The Old Furniture Book, with a Sketch of Past Days and WaysMoore, N. Hudson
History
The Old Furniture Book, with a Sketch of Past Days and Ways
Moore, N. Hudson
Furniture
The portable or table clock came into use early in 1600, and one of
them shown in Figure 95 has the oval top to the dial which was not
in use till the last part of the seventeenth century. These were the
common house clocks of the period and were easily carried about. Some
found their way to America, and as they were well made, with brass
works, they are still able to give correct time. This style of clock
was made for many years, and was manufactured in substantially the same
way, late in the eighteenth century, by such famous makers as Isaac Fox
and Joseph Rose.
Samuel Pepys, who recorded everything that was going on in London, in
July 28th, 1660, has this entry.
"To Westminster, and there met Mr. Henson, who had formerly had
the brave clock that went with bullets, (which is now taken away
from him by the King, it being his goods)."
In the "Gentlemen's Magazine" for 1785 is the following comment on this
statement of Pepys.
"Some clocks are still made with a small ball, or bullet on an
inclined plane, which turns every minute."
The King's clocks probably dropped bullets. Gainsborough, the painter,
had a brother who was a dissenting minister at Henley-on-Thames and
possessed a strong genius for mechanics. He invented a clock of very
peculiar construction, which after his death was deposited in the
British Museum. It told the hour by a little bell, and was kept in
motion by a leaden bullet which dropped, from a spiral reservoir at the
top of the clock, into a little ivory bucket. This was so contrived
as to discharge it at the bottom, and by means of a counterweight was
carried up to the top of the clock, where it received another bullet,
which was discharged as the former. This seems to have been an attempt
at perpetual motion.
Catherine of Braganza was responsible for introducing many luxuries to
the English world. Pepys makes this mention of her clock in 1664.
"Mr. Pierce showed me the Queen's [the Portuguese Princess, wife
of Charles II] bed-chamber ... and her holy water at her head as
she sleeps, with a clock by her bedside, wherein a lamp burns that
tells her the time of the night at any time."
Pepys speaks again in 1667 of going to see--
--"a piece of clocke-worke made by an Englishman--indeed very
good, wherein all the several states of man's age to one hundred
years old, is shown very pretty and solemne."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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