Ingenious, however, as are the quasi-religious automata above mentioned, how inferior are they in human interest when compared with the time-piece possessed by Mrs. Forester at Great Brickhill, Bucks, "the identical clock which was at Whitehall at the time of the execution of Charles I., and by which the fatal moment was regulated." At that period (the seventeenth century), there was a great taste for striking-clocks. "Several of them, made by Thomas Tompion, who invented many useful things in clock-work, not only struck the quarters on eight bells, but also the hour after each quarter. At twelve o'clock, forty-four blows were struck, and one hundred and thirteen between twelve and one o'clock. Failures in the striking mechanism of these clocks were attended with much annoyance to the owners of them, for they would go on striking without cessation until the weight or spring had gone down, and they were frequently contrived to go for a month.
In 1696, a very remarkable clock was made for "Le Grand Monarque," whom science as well as literature, it seems, delighted to flatter. Louis was therein represented upon his throne, surrounded by the electors of the German states and the princes of Italy, who advanced toward him doing homage, and retired chiming the quarters of the hours with their canes. The kings of Europe did the same, except that they struck the hours instead of the quarters. The maker, Burdeau, advertised his intention of exhibiting this work of art in public, and knowing the stubborn resistance offered to his sovereign by William III., be determined to make the English monarch's effigy particularly pliant, so that when its turn came he should show an especial humility. "William, thus compelled, bowed very low indeed; but, at the same moment, some part of the machinery snapped asunder, and threw 'Le Grand Monarque' prostrate from his chair at the feet of the British king. The news of the accident spread in every direction as an omen; the king was informed of it, and poor Burdeau was confined in the Bastille."
Clock-omens, it seems, have not been confined to the work of this unfortunate Frenchman, "A correspondent of Notes and Queries" for March 28, 1861, relates the following account of a curious omen or coincidence: 'On Wednesday night, or rather Thursday morning, at three o'clock, the inhabitants of the metropolis were roused by repeated strokes of the new great bell at Westminster, and most persons supposed it was for a death in the royal family. There might have been about twenty slow strokes when it ceased. It proved, however, to be due to some derangement of the clock, for at four and five o'clock, ten or twelve strokes were struck instead of the proper number. On mentioning this in the morning to a friend who is deep in London antiquities, he observed that there is an opinion in the city that anything the matter with St. Paul's great bell is an omen of ill to the royal family; and he added: "I hope the opinion will not extend to the Westminster bell." This was at eleven on Friday morning. I see by the Times this morning, that it was not till 1 A.M. the lamented Duchess of Kent was considered in the least danger, and, as you are aware, she expired in less than twenty-four hours. ... I am told the same notion obtains at Windsor.'"
A century after Burdeau's masterpiece, a much more useful work, and one perhaps equally characteristic of the nationality of its maker, was executed for George III. by Alexander Cumming, of Edinburgh, which registered the height of the barometer. "This was effected by a circular card, of about two feet in diameter, being made to turn once in a year, the card was divided by radii lines into three hundred and sixty-five divisions, the months and days being marked round the edge, while the usual range of the barometer was indicated in inches and tenths by circular lines described from the centre. A pencil, with a fine point pressed on the card by a spring, and held by an upright rod floating on the mercury, accurately marked the state of the barometer; the card, being carried forward by the clock, brought each day to the pencil. It was not even necessary to change the card at the year's end, as a pencil with a different-colored lead would make a distinction between two years. This barometer-clock cost nearly two thousand pounds, and the maker was allowed a salary of two hundred pounds per annum to keep it in repair."
Taking leave of these ingenious complications, we may say indeed that in nothing has "man sought out many inventions," or exhibited his diligence and patience, more than in the science of clockmaking. Earth, air, fire, and water have been pressed into his service for his purpose; the sand or earth clock being worked like the water-clock; the air-clock consisting in the pumping of a bellows, like those of an organ, the gradual escape of the air regulating the descent of a weight, which carried round the wheels; and the fire-clock being formed upon the principle of the smoke-jack, the "wheels being moved by means of a lamp, which also gave light to the dial; this clock was made to announce the several hours by placing at each a corresponding number of crackers, which were exploded at proper times." This very alarming time-piece was outdone by a cannon-clock placed in 1832 in the gardens of the Palais-Royal. "A burning-glass was fixed over the vent of a cannon, so that the sun's rays at the moment of its passing the meridian were contracted by the glass on the priming, and the piece was fired; the burning-glass being regulated for this purpose every month." At Greenwich Observatory there is a most ingenious wind-clock, which, however, is not a time-measurer, but registers for itself, with pencil and paper, the wayward action of the wind. "Each minute and each hour has its written record, without human help or inspection. Once a day only, an assistant comes to put a new blank sheet in the place of that which has been covered by the moving pencils, and the latter is taken away to be bound up in a volume. This book might with truth be lettered, The History of the Wind; written by Itself: an AEolian Autobiography."
The well-known and simple piece of mechanism called a cuckoo-clock has been the cause of some spiritual mischief. An assortment of them was taken by certain missionaries to the Friendly Islands, the inhabitants of which resolutely refused to attribute them to science; they believed that each contained a spirit, which would detect a thief if anything were stolen from their English visitors. When a native was sick, a cuckoo-clock was always sent for, as being "great medicine." Unfortunately, however, one of the clocks got out of order, and since the missionaries did not understand how to set it right, they fell into contempt, and lost their usefulness.
The two most curious examples of clock-work—apart from intricacy—to which Mr. Wood has introduced us are the clock-lock and the clock-bed. The former, made by a locksmith of Frankfort in 1859, consisted of a strong box without any keyhole at all, and which even its owner could not open. Inside was a clock-work, the hand of which, when the box was open, the owner placed at the hour and minute when he again wanted to have access to the interior of the box. The works began to move as soon as the lid was shut, and time alone was the key. The clock-bed was the invention of a Bohemian in 1858, and was so constructed that a pressure upon it caused a soft and gentle air of Auber's to be played, which continued long enough to lull to sleep the most wakeful. At the head was a clock, the hand of which being placed at the hour that the sleeper wished to rise, when the time arrived the bed played a march of Spontoni's (spontaneously) with drums and cymbals, enough to rouse the Seven Sleepers.
The great time-piece of Westminster, which receives Greenwich time by electricity, exhibits no sensible error in less than a month. Mr. Airy's last report upon its rate was that the first blow of the hour may be relied on within less than one second a week; which is a seven times greater accuracy than was required in the original conditions under which the clock was built.