This is the reason why the Bishop of Sodor and Man is not a Lord of Parliament, as none can have suffrage in the house of Peers who do not hold immediately of the King himself. THE TABLE. The form of a half-moon for a table is of very ancient date; the Romans called it the _Sigma_, from its resemblance to the Greek letter so called, which was in the time of the Roman Emperors like the letter C. Martial tells us this sort of table admitted but of seven persons, _septem sigma capit_. And Lampridius, in his life of Heliogabalus, mentions it very frequently, and says it was for seven only; he tells us the Emperor once invited eight, on purpose to raise a laugh against the person for whom there would be no seat. The same form of a table continued in after ages. The authors of the life of St. Martin say, that the Emperor Maximus invited him to a repast, where the table had the form of a sigma; and again in the lower ages, Sidonius Apollinaris speaks of the same thing in the life of the Emperor Majorianus; and it is likewise represented in a manuscript of the fifth or sixth century. The seat itself was only a common bench or form; the sigma was the principal piece of furniture, and most ornamented. In the time of Homer the guests sat round the table, as we do now, but afterwards some nations adopted the custom of a reclining position at their meals. CLOCKS. The first Clock we know of in this Country was put up in an old tower of Westminster Hall, in the year 1288, and in 1292, there was one in the Cathedral of Canterbury. These were probably of foreign workmanship; and it may be doubted, if there was at that time any person who followed the business of making clocks. There was, however, one very ingenious artist, Richard of Wallingford, Abbot of St. Albans, who constructed a clock which represented the motions of the sun, moon, and stars, and the ebbing and flowing of the sea. That this wonderful piece of mechanism might be of permanent utility to his Abbey, he composed a book of directions for the management of it. And Leland who appears to have seen it, says, that in his opinion all Europe could not produce such another.