From the fact that a clock-keeper was employed at St. Paul's, London, in 1286, it is presumed that there must have been a clock, but we have not been able to discover any details respecting it. There was a clock at Westminster in 1290, and two years later £30 was paid for a large clock put up at Canterbury Cathedral. Thirty pounds represented a large sum of money in the year 1292. About 1326 an astronomical clock was erected at St. Albans. It was the work of Richard de Wallingford, a blacksmith's son of the town, who rose to the position of Abbot there. In the earlier half of the fourteenth century are traces of numerous other clocks in England. According to Haydn's "Dictionary of Dates," in the year 1530 the first portable clock was made. This statement does not agree with a writer in "Chambers's Encyclopædia" (edition 1890). "The date," we are told in that work, "when portable clocks were first made, cannot be determined. They are mentioned in the beginning of the fourteenth century. The motive power must have been a mainspring instead of a weight. The Society of Antiquaries of England possess one, with the inscription in Bohemian that it was made at Prague, by Jacob Zech, in 1525. It has a spring for motive power, with fusee, and is one of the oldest portable clocks in a perfect state in England." It is asserted that no clock in this country went accurately before the one was erected at Hampton Court, in 1540. Shakespeare, in his _Love's Labour's Lost_, gives us an idea of the unsatisfactory manner clocks kept time in the days of old. He says:-- ... "Like a German clock, Still a-repairing; ever out of frame; And never going aright." Coming down to later times, we may give a few particulars of the difficulty of ascertaining the time in the country in the earlier years of the last century. [Illustration: CLOCK, HAMPTON COURT PALACE.]