(Vol. ii., p. 405.; vol. iii., p. 52.)
How is it that Mr. Knight, who so well and so judiciously exposes the
absurdness of attempting to measure out a poet's imaginings by
rule-and-compass probability, should himself endeavour to embody and
identify Touchstone's dial--an ideal image--a mere peg on which to hang the
fool's sapient moralizing.
Surely, whether it was a real moving animated pocket watch, that was
present to the poet's mind, or a thumb ring dial, is an inquiry quite as
bootless as the geographical existence of a sea-coast in Bohemia, or of
lions and serpents in the forest of Ardennes.
When Thaliard engages to take away the life of Pericles if he can get him
within his "pistol's length," are we seriously to inquire whether the
weapon was an Italian dagger or an English firearm? or are we to debate
which of the interpretations would be the lesser anachronism?
But your correspondents (Vol. ii., p. 405. and vol. iii., p. 52.) approve
of, and confirm Mr. Knight's suggestion of a ring dial, as though it were
so self-evident as to admit of no denial. Nevertheless, neither he nor they
have shown any good reason for its adoption: even its superior antiquity
over the portable time-piece is mere surmise on their parts, unaccompanied
as yet by any direct proof. In point of fact, the sole argument advanced by
Mr. Knight why Touchstone's dial should be a ring dial is, that "_it was
not likely that the fool would have a pocket watch_." Well, but it might
belong to Celia, carried away with the "jewels and wealth" she speaks of,
and, on account of the unwieldy size of watches in those days, intrusted to
the porterage of the able-bodied fool.
When Touchstone said, so very wisely, "_It is ten o'clock_," he used a
phrase which, according to Orlando in the same play, could only properly
apply to a mechanical time-piece. Rosalind asks Orlando, "I pray you what
is it _a clock?_" to which he replies, "You should ask me what time _o'
day_; there's no clock in the forest." Again, when Jacques declares that he
did laugh "an hour by his dial," do we not immediately recall Falstaff's
similar phrase, "an hour by Shrewsbury clock?"
If it shall be said that the word "dial" is more used in reference to a
natural than to a mechanical indicator of time, I should point, in reply,
to Hotspur's allusion:
"Tho' life did ride upon a dial's point
Still ending with the arrival of an hour"
The "dial's point," so referred to, must be _in motion_, and is therefore
the hand or _pointer_ of a mechanical clock.
A further confirmation that the Shakspearian "dial" was a piece of
mechanism may be seen in Lafeu's reply to Bertram, when he exclaims,
"Then my dial goes not true,"
using it as a metaphor to imply that his judgment must have been deceived.
These are some of the considerations that would induce me to reject Mr.
Knight's interpretation, and, _were it necessary to realize the scene
between Jacques and Touchstone at all_, I should prefer doing so by
imagining some old turnip-faced atrocity in clock-making presented to the
fool's lack-lustre eye, than the nice astronomical observation supposed by
Mr. Knight.
The ring-dial, as described by him, and by your correspondents, is likewise
described in most of the encyclopaedias. It is available for the latitude of
construction only, and was no doubt common enough a hundred years ago; but
it is scarcely an object as yet for deposit in the British Museum.