at Antwerp.

Haweis credits Petrus Hemony, 1658, with being the most prolific of all
the bell founders. He was a good musician and took to bell founding only
late in life. "His small bells are exceedingly fine, but his larger ones
are seldom true."

To the ear of so eminent an authority this may be true, but, to my own,
the bells seem quite perfect, and I have repeatedly and most attentively
listened to them from below in the Grand' Place, trying to discover the
inharmonious note that troubled him. I ventured to ask one of the
priests if he had noticed any flatness in the notes, and he scorned the
idea, saying that the bells, "all of them," were perfect.

Nevertheless, I must accept the statement of Haweis, who for years made
a study of these bells and their individualities and than whom perhaps
never has lived a more eminent authority.

From my room in the small hotel de Buda, just beneath the old gray tower
of St. Rombauld in this ancient town of Malines, I have listened by day
and night to the music of these bells, which sounded so exquisite to me
that I can still recall them. The poet has beautifully expressed the
idea of the bell music of Flanders thus, "The Wind that sweeps over her
campagnas and fertile levels is full of broken melodious whispers"
(Haweis).

Certainly these chimes of bells playing thus by day and night, day in,
day out, year after year, must exercise a most potent influence upon the
imagination and life of the people.

The Flemish peasant is born, grows up, lives his life out, and finally
is laid away to the music of these ancient bells.

[Illustration: The Old Porte Marechale: Bruges]

When I came away from Malines and reached Antwerp, I lodged in the Place
Verte, as near to the chimes as I could get. My student days being over,
I found that I had a strange sense of loss, as if I had lost a dear
and valued friend, for the sound of the bells had b