_Handbell before a Corpse_ (vol. iii., p. 68.).--Your correspondent
[Hebrew: B]. has too inconsiderately dismissed the Query which he has
undertaken to answer touching the custom of ringing a handbell in advance
of a funeral procession. He says, "I have never considered it as anything
but _a cast of the bell-man's office_, to add more solemnity to the
occasion."
The custom is _invariably_ observed throughout Italy, and is common in
France and Spain. I have witnessed at least some hundreds of funerals in
various cities and villages of Piedmont, Sardinia, Tuscany, the Roman
States, Naples, Elba, and Sicily; and in Malta; yet never knew I one
without the handbell.
Its _object_, as first explained to me in Florence, is to clear the way for
the procession; to remind passengers and loiterers to take off their hats;
and to call the pious to their doors and windows to gaze upon the emblems
of mortality, and to say a prayer for the repose of the departed soul.