They belong to a world apart. Clocks of old masters still carry on their functions: the hand still revolves in unison with the slow swing of the "royal pendulum." As timekeepers they equal most of the modern, and excel the cheap clock, hardly worth designating as a timekeeper. But the Swiss and the American factory-made watch, claiming no equality of artistic embellishment, have dethroned the antique watch in regard to accuracy. Curious and rare examples of the latter crowd the shelves of museums as being representative of that mysterious past when Time was of less moment than it is now. They belong to the age of the missal and the illuminated manuscript, and of the advent of printing with Caxton's well-balanced page. They are at variance with modernity. They were machines before the age of machinery--their very mechanism protests against being regarded as scientifically accurate. One lingers over their ornament with loving regard and forgets their purport. As timekeepers they fell short of the abbey clock, or of the sundial--a perennial stickler for truth when the sun shone. When the long pendulum, under the auspices of Christopher Huygens, commenced swinging, a timekeeper ready to hand eclipsed their gold and enamelled triumphs. But as fashionable baubles they had their continuous evolution, from Thomas Chamberlaine de Chelmisforde to Pinchbeck, and from Tompion to Eardley Norton. A considerable amount of ingenuity was given to producing examples of diminutive size which should perform adequately the correct functions of a timekeeper. But accuracy and scientific exactitude came late in the story of evolution. At length man's ingenuity triumphed. There are watches no larger than filberts which keep exact time, but there are thousands which do not. [Illustration: OLD ENGLISH WATCHES. SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. I. Elizabethan Watch, with carved and repoussé open-work design. II. James I Watch. Dated 1620. Maker, Yate (London). III. Cromwellian Plum-shaped Silver Watch, with crest engraved on case. IV. Charles II Watch. 1660. Made by Snow of Lavington (near Bath). V. William III Watch. Maker, Thomas Tompion. About 1690. (_By courtesy of Percy Webster, Esq._)] The last popular watch, which our grandfathers termed a "turnip," was the stage prior to modern development, and at that stage collecting ends. A scientific classification of watches would resolve itself under the following heads:-- I. _Early watches_, prior to the invention and general adoption of the fusee, that is, from about 1500 to 1540. This period would be further subdivided into (_a_) those with movements entirely of steel; (_b_) the next stage, with plates and pinions of brass and the wheels and pinions of steel; and the latest stage, (_c_), in which the plates and wheels were brass and the pinions of steel, as at the present day.