The first clock at Bologna was put up in the year 1356. Some time after the year 1364, Charles V., surnamed the Wise, King of France, caused a clock to be placed in the tower of his palace, by Henry de Wyck, whom he had invited from Germany for the purpose, because there was then at Paris no artist of that kind, and to whom he assigned a salary of six sols per diem, with free lodgings in the Tower. Towards the end of that century, probably about the year 1370, Strasburg had a clock. About the same period, Courtray was celebrated for its clock, which the Duke of Burgundy carried away, A. D. 1382. A public clock was erected in the Altburg gate at Spire, in 1395, the works of which cost fifty-one florins. The greater part of the principal cities of Europe, however, at this period, had clocks without striking. Clocks could not be procured but at a very great expense: of this, an instance occurred in the city of Auxerre, in the year 1483, when the magistrates being desirous of a clock, but discovering that it would cost more money than they thought themselves justified in expending on their own authority, applied to the Emperor Charles VIII. for leave to employ a portion of the public funds for that purpose. In 1462, a public clock was put up in the church of the Virgin Mary at Nuremberg. At Venice a public clock was put in the year 1497. In the same century an excellent clock was put up for Cosmo de Medici, by Lorenzo, a Florentine. Having thus mentioned their origin in various places, until they came to ornament the religious houses, the palaces of kings, and the chief European cities, it now remains for us to take some notice of their existence in our own country for public use. From public documents still extant, it appears that so great was their expense considered in those early times of their introduction, that it was only the powerful and the rich who could procure them. We discover that the first clock for public and lay purposes in England was one erected on the north side of Old Palace Yard, Westminster, on which was this inscription, _Discite justitiam moniti_; which inscription is said to have been preserved many years after the clock-house had been decayed. It is asserted that this clock was placed in that situation, for the purpose of being heard by the members of the courts of law; and the occasion which produced its existence is thus recorded. It was the produce of a fine levied upon the lord chief justice of the court of King’s Bench, in the reign of Edward I. A. D. 1288, of whom it appears by a book called the “Year-Book,” that this magistrate had been fined 800 marks for making an alteration in a record, wherein a defendant had been fined 13_s._ 4_d._, and he, the chief justice, made it appear to be 6_s._ 8_d._ instead of that, the larger sum.