Hearken to our neighbor with the iron tongue. While I sit musing over my sheetof foolscap, he emphatically tells the hour, in tones loud enough for all thetown to hear, though doubtless intended only as a gentle hint to myself, that Imay begin his biography before the evening shall be further wasted.Unquestionably, a personage in such an elevated position, and making so great anoise in the world, has a fair claim to the services of a biographer. He is therepresentative and most illustrious member of that innumerable class, whosecharacteristic feature is the tongue, and whose sole business, to clamor forthe public good. If any of his noisy brethren, in our tongue-governeddemocracy, be envious of the superiority which I have assigned him, they havemy free consent to hang themselves as high as he. And, for his history, let notthe reader apprehend an empty repetition of ding-dong-bell. He has been thepassive hero of wonderful vicissitudes, with which I have chanced to becomeacquainted, possibly from his own mouth; while the careless multitude supposedhim to be talking merely of the time of day, or calling them to dinner or tochurch, or bidding drowsy people go bedward, or the dead to their graves. Manya revolution has it been his fate to go through, and invariably with aprodigious uproar. And whether or no he have told me his reminiscences, this atleast is true, that the more I study his deep-toned language, the more sense,and sentiment, and soul, do I discover in it.
This bell—for we may as well drop our quaint personification—is ofantique French manufacture, and the symbol of the cross betokens that it wasmeant to be suspended in the belfry of a Romish place of worship. The oldpeople hereabout have a tradition, that a considerable part of the metal wassupplied by a brass cannon, captured in one of the victories of Louis theFourteenth over the Spaniards, and that a Bourbon princess threw her goldencrucifix into the molten mass. It is said, likewise, that a bishop baptized andblessed the bell, and prayed that a heavenly influence might mingle with itstones. When all due ceremonies had been performed, the Grand Monarque bestowedthe gift—than which none could resound his beneficence moreloudly—on the Jesuits, who were then converting the American Indians tothe spiritual dominion of the Pope. So the bell,—our self-same bell,whose familiar voice we may hear at all hours, in the streets,—this verybell sent forth its first-born accents from the tower of a log-built chapel,westward of Lake Champlain, and near the mighty stream of the St. Lawrence. Itwas called Our Lady’s Chapel of the Forest. The peal went forth as if toredeem and consecrate the heathen wilderness. The wolf growled at the sound, ashe prowled stealthily through the underbrush; the grim bear turned his back,and stalked sullenly away; the startled doe leaped up, and led her fawn into adeeper solitude. The red men wondered what awful voice was speaking amid thewind that roared through the tree-tops; and, following reverentially itssummons, the dark-robed fathers blessed them, as they drew near thecross-crowned chapel. In a little time, there was a crucifix on every duskybosom. The Indians knelt beneath the lowly roof, worshipping in the same formsthat were observed under the vast dome of St. Peter’s, when the Popeperformed high mass in the presence of kneeling princes. All the religiousfestivals, that awoke the chiming bells of lofty cathedrals, called forth apeal from Our Lady’s Chapel of the Forest. Loudly rang the bell of thewilderness while the streets of Paris echoed with rejoicings for the birthdayof the Bourbon, or whenever France had triumphed on some European battle-field.And the solemn woods