uching the presence of bells in the church, we have noticed elsewhere
that they were introduced among the incrustations of Pagan worship that
grew up around the early Christian forms, and owed their origin to the
superstition that the sound of metal preserved the soul from the danger
of evil spirits; but there are other curious facts connected with their
history. The Roman Catholic baptised the bell, using holy water, incense
and prayers in the ceremony and according to the missal of Salisbury,
there were godfathers and godmothers, who gave them names.

A strange allegorical signification of bells after their baptism was
written by Durandus, the great Catholic authority, for the mysterious
services of the church. "The bell," he says, "denotes the preacher's
mouth, the hardness of the metal implies the fortitude of his mind; the
clapper striking both sides, his tongue publishing both testaments, and
that the preacher should on one side correct the vice in himself, and on
the other reprove it in his hearers; the band that ties the clapper
denotes the moderation of the tongue; the wood on which the bell hangs
signifies the wood of the cross; the iron that ties it to the wood
denotes the charity of the preacher; the bell-rope denotes the humility
of the preacher's life," &c. &c. The description goes on yet further
into detail; but the analogies between the subjects and their allegorical
representations are so undiscernible, as to make it a somewhat tedious
task to follow it throughout.

But St. Peter's has manifold attractions beyond its bells. It has
brasses and effigies, and monuments of every variety, commemorating the
pious deeds of clergy and laity, warriors and comedians. Its vestry has
pictures and tapestry and quaint alabaster carvings; little chapels
jutting out from the nave like transepts, perpetuate the memory of old
benefactors; and beneath its pavement lie the remains of the great
philosopher Sir Thomas Browne, whose words of rebuke to the sepulchral
ambition of the nameless tenants of monuments that make no record of
those that lie beneath, involuntarily arise to the mind while
contemplating the spot chosen for his last resting place. "Had they made
so good a provision for their names as they have done for their relics,
they had not so grossly erred in the act of perpetuation; but to subsist
in bones, to be but pyramidically extant, is a fallacy of duration." And
again, "to live indeed is to be again o