The Lauder family, of Grange and Fountain Hall, possess the Memento Mori Watch there engraved, they having inherited it from their ancestors, the Setoun family. It was given by Queen Mary to Mary Setoun, of the house of Wintoun, one of the four Marys, maids of honour to the Scottish Queen. This very curious relic must have been intended to be placed on a prie-dieu, or small altar, in a private oratory; for it is too heavy to have been carried in any way attached to the person. The watch is of the form of a skull: on the forehead is the figure of Death, standing between a palace and a cottage; around is this legend from Horace: 'Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regumque turres.' On the hind part of the skull is a figure of Time, with another legend from Horace: 'Tempus edax rerum tuque invidiosa vetustas.' The upper part of the skull bears representations of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, and of the Crucifixion, each with Latin legends; and between these scenes is open-work, to let out the sound when the watch strikes the hours upon a small silver bell, which fills the hollow of the skull, and receives the works within it when the watch is shut.
Old English Calendar Watch.
'Memento Mori' Watch belonging to Mary Queen of Scots.
Nor about this time was the opportunity omitted of inculcating by means of pictorial watch illustrations, that Scriptural knowledge which was in the less educated times not so much taught by books as by pictures. The watch case given on the following page is of about 1600. It is obviously of English workmanship, and is a fair specimen of the period,—it may be, indeed, that, looking at it, one may well doubt whether art has much advanced in watch-ornamentation during the last 270 years or so.
We give our next illustration as another example of an ancient Table Watch. This watch has a revolving dial at the top, by means of which and the fixed point or hand the time is indicated (page 46).
