[1089] This article was written by the Hon. Daines Barrington. It is
here given with the addition of Professor Beckmann’s notes, which are
distinguished by the initials of his name.
[1090] Dante, Paradiso, c. x.
[1091] Selden, in his preface to Hengham.
[1092] Mic. 2 Ric. III.
[1093] We find that this clock was considered, during the reign of
Henry VI., to be of such consequence, that the king gave the keeping
of it, with the appurtenances, to William Warby, dean of St. Stephens,
together with the pay of sixpence per diem, to be received at the
Exchequer. See Stow’s London, vol. ii. p. 55. The clock at St. Mary’s,
Oxford, was also furnished in 1523, out of fines imposed on the
students of the university.
[1094] III. Inst. p. 72.
[1095] IV. Inst. p. 255.
[1096] p. 55, in his Additions to Stow. This clock-house continued in a
ruined state till the year 1715.--Grose’s Antiquarian Repertory, p. 280.
[1097] Dart’s Canterbury, Appendix, p. 3.
[1098] Chaucer was born in 1328, and died in 1400.
[1099] To the time of queen Elizabeth clocks were often called
_orologes_:
He’ll watch the _horologe a double set_,
If drink rock not his cradle.--Othello, act ii. sc. 3.
by which the double set of twelve hours on a clock is plainly alluded
to, as not many more than twelve can be observed on a dial; and in the
same tragedy this last time-measurer is called by its proper name:
More tedious than the dial eight score times.--_Ibid._ act iii. sc. 4.
The clock of Wells cathedral is also, to this day, called the
_horologe_.
[1100] See Dugdale’s Origines Jurid. Lydgate, therefore, who wrote
before the time of Henry VIII., says,
I will myself be your _orologere_
To-morrow early.--Prologue to the Storye of Thebes.
[1101] Leland de Script. Brit. [The translation of this passage will be
found at p. 350.]
[1102] Froissart, vol. ii. ch. 127.
[1103] Falconet, Mémoires de Litt. vol. xx.
[1104] See Carpentier, art. _Horologiator_.
[1105] Mr. Peckett, an ingenious apothecary of Compton Street, Soho,
hath shown me an astronomical clock which belonged to the late Mr.
Ferguson, and which still continues to go. The workmanship on the
outside is elegant, and it appears to have been made by a German in
1525, by the subjoined inscription in the Bohemian of the time:
_Iar. da. macht. mich. Iacob. Zech.
Zu. Prag. ist. bar. da. man. zalt. 1525._
The above Englished:
Year. when. made. me. Jacob. Zech.
At. Prague. is. true. when. counted. 1525.
The diameter of the clock is nine inches three-fourths, and the height
five inches.
[I have transposed the words, as I find them in the original; but _war_
seems to have stood in the place of _bar_, at least Barrington has
translated it by _is true_, and we must read,
_Da man zält 1525 jar
Da macht mich Iacob Zech zu Prag ist wahr._--I. B.]
[1106] I am also referred by the Rev. Mr. Bowle, F.S.A., to the
following passage in the Abridged History of Spain, vol. i. p. 568:
“The first clock seen in Spain was set up in the cathedral of Seville,
1400.”
[1107] The oldest clock we have in England that is supposed to go
tolerably, is of the preceding year, viz. 1540, the initial letters
of the maker’s name being N. O. It is in the palace at Hampton
Court.--Derham’s Artificial Clock-maker.
[1108] A German translation of this book is added to Welper’s
Gnomick.--I. B.
[1109] That distinguished antiquary Horace Walpole has in his
possession a clock, which appears by the inscription to have been a
present from Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn. Poynet, bishop of Winchester,
likewise gave an astronomical clock to the same king.--Godwyn de Præsul.
[1110] Mémoires de Litt. vol. xx. See also Hardwicke’s Collection of
State Papers, vol. i. p. 53.
[1111] Vol. xx.
[1112] A clockmaker of this city (Göttingen) assured me that several
watches which had catgut instead of a chain, were brought to him to be
repaired. I. B. [Sir Richard Burton, of Sackets Hill, Isle of Thanet,
has now in his possession an early silver watch, presumed to be of the
time of queen Elizabeth, in which catgut is a substitute for chain.
A similar watch is also in the possession of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder,
Bart., which formerly belonged to the unfortunate queen Mary, and
descended to him from the Seton family. It is made of silver in the
form of a death’s head, with open work for the escape of sound, the
other parts covered with emblematical engraving. It appears originally
to have been constructed with catgut, but now has a chain. It goes
extremely well, but requires winding-up every twenty-six hours to keep
it accurately to time. Queen Mary bequeathed it to Mary Seton, February
7, 1587. An engraving with a very full description of this curious
watch, will be found in Smith’s Historical and Literary Curiosities,
Lond. 1845, 4to, plate 96.--H. G. B.]
[1113] Barrington says here, in a note, “Pancirollus informs us, that
about the end of the fifteenth century watches were made no larger
than an almond, by a man whose name was Mermecide.--Encyclop.” The
first part of this assertion is to be found, indeed, in Pancirollus,
edition of Frankfort, 1646, 4to, ii. p. 168; but Myrmecides was an
ancient Greek artist, whose παραναλώματα, or uncommonly small pieces
of mechanism, are spoken of by Cicero and Pliny. He is not mentioned
by Pancirollus, but by Salmuth, p. 231. It is probable that this error
may be in the Encyclopédie; at least Barrington refers to it as his
authority.--I. B.
[1114] Somner’s Canterbury, Supplement, No. xiv. p. 36. See also, in
an extract from archbishop Parker’s will, made April 5th, 1575: “Do et
lego fratri meo Ricardo episcopo Eliensi baculum meum de canna Indica,
qui _horologium_ habet in summitate.” As likewise in the brief of his
goods, &c., No. xiv. p. 39, a clock valued at 54_l._ 4_s._
[1115] Stow’s Chron. p. 878; and Introduct. to Mr. Reuben Burrow’s
Almanac for 1778.
[1116] More particularly Dr. Hook, Tompion, &c.
[1117] The ninth and tenth of William III. ch. 28, s. 2.
[1118] This letter, signed John Jamieson, and dated Forfar, August
20th, 1785, is taken from the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. ii. p. 688.
One of my literary friends in London, to whom I am indebted for much
learned information, says in a letter which I received from him, “I
had never believed the story of Robert Bruce’s watch, mentioned in
your translation of Barrington’s History of Clocks, the more as Mr.
Barrington is famous for being in the wrong; but in the Gentleman’s
Magazine there is a full account of the origin of this imposition.” As
this error occurs in a paper which I have endeavoured to render more
public by a translation, I consider myself bound to give a translation
of this letter also.--B.
[1119] The passage may be found, vol. i. p. 95, of the edition
in quarto. Edinburgh, 1774: “Pocket-watches were brought there
from Germany, an. 1577.” Home, or Lord Kaimes, however, was too
celebrated or too artful a writer to produce proofs of his historical
assertions.--B.
[1120] This was first used early in the sixteenth century.
[1121] A very detailed and learned pamphlet has just been written
on this beautiful escapement by Benjamin L. Vulliamy, F.R.A.S.,
clock-maker to the Queen, entitled, ‘On the Construction and Theory of
the Dead-Beat Escapement of Clocks.’
[1122] “I know not what such an undertaking would be even to the devil
himself, but to man it would, undoubtedly, be the height of folly.”
[1123] The details of this dispute may be found in the “Applications of
the Electric Fluid to the Useful Arts,” by Mr. Alexander Bain. Lond.
1843. Professor Wheatstone’s clock, &c. is described in the Phil.
Trans. for 1841.