Friar Bacon's Brazen Head.
The most famous of all the brazen heads was that of Roger Bacon, a monk of the thirteenth century. According to the legend, he spent seven years in constructing the head, and he expected to be told by it how he could make a wall of brass around the island of Great Britain. The head was warranted to speak within a month after it was finished, but no particular time was named for its doing so. Bacon's man was therefore set to watch, with orders to call his master if the head should speak. At the end of half an hour after the man was left alone with the head, he heard it say, "Time is," at the expiration of another half hour, "Time was," and at the end of a third half hour, "Time's past," when it fell down with a loud crash, and was shivered to pieces; but the stupid servant neglected to awaken his master, thinking that he would be very angry to be disturbed for such trifles: and so the wall of brass has never been built.