The term "dial" is a survival of the word "sundial." Like all innovations, there may have been those who preferred the old character, or it may have been left to Charles Lamb, lover of past and faded memories, to ruminate on garden gods in the Temple: "What an antique air had the now almost effaced sundials, with their moral inscriptions, seeming coevals with that Time which they measured, and to take their revelations of its flight immediately from heaven, holding correspondence with the fountain of light.... The shepherd, 'carved it out quaintly in the sun,' and turning philosopher by the very occupation, provided it with mottoes more touching than tombstones." Elia, Shakespearean scholar that he was, could not have forgotten the melancholy Jaques with his:-- I met a fool i' the forest, A motley fool; a miserable world! As I do live by food, I met a fool; Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun, And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms, In good set terms and yet a motley fool. "Good morrow, fool," quoth I. "No, sir," quoth he, "Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune": And then he drew a dial from his poke, And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says very wisely: "It is ten o'clock: Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the world wags: 'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, And after one hour more 'twill be eleven; And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale." [Illustration: ENLARGEMENT OF DIAL. Showing maker's name, John Bushman, London. About 1680. From lantern clock illustrated as Frontispiece.] [Illustration: ENLARGEMENT OF DIAL. Showing maker's name, Hen. Massy, London, and square dial indicating date of month. About 1680. From long-case clock illustrated p. 159.] It is not probable that the "fool i' the forest" drew from his pocket a sundial; it was, no doubt, a pocket-clock, or, in other words, a watch. The art of dial-making is a subtle one. It is true that some are pleasing in their balance and others are displeasing, which sets us wondering what rules there are to govern the symmetrical arrangement of circles and figures and their co-related hands. There is an air of solemn grandeur about a fine dial; its dignity is as unruffled as the march of Time itself. The old masters of dial construction had the art of spacing as completely under control as had Caxton the great typographer in the balance of his printed page.