Before concluding, and to do justice to a century to which we have assigned a period of decline, we are bound to acknowledge that some years before the death of Cardinal Richelieu--that is to say, from 1630 to 1640--artists of ability made praiseworthy efforts to create a new era in horology. But the improvements they had in view were directed much more to the processes of the construction of the several parts composing the clockwork of watches and clocks than to the beauty and ingenuity of the workmanship. This was progress of a purely professional character, in order to create a more ready and inexpensive supply; a progress which we may regard as services rendered by art to trade. The period of great constructions and delicate marvels was past. Ornamental _Jacquemarts_ were no longer placed in belfries. Mechanical _chefs-d’œuvre_ were no longer set in frail gems. The time was still far off when, laying down the sceptre of that empire on which “the sun never sets,” the conqueror of Francis I., retiring to a cloister, employed himself in the construction of the most complicated clockwork. Charles V. had as assistant, if not as teacher, in his work the learned mathematician, Jannellus Turianus, whom he had induced to join him in his retreat. It is said that he enjoyed nothing so much as seeing the monks of Saint-Just standing amazed before his alarum watches and automaton clocks; but it is also stated that he manifested the greatest despair when obliged to admit it was as impossible to establish perfect concord among clocks as among men. In truth, Galileo had not yet arrived to observe and formulate the laws of the pendulum, which Huygens was happily to apply to the movements of horology. [Illustration: Fig. 153.--Top of an Hour-Glass, engraved and gilt. (A French Work of the Sixteenth Century.)] MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. Music in the Middle Ages.--Musical Instruments from the Fourth to the Thirteenth Century.--Wind Instruments: the Single and Double Flute, the Pandean Pipes, the Reed-pipe, the Hautboy, the Flageolet, Trumpets, Horns, _Olifants_, the Hydraulic Organ, the Bellows-Organ.--Instruments of Percussion: the Bell, the Hand-bell, Cymbals, the Timbrel, the Triangle, the _Bombulum_, Drums.--Stringed Instruments: the Lyre, the Cithern, the Harp, the Psaltery, the _Nable_, the _Chorus_, the _Organistrum_, the Lute and the Guitar, the _Crout_, the _Rote_, the Viola, the _Gigue_, the Monochord. The history of Music in the Middle Ages would commence about the fourth century of our era. In the sixth century, Isidore of Seville, in his “Sentiments sur la Musique,” writes as follows:--“Music is a modulation of the voice, and also an accordance of several sounds and their simultaneous union.”