The Sun.
London, England, 1856-11-14 00:00:00

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BIG BSN OF TVESTifINSTER.

(From the Times. )

This great success—for we may at once ease our
readers' minds on this point--in the art of bell-
making gave tongue for the first time yesterday
morning at a few minutes past 11. o'clock. The
monster clapper, weighing 16 cwt., arrived last
week, and, having been fitted with great expedition,
notice was given to a number of official and scien-
tificcelebrities that a strictly private trial of Big
Ben's powers of utterance and modulation was to
take place. So, precisely at eleven, a band, headed
by Mr. E. B. Denison, Q.C., its accomplished de-
signer, and Mr. Taylor, assembled within the hoard-
ing at the foot of the Westminster Clock Tower ;
some with tuning keys ready to apply to their
mouths, some with their ears stuffed with cotton,
leatstheir tympanums should crack, and some man-
fully trusting that their ears would stand the sound.
All were in anxious expectation, and awaited with
mixed feelings of impatience and awe the first
accents of the monster; Children are said to be born
imperfect in every respect excepting their tongues ;
of this all fathers blessed with progeny ha-ve
had aural,dem,onstration ; but this Frankenstein—
this Bell of Belli;, though born, is unable to wag
his tongue or to give the faintest lisp- without
help, and yesterday morning this help was supplied
by six or eight sturdy artisans, who tugged lustily
with a measured strain at ropes attached to Big Ben's
clapper. Now the bells of St. Margaret's, and of
the Abbey; struck it, loud enough in their way, but
sooa to be pet,to silence. With the north-cast breeze
came booming down, a moment after, the sound
`ol4antrt-her- bniti- attlt-the -greatest in. England,
but in a few minutes to be immeasurably sur-
passed in sound, and destined to take the second
place. It was the last protest of the Great Bell of
St. Paul's, ci-devant Great Tom of Westminster,
which at once proclaimed its own power and rung
in the supremaly of the mighty rival, swinging
over the very spot on which it had once itself stood,
to whom its sceptre of sound was now about to
depart for ever. If bells can feel, no doubt the
Great Bell at St. Paul's felt sad at that moment,
and " Big Ben" proportionally triumphant, but
externally the latter made no sound as the voice
of his'antagonist came wailing up the Thames, and
he looked as firm and unmoved as the First Com-
miisioner of Works when he is listening to the re-
proaches of a deputation.
Well, mow the time has come. As Wallensteiu
told his soldiers to fight or rot, so Big Ben
must now speak or split. By his voice we shall
show him. Be there flaw or crack in him out it
now must come. So the sturdy fellows in fustian
pull with a will, at first somewhat jerkingly and
excitedly, Mr. Denison lending a willing hand as
leader in that honest team. One, two, three, and
then such au awful, solemn, heartrending sound ;
like a potent poison, the vibration penetrates every
vein in the body, it strikes every nerve, it attacks
and tries every fibre and muscle, it makes your
bones rattle and your marrow creep. In despair of
describing a sensation which combines all sensations
and invades the body by so many senses, we can
only call it a liquid blow ; it strikes you all over
your frame at once, and, not content with mas-
tering your outworks, it steams into and per-
vades and floods your inner man in an instant
of time. Se much for the first 'stroke, the work of
a moment, an electric shock intensified, which it
has taken so many words to describe, even imper-
fectly. The men are not in good gear, and tug
somewhat hurriedly ; the second and third strokes
are faltering, and cause our Frankenstein to give an
"uncertain sound ;" the fourth and fifth, and so
stroke after stroke, with rare exceptions, come
truly home. And now arises a wondrous conflu-
ence of vibration as the air in the confined space
under the clock-tower is lashed into fury by the
tempest of sound. Many stop their ears—and, if
any of Mr. Denison's detractors .were present, it
must have amused him to see the attitude of these
" deaf adders, who refused to hear the voice of the
charmer"—scoffers who, perhaps. came to exult
over a defeat and remained to swell a triumph.
But to return. Many stop their ears ; many would
run away if they dared, and some did, saying they
preleued to hear it' a little way off, but the true
friend of science neither stopped his ears nor
thought of running away. 'He stayed and braved
-out the brazen autge of sound around him and re-
velled in its vibrations with the same excitement
and delight as when a man stands upon a wind-
smitten headland on a stormy day, and joys to
feel the wind pour down on him blast after blast,
and to see each gust as it tears its way towards
the land, smoothing its path across the rolling.,
sea.

Now the men begin to feel fatigued and a signal
is given to cease for a while,. and here it is most
curious to mark the cessation of sound and the gra-
dual decline of vibration ; for long after the
metallic ring had ceased there followed a strange
mysterious after-noise, a sound between the trickling
of a slender rill and the dry shivering rustle of
autumn leaves hustled together by a gust across a
hard gravel-walk. This is the thin ghost of Big Ben's
full utterance. Iu such dry husky accents did the
shade of the great Achilles address the wandering
Odysseus when he told him the life of a serf on this
warm, genial, upper earth was worth a king's crown
down in that gloomy nether realm of Hades.
But even the husky whisper has ceased, and
silence is again restored. We look at our neigh-
bours. Well, we don't think any of them have had
their tympanums split, though some are cautiously
removing their cotton. Opinions are compared, and
we are happy to say that it is universally acknow-
ledged that the bell is without crack or flaw, a per-
fect piece of casting. So much for Mr. Warner, the
founder. He way sleep happy. Well ! but for the
sound ; how do Mr. Denison 's innovations of shape,
material, and mixture answer ? What is the sound
as expressed in reusical scale ? Here, again,
opinion appears to be unanimous. Mr. Denison
had prophesied—for it could scarcely be anything
else than prophecy—ive mean of that scien-
tific kind which can boast of its fulfilment before
the event—that it was to be E natural.
And hero all the praiseworthy persons who had
their tuning-keys in their mouths during the trial
declare Big Ben's voice to be pure natural E. At
this moment some one suggests that Mr. Turle and
tke Abbey and its magnificent organ are close at
hand—what easier than to run over to the Abbey
and to check the sound of the bell by the organ ?
Away goes the indefatigable Mr. Denison, and in
a short time comes back with the information that
Mr. Turle confirms the opinion that it is a pure
natural E, the sound it was meant to be. We do
not know that in these days of universal failure
we can praise anything more highly than by
saying, especially if it be matter of experimental
science, that it turns out what it was meant to be.
Big Ben's voice has turned out what it was
meant to be, and when it says—" Here I
am, E natural,—strike me, buffet me, crush me
if you can, with a clapper of 16ewt., not one syl-
lable of anything else shall you get out of me than
that. E natural I am, and E natural I shall re-
main till Jove splits me with his thunder." When
the bell says this, we do not know that any words
of 'ours can add one syllable more to the learned gen-
tleman's justly-earned mood of praise. Mr. Denison
has had, as our readers know, a hard battle about this
bell. He has routed his foes, he has carried his point,
the bell has answered his expectations; what more
can we say except to congratulate him on his
signal triumph ?
It is true tit it a critical friend of ours, over-
whelmed with the first tumult of sound, tried to
whisper in our ear that the bell was a dead failure.
He forgot, however, that a bell of this size, espe-
cially if irregularly struck as this was, can never
be a very pleasant companion when you ate within
two yards of it. A6B pounder would be quite as
agreeable. A bell of these proportions is intended
to be hung some 200 feet above your head. It is
meant to be beard miles in all directions ; in fact,
it is only meant to be heard at a considerable dis-
tance. All the world are not Quasimodos, the
whole metropolis will not live up at the top of this
stouwppeorsecdlostehtaot
ourt he
friendbell did not,andther make sufficient
therefore it
siusfliteobet
allowance for his close proximity when,
m
jarring vibrations of whole strokes and half-strokes,aid the
he uttered his opinion. We are happy to add that
bis doubts were removed by a shortwalk,for, on
retiring from the spot, it was found. that as we
receded from the tower the voice of Bic, Ben rapidly
assumed, in spite of
untili when
tsenormousw e
rea evhobeldu
tmhee,
middle so lt
melodious sound,
of St. Margaret's churchyard—no great distance,
after all—it was impossible to conceive a deeper or
'a finer tone.

So much for the sake of truth and as an instance
of the best way to remove the scruples of these
"doubting
Thomases" who will not make due
allowances for time and space. If any one stands
before the bell and fancies he detects a jar, let him
remember that the laws of proportion are universal,
that the frescoes of Michael Angelo and the mosaics
of St. Peter's are meant to be seen afar off, just as
Big Ben is meant to be heard afar off ; and that if
scientific men will scramble up to the one on lad-
ders, and will list, n within two feet of th eother,