A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2)
TekstCLOCKS AND WATCHES 1089 (ADDITIONAL)
The term Horologia occurs very early in different parts of Europe; but as this word, in old times, signified dials as well as clocks, nothing decisive can be inferred from it, unless it can be shown by concomitant circumstances or expressions, that it relates to a clock rather than a dial. Dante seems to be the first author who hath introduced the mention of an orologio that struck the hour, and which consequently cannot be a dial, in the following lines: —
Indi come horologio che ne chiami,
Nel hora che la sposa d’Idio surge,
Amattinar lo sposo, perche l’ami1090.
Dante was born in 1265, and died in 1321, aged fifty-seven; striking-clocks therefore could not have been very uncommon in Italy, at the latter end of the thirteenth century or the beginning of the fourteenth.
But the use of clocks was not confined to Italy at this period; for we had an artist in England about the same time, who furnished the famous clock-house near Westminster Hall, with a clock to be heard by the courts of law, out of a fine imposed on the Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, in the sixteenth year of Edward I., or in 12881091. Blackstone in his Commentaries has observed, that this punishment of Radulphus de Hengham is first taken notice of in the Year Book1092, during the reign of Richard III., where indeed no mention is made of a clock being thus paid for; but if the circumstances stated in the report of this case are considered, it was highly unnecessary, and perhaps improper, to have alluded to this application of the Chief Justice’s fine.
It appears by the Year Book, that Richard III. had closeted the judges in the Inner Star Chamber, to take their opinions upon three points of law; the second of which was, “Whether a justice of the peace, who had enrolled an indictment, which had been negatived by the grand-jury, amongst the true bills, might be punished for this abuse of his office.” On this question a diversity of opinion arose amongst the judges, some of whom supposed that a magistrate could not be prosecuted for what he might have done, whilst others contended that he might, and cited the case of Hengham, who was fined eight hundred marks for making an alteration in a record, by which a poor defendant was to pay only six shillings and eightpence, instead of thirteen shillings and fourpence. Thus far the answer of the judges to the question was strictly proper; but the application of the fine to build a clock-house was not the least material1093; besides, that it was probably a most notorious fact to every student, upon his first attending Westminster-hall, as we find judge Southcote, so much later, in the early part of queen Elizabeth’s reign, not only mentioning the tradition, but that the clock still continued there, which had been furnished out of the Chief Justice’s fine1094. Sir Edward Coke likewise adds, that the eight hundred marks were actually entered on the roll, so that it is highly probable he had himself seen the record1095.
But we have remaining to this day some degree of evidence, not only of the existence of such a clock, but that it is of the antiquity already ascribed to it, viz. the reign of Edward I. On the side of New Palace-yard, which is opposite to Westminster-hall, and in the second pediment of the new buildings from the Thames, a dial is inserted with this remarkable motto upon it, “Discite justitiam moniti,” which seems most clearly to relate to the fine imposed on Radulphus de Hengham being applied to the paying for a clock. But it may be said that this inscription is on a dial and not upon a clock; which though it appears upon the first stating it to be a most material objection, yet I conceive it may receive the following satisfactory answer. The original clock of Edward the First’s reign was probably a very indifferent one, but from its great antiquity, and the tradition attending it, was still permitted to remain till the time of queen Elizabeth, according to the authorities already cited. After this, being quite decayed, a dial might have been substituted and placed upon the same clock-house, borrowing its very singular motto; which whether originally applied in the time of Edward I. or in later reigns, most plainly alludes to Hengham’s punishment for altering a record. It should also be mentioned that this dial seems to have been placed exactly where the clock-house stood according to Strype1096.
Mr. Norris, secretary to the Society of Antiquaries, hath been likewise so obliging as to refer me to the following instance of a very ancient clock in the same century: Anno 1292, novum orologium magnum in ecclesia (Cantuariensi), pretium 30l.1097.
I shall now produce a proof, that not only clocks but watches were made in the beginning of the fourteenth century. Seven or eight years ago, some labourers were employed at Bruce Castle, in Fifeshire, where they found a watch, together with some coin, both of which they disposed of to a shopkeeper of St. Andrews, who sent the watch to his brother in London, considering it as a curious piece of antiquity. The outer case is silver, raised in rather a handsome pattern over a ground of blue enamel; and I think I can distinguish a cypher of R. B. at each corner of the enchased work. On the dial-plate is written Robertus B. Rex Scotorum, and over it is a convex transparent horn, instead of the glasses which we use at present. Now Robertus B. Rex Scotorum can be no other king of Scotland than Robert Bruce, who began his reign in 1305, and died in 1328; for the Christian name of Baliol, who succeeded him, was Edward; nor can Robertus B. be applied to any later Scottish king. This very singular watch is not of a larger size than those which are now in common use; at which I was much surprised till I had seen several of the sixteenth century in the collection of Sir Ashton Lever and Mr. Ingham Forster, which were considerably smaller.
As I mean to deduce the progress of the art of clock-making in a regular chronological series, the next mention I find of horologia is in Rymer’s Fœdera, where there is a protection of Edward III., in the year 1368, to three Dutchmen, who were Orlogiers. The title of this protection is, “De horologiorum artificio exercendo;” and I hope to have sufficiently proved that there was no necessity of procuring mere dial-makers at this time.
Clock-makers however were really wanted at this period of the fourteenth century, as may be inferred from the following lines of Chaucer, when he speaks of a cock’s crowing: —
Full sikerer was his crowing in his loge,
As is a clock, or any abbey orloge1098:
by which, as I conceive at least, our old poet means to say, that the crowing was as certain as a bell or abbey-clock1099. For though we at present ask so often, “What is it o’clock?” meaning the time-measurer, yet I should rather suppose, that in the fourteenth century the term clock was often applied to a bell which was rung at certain periods, determined by an hour-glass or a sun-dial. Nor have I been able to stumble upon any passage which alludes to a clock, by that name, earlier than the thirteenth year of the reign of Henry VIII.1100 The abbey orloge (or clock) however must have been not uncommon when Chaucer wrote these lines; and from clocks beginning to be in use we might have had occasion for more artificers in this branch, though it should seem that we had Englishmen, who pretended at least to understand it, because the protection of Edward III. above-cited, directs that the persons to whom it was granted, should not be molested whilst they were thus employed.
I now pass on to a famous astronomical clock, made by one of our countrymen in the reign of Richard II., the account of which I have extracted from Leland. Richard of Wallingford was son of a smith, who lived at that town, and who, from his learning and ingenuity, became abbot of St. Albans. Leland, speaking of him, says, “Cum jam per amplas licebat fortunas, voluit illustri aliquo opere, non modo ingenii, verum etiam eruditionis, ac artis excellentis, miraculum ostendere. Ergo talem horologii fabricam magno labore, majore sumtu, arte vero maxima, compegit, qualem non habet tota Europa, mea opinione, secundam, sive quis cursum solis ac lunæ, seu fixa sidera notet, sive iterum maris incrementa et decrementa1101.” Richard of Wallingford wrote also a treatise on this clock, “Ne tam insignis machina vilesceret errore monachorum, aut incognito structuræ ordine silesceret.” From what hath been above stated, it appears that this astronomical clock continued to go in Leland’s time, who was born at the latter end of Henry VII.’s reign, and who speaks of a tradition, that this famous piece of mechanism was called Albion by the inventor.
Having thus endeavoured to prove that clocks were made in England from the time of Edward I. to that of Richard II., it is not essential to my principal purpose to deduce them lower through the successive reigns; but when I have shortly stated what I happened to have found with regard to this useful invention in other parts of Europe, I shall attempt to show why they were not more common in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
The citation from Dante, which I have before relied upon, shows that they were not unknown in Italy during that period; and M. Falconet, in Mémoires de Litterature, informs us, that a James Dondi, in the fourteenth century, assumed from a clock made by him for the tower of a palace, the name of Horologius, which was afterwards borne by his descendants.
In France, or what is now so called, Froissart mentions, that during the year 1332, Philip the Hardy, duke of Burgundy, removed from Courtray to his capital at Dijon a famous clock which struck the hours, and was remarkable for its mechanism1102. The great clock at Paris was put up in the year 1370, during the reign of Charles V., having been made by Charles de Wic1103 a German. Carpentier, in his supplement to Du Cange, cites a decision of the parliament of Paris in the year 1413, in which Henry Bye, one of the parties, is styled Gubernator Horologii palatii nostri Parisiis1104. About the same time also the clock at Montargis was made, with the following inscription: —
Charles le Quint (sc. de France)
Me fit par Jean de Jouvence.
The last word seems to be the name of a Frenchman.
Though I have not happened to meet with any mention of very early clocks in Germany, yet from the great clock at Paris in 1370 being the work of De Wic, as also from the protection granted by Edward III. to three clock-makers from Delft, it should seem that this part of Europe1105 was not without this useful invention; and the same may be inferred with regard to Spain from the old saying, “Estar como un relox1106.”
Having now produced instances of several clocks, and even a watch, which were made in different parts of the fourteenth century, as also having endeavoured to prove that they were not excessively uncommon even in the thirteenth, it may be thought necessary that I should account for their not being more generally used during those periods, as in their present state at least they are so very convenient. For this it should seem that many reasons may be assigned.
In the infancy of this new piece of mechanism, they were probably of a very imperfect construction, perhaps never went tolerably, and were soon deranged, whilst there was no one within a reasonable distance to put them in order. To this day the most musical people have seldom a harpsichord in their house, if the tuner cannot be procured from the neighbourhood. We find therefore that Henry VI. of England, and Charles V. of France, appointed clock-makers, with a stipend, to keep the Westminster and Paris clocks in order.
It need scarcely be observed also, that, as the artists were so few, their work must have been charged accordingly, and that kings only could be the purchasers of what was rather an expensive toy than of any considerable use. And it may perhaps be said, that they continued in a great measure to be no better than toys till the middle of the seventeenth century. Add to this, that in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, there was so little commerce, intercourse, or society, that an hour-glass, or the sun, was very sufficient for the common purposes, which are now more accurately settled by clocks of modern construction. Dials and hour-glasses likewise wanted no mending.
Having now finished what hath occurred to me with regard to the first introduction of clocks, I shall conclude by a few particulars, which I have been enabled to pick up, in relation to those more portable measurers of time, called watches, the earliest of which, except that of Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, seems to be one in Sir Ashton Lever’s most valuable museum, the date upon which is 15411107.
Derham, in his Artificial Clock-maker1108, published in 1714, mentions a watch of Henry VIII. which was still in order; and Dr. Demainbray informs me, that he hath heard both Sir Isaac Newton and Demoivre speak of this watch1109. The emperor Charles V., Henry’s contemporary, was so much pleased with these time-measurers, that he used to sit after his dinner with several of them on the table, his bottle being in the centre1110; and when he retired to the monastery of St. Just, he continued still to amuse himself with keeping them in order, which is said to have produced a reflection from him on the absurdity of his attempt to regulate the motions of the different powers of Europe.
Some of the watches used at this time seem to have been strikers; at least we find in the Memoirs of Literature, that such watches having been stolen both from Charles V. and Lewis XI. whilst they were in a crowd, the thief was detected by their striking the hour1111. In most of the more ancient watches, of which I have seen several in the collection of Sir Ashton Lever and Mr. Ingham Forster, catgut supplied the place of a chain1112, whilst they were commonly of a smaller size than we use at present, and often of an oval form1113.
From these and probably many other imperfections, they were not in any degree of general request till the latter end of queen Elizabeth’s reign. Accordingly in Shakspeare’s Twelfth Night, Malvolio says, “I frown the while, and perchance wind up my watch, or play with some rich jewel.” Again, in the first edition of Harrington’s Orlando Furioso, printed in 1591, the author is represented with what seems to be a watch, though the engraving is by no means distinct, on which is written “Il tempo passa1114.”
In the third year of James I., a watch was found upon Guy Fawkes, which he and Percy had bought the day before, “to try conclusions for the long and short burning of the touch-wood, with which he had prepared to give fire to the train of powder1115.”
In 1631, Charles I. incorporated the clock-makers; and the charter prohibits clocks, watches, and alarms, from being imported; which sufficiently proves that they were now more commonly used, as well as that we had artists of our own who were expert in this branch of business.
About the middle of the seventeenth century, Huygens made his great improvement in clock-work, which produced many others from our own countrymen1116; the latest of which was the introduction of repeating watches, in the time of Charles II., who, as I have been informed by the late lord Bathurst, sent one of the first of these new inventions to Lewis XIV. The former of these kings was very curious with regard to these time-measurers; and I have been told by an old person of the trade, that watchmakers, particularly East, used to attend whilst he was playing at the Mall; a watch being often the stake.
But we have a much more curious anecdote of royal attention to watches in Dr. Derham’s Artificial Clock-maker (p. 107). Barlow had procured a patent, in concert with the Lord Chief Justice Allebone, for repeaters; but Quare making one at the same time upon ideas he had entertained before the patent was granted, James II. tried both, and giving the preference to Quare’s, it was notified in the gazette. In the succeeding reign, the reputation of the English work in this branch was such, that in the year 1698, an act passed, obliging the makers to put their names on watches, lest discreditable ones might be sold abroad for English1117.
Letter on the pretended Watch of King Robert Bruce 1118
You will remember that I formerly mentioned something to you in reference to the observations made by the Hon. Daines Barrington, on the earliest introduction of clocks, published in the Annual Register for 1779, under the article Antiquities, p. 133. According to your desire, I will communicate what circumstances come within my personal knowledge, about a watch that corresponds very much to one described by him as once the property of king Robert Bruce. I must be indulged, although in some particulars I cannot speak with absolute certainty, as so much time hath elapsed since the transaction I am going to relate.
Being early fond of anything ancient or uncommon, I used to purchase pieces of old coin from a goldsmith who wrought privately in Glasgow, and sometimes went about as a hawker. Having often asked him from the curiosity of a boy, if he had ever been at the castle of Clackmannan, or heard of any antiquities being found there, he told me that he had purchased from Mrs. Bruce, who is the only survivor of that ancient family in the direct line, an old watch, which was found in the castle, and had an inscription, bearing, that it belonged to king Robert Bruce. I immediately asked a sight of it; but he told me it was not at hand. He fixed a time for showing me this invaluable curiosity; but even then it could not be seen. My avidity produced many anxious calls, although by that time I began to suspect he meant to play upon me, especially as I did not think it altogether credible that Mrs. Bruce would sell such a relict of her family if she had ever had it in her possession. At length I was favoured with a sight of it. The watch, as far as I can recollect, almost entirely answered the one described. It had a ground of blue enamel. It had a horn above the dial-plate instead of a glass. The inscription was on the plate. But whether it was Robertus B. or Robertus Bruce, I cannot remember. The watch was very small and neat, and ran only, to the best of my knowledge, little more than twelve hours, at least not a complete day. The Hon. Mr. Barrington does not mention anything about this circumstance. It is about twelve years since I saw it. Whether there be any castle in Fife properly called Bruce castle, I know not; but the castle of Clackmannan hath always been the residence of the eldest branch of the family; and although the town in which it stands now gives name to a small county, yet in former times, and still in common language, that whole district receives the name of Fife, as distinguishing it from the county on the other side of the firths of Forth and Tay. The first thing that occurred to me about the watch itself, was in regard to the inscription. Observing that all the coins of king Robert’s age bore Saxon characters, I could not believe the inscription to be genuine, because the characters were not properly Saxon, but a kind of rugged Roman, or rather Italic characters, like those commonly engraved, but evidently done very coarsely, to favour the imposition. He valued it at 1l. 10s., but I would have nothing to do with it. The first time I had an opportunity of seeing Mrs. Bruce of Clackmannan, after this, I asked her if such a watch had ever been found. She told me that she never so much as heard of any such thing. This confirmed the justness of my suspicion.
I paid no further regard to this story till about seven years ago, when I received a letter from a friend, informing me, that a brother of his in London, who had a taste for antiquity, had desired him, if possible, to procure some intelligence from Glasgow about a watch, said to be king Robert Bruce’s, which had thence found its way to London, and was there making a great noise among the antiquaries. I then applied to my former goldsmith, who was then in a more respectable way, and mentioned the old story. He immediately fell a-laughing, and told me, that he did it merely for a piece of diversion, and thought the story would take with me, as I had been often asking about the place. He said that it was an old watch brought from America; that, to get some sport with my credulity, he had engraved the inscription upon it in a rough, antiquated-like form; that he had afterwards sold it for two guineas; he had learned that it was next sold for five, and had never more heard of it.
However early the invention of clocks might be, I am greatly mistaken if any authentic documents can be produced of the art of making pocket-watches being discovered so early as the beginning of the fourteenth century. Lord Kaimes, somewhere in his Sketches of Man, asserts, that the first watch was made in Germany, so far as I can remember, near the close of the fifteenth century1119. If any watch had been made so early as R. Bruce’s time, it is most likely the inscription would have been in Saxon characters, as not only the money both of Scotland and England, but of Germany, in that age, bears a character either Saxon, or greatly resembling it.
Whatever ardour one feels for anything that bears the genuine marks of antiquity, it is certainly a debt he owes to those who have the same taste, to contribute anything in his power that may prevent impositions, to which antiquaries are abundantly subject, through the low humour or avarice of others; or that may tend to confirm a fact by proper comparison and minute investigation of circumstances. Besides, this is of greater moment than settling the genuineness of a coin, or many other things of the same nature, because it involves in it the date of a very important discovery. It doth not merely refer to the history of an individual, or even of one nation, but to the history of man. It respects the progress of the arts; and an anachronism here is of considerable importance, because, being established upon a supposed fact, it becomes a precedent for writers in future ages.
[The time and place at which watches were first made similar to those now in use, are not positively determined. The first step towards its accomplishment must have consisted in making a mainspring the source of motion instead of a weight1120. The invention of the fusee speedily followed the mainspring, and without it the former would be useless, in consequence of its tension varying according to the size of its coil. In the time of Elizabeth a watch was a very different kind of instrument to one of the present day. As regards size, it closely resembled one of our common dessert-plates. Before Dr. Hooke’s improvement, the performance of watches was so very irregular that they were considered as serving only to give the time for a few hours, and this in rather a random kind of way. The invention by Dr. Hooke of a spiral spring applied to the arbor of the balance, by which means effects were produced on its vibrations similar to the action of gravity on the pendulum of a clock, was perhaps of more importance than any improvement which has been subsequently made. Watches were common in France before 1544, as in that year the corporation of master clockmakers in Paris had a statute enacted to ensure to themselves the exclusive privilege of making and causing to be made clocks and watches, large or small, within the precincts of that city. The anchor-escapement was invented by Clement, a London clockmaker, in 1680. Previously to 1790, two kinds of watches were made, the vertical and the horizontal. The former was first used in clocks, then in watches. The horizontal was invented in 1724, by George Graham, F.R.S. (an apprentice of the renowned Tompion), to whom we are indebted for two of the most valuable improvements in clocks which have ever been made, viz. the dead-beat, or Graham escapement1121, as it is called, and the mercurial compensation pendulum. The best proof that can be adduced of the importance of these inventions is, that they still continue to be employed in all their early simplicity, in the construction of the best astronomical clocks of the present day. Graham’s horizontal escapement is still extensively employed in the Swiss and Geneva watches, but in the better sort of those of English manufacture, it has been superseded by the duplex, and recently by the lever, which is nothing more than the application of Graham’s dead-beat escapement to the watch, though patents have been taken out by various persons who have claimed the invention. The most remarkable inventions of this period were those of Harrison, consisting of his gridiron pendulum, the going fusee, the compensation curb, and the remontoir escapement. In 1736, he appears to have completed his longitude watch, and received from the Royal Society their gold medal; he ultimately received the government reward of £20,000, together with other sums from the Board of Longitude and the Honourable East India Company. Notwithstanding his application of the compensation curb to the watch, it was still a subject of inquiry, and by many persons it was thought that the expansion and contraction of the metal, of which the spring is composed, was the source of variation in the equality of its motion under changes of temperature; but the consideration that the change of rate in the clock, with a seconds pendulum, in passing from the winter to the summer temperature, amounted only to about twenty seconds, while that of the watch exceeded six minutes and a half under similar circumstances, led careful observers to infer that some other cause must be assigned for the anomaly, and the loss of elasticity of the balance-spring by heat began to be suspected, as appears by the following passage in the Prize Essay of Daniel Bernoulli, read before the French Academy: – “I must not omit (said this celebrated geometrician) a circumstance which may be prejudicial to balance watches; it is, that experimental philosophers pretend to have remarked that certain changes of elastic force uniformly follow changes of temperature. If that be the case, the spring can never uniformly govern the balance.” That which Bernoulli only conjectured, was in 1773 established as a matter of certainty, and the amount in loss of time due to each of the three conjointly operating causes determined by Berthoud to be, – loss by expansion of the balance, 62 seconds; loss by elongation of the balance-spring, 19 seconds; and loss by the diminution of the spring’s elastic force by heat, 312 seconds, by an increase of 60° of heat of Fahrenheit’s scale. We have previously observed that Harrison’s compensation curb was inefficient, as besides other defects, it interfered too much with the isochronism of the balance-spring, as the inventor himself was candid enough to confess that the balance, balance-spring, and compensation curb, were not contemporaneously affected by changes of temperature, since small pieces of metal were sooner affected than large, and those in motion before those at rest. Whence he was led to conclude, that if the provision for heat and cold could properly reside in the balance itself, as was the case with his gridiron pendulum clocks, the time-piece might be made much more perfect. This ingenuous observation is the more to Harrison’s credit, as it was certainly his interest to conceal such a suggestion, being at that time a candidate for the government reward. The complexity of Harrison’s timekeeper and the high price, £400, demanded by Kendall to make them after that model, still left the timekeeper to be discovered that would come within the means of purchase of private individuals: for admirably as Harrison had succeeded in the construction of those which had procured him his reward, and great as were the talents of his assistant Larcum Kendall, yet for practical purposes, there needed an instrument of greater simplicity, and to John Arnold we are indebted for its invention.
Arnold is also celebrated for the manufacture of the smallest repeating-watch ever known: it was made for his majesty George III., to whom it was presented on his birthday, the 4th of June 1764. Although less than six-tenths of an inch in diameter, it was perfect in all its parts, repeated the hours, quarters and half-quarters, and contained the first ruby cylinder ever made. Indeed so novel was the construction of this little specimen of mechanical skill, that he was forced not only to form the design and execute the work himself, but also to manufacture the greater part of the tools employed in its construction. It is minutely described in Rees’s Cyclopædia, and also in the Sporting Magazine of that time, in which latter work it is correctly stated to be of the size of a silver twopence, and its weight that of a sixpence. The King was so much pleased with this rare specimen of mechanical skill, that he presented Mr. Arnold with 500 guineas; and the Emperor of Russia afterwards offered Mr. Arnold 1000 guineas for a duplicate of it, which he declined.
Arnold’s model, though destined to perform the same office as Harrison’s, was entirely different in its construction, and was as simple as his predecessor’s was complex. By progressive stages of improvement, it was brought by the inventor himself to so high a point of perfection, that it continues to be the model followed in the construction of the best chronometers of the present day. The instruments upon which Arnold experimented are now in the possession of his successor, Mr. C. Frodsham, and show the gradual progress of advancement made in the escapement, &c., until he arrived at that beautiful, yet simple, detached escapement, which is still followed, and known under the name of the Arnold escapement. He was the first watchmaker who introduced jewelling into watches and clocks, and in 1771 he applied ruby pallets to the two clocks of the Royal Society by Graham and Smeaton, and likewise to the transit clock by Graham at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. In 1776 Arnold achieved what was unquestionably his greatest work, viz. the invention of the cylindrical spring and compensation balance, and their application in the chronometer, which is the name that Arnold then first employed to designate his timekeepers. This ingenious and valuable discovery introduced a new æra in chronometry. Each part of the machine under the new arrangement performed unchecked the office assigned to it. The escapement was completely detached, except at the moment of discharge and giving impulse; the balance-spring, no longer interfered with in corrections for temperature (as formerly) by the compensating curb, became a free agent and the generator of motion, in which state only it is capable of being perfectly isochronized; the balance, by its expansion and contraction, varied its inertia according to the varied tension of the balance-spring by its increased or diminished elastic force in changes of temperature, while the office of the main-spring was reduced to that of a simple maintaining power. This beautiful discovery, together with the law of isochronism and other important improvements in the modification of the compensation balance, procured for him and his son John Roger Arnold the reward from government of the sum of £3000. The accuracy with which chronometers keep time is truly astonishing: in 1830 two chronometers constructed by Mr. Charles Frodsham were submitted for public trial at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, for twelve months, and were observed daily. One of them made an extreme variation of 86-hundredth parts of a second, and the other of 57-hundredths only; but even this degree of accuracy, surprising as it is, is surpassed by the performance of his best astronomical clocks. It is therefore highly honourable to the English artists, that by their ingenuity and skill they have accomplished the great object which had occupied the attention of the learned of Europe for nearly 300 years, namely, the means of discovering the longitude at sea. It is not a little singular that Sir Isaac Newton suggested the discovery of the longitude by the aid of an accurate timekeeper.