The knowledge of what manner of man was this old Scottish clockmaker adds a pleasure to the contemplation of his work. At the Guelph Exhibition were shown a clock and alarum watch with single hand, dated 1636, signed _D. Ramsay_. This was on the eve of the Civil War, a year before Hampden refused to pay ship money in England and the introduction of a new Prayer Book in Scotland. But the Prayer Book was no sooner opened at St. Giles's, Edinburgh, than a murmur ran through the congregation, and the murmur soon grew into a formidable riot. The Covenant signed in the churchyard of the Greyfriars at Edinburgh set a flame alight throughout Scotland. "Such was the zeal of subscribers that for a while many subscribed with tears on their cheeks"--some were indeed reputed to have "drawn their own blood and used it in place of ink to underwrite their names." In such times old David Ramsay, away in the South, saw Stuart magnificence come to a close. At the British Museum is a watch he signs "_David Ramsay, Scotus me fecit_." In signing thus, he shows he was proud of being a Scotsman, and as a great Scottish clockmaker his name and record are given the place of honour at the front of this sketch of Scottish work. His watches are richly decorated in the French style; doubtless he learned his craft in France. His last years were passed in the stormy period of the Revolution, and he lived to see Cromwell and the Roundheads defeat Leslie at Dunbar. He died in Holborn in 1654, the year of the union of England and Scotland under Cromwell by Ordinance. =Some Early "Knokmakers."=--A clock in Scottish is a _knok_. It would appear that the early "knokmakers" were more conversant with the Kirk knok, the Tolbooth knok, and the College knok, than with the domestic clock or watch. In the middle of the seventeenth century, as in England at a slightly previous date, clockmakers formed themselves into trade guilds. London was incorporated in 1631. Edinburgh followed in 1646, Glasgow, 1649, Haddington, 1753, and Aberdeen not till 1800. The metal-workers of Scotland have always been renowned, and at the above dates clockmakers were eligible to enter the Hammermen's Incorporations as affiliated with the craft of locksmith, which was of ancient lineage. During the seventeenth century the Scottish clockmakers, in common with English, came under foreign inspiration. But the eighteenth century saw a complete school of makers springing up in various parts of the country, flowing to, and again flowing from, Edinburgh and the Canongate (including Leith), which were the earliest centres of Scottish clockmaking. [Illustration: BRASS LANTERN CLOCK. With brass dial and fine fretwork. Inscribed "Humphry Mills at Edinburgh Fecit." Date, about 1670. (_In the Glasgow Museum. Reproduced by permission of the Glasgow Corporation._)]