Mr Justice Shallow is reminded of the mad days of his London youth, he very aptly associates them with the Bacchanalian memories which Falstaff appeals to,--'We have heard the chimes at midnight.' To have lived 'where bells have knoll'd to church' was according to Shakspeare to have been blessed by humanizing influences comparable with those produced by having-- 'Sat at good men's feasts, and wiped our eyes Of drops that sacred pity has engendered.' Cowper can find no better words to describe the utter desolation of the island where the shipwrecked Selkirk bemoaned his absolute solitude 'out of humanity's reach,' than by putting into his mouth the language-- 'But the sound of a church-going bell These valleys and rocks never heard, Never sigh'd at the sound of a knell, Nor smiled when a Sabbath appear'd.' In our everyday experience we can each testify to the truthfulness of the poet who points to the close association which exists in most minds between the church clock and the varying times and seasons, with their different joys and sorrows, and we can most of us say, with Southey,-- 'I love the bell that calls the poor to pray, Chiming from village church its cheerful sound, When the sun smiles on labour's holy-day And all the rustic train are gather'd round, Each deftly dizen'd in his Sunday's best, And pleased to hail the day of piety and rest. And when, dim shadowing o'er the face of day, The mantling mists of eventide rise slow, As through the forest gloom I wend my way, The minster curfew's sullen voice I know, And pause, and love its solemn toll to hear, As made by distance soft it dies upon the ear.' It is but a short step from the sentimental consideration of such reminiscences to the practical inquiry how is the public time kept, and yet it is one which probably is seldom taken with a view to more or less thorough investigation. Without traversing the distance which divides us from that antique time when Archimedes measured the shadows of the Pyramids by his walking-stick, or when the 'dial of Ahaz' was constructed as one of the first of historical time-measurers, we can discover the principles upon which an instrument such as a thoroughly serviceable public clock of the present time, with all the newest improvements both in time-keeping and in wearing qualities, should be produced.