which has this day been inaugurated. The first stone was laid in August, 1852, on the lawn belonging to the Royal Dublin Society's House, the situation of which will explain the somewhat incongruous shape of the entire structure, as shown in the ground plan. The following brief particulars will suffice to explain the situation of the edifice and its principal contents.

The main portion of the building forms nearly a square, presenting a frontage of 405 feet, and a depth of 425; this is divided into five large halls, the central one being a noble compartment of 425 feet in length, by 100 feet in breadth, and 104 feet in height. The great semicircular roof is supported by trellis ribs, constructed of timber, and rests on cast-iron

THE TOWER CLOCK OF THE CLOCKS entirely constructed by the laws of mechanics only date from the tenth century.

It is true that several historians relate that the celebrated Haroon-el-Rasheed, caliph of the Abassides, once sent Charlemagne some very valuable presents, among which was an inlaid brass and bronze time-piece, on which a great many allegorical figures were moved by wheel-work; but then this machine, which was very wonderful for the times, was nothing else but a clepsydra, or water-clock, its motive power being formed by falling water, which was renewed, at least, once a day. It is also related that about the middle of the ninth century, Pacificus, Archbishop of Verona, made a magnificent timepiece, which marked, besides the hours, the day of the month, the days of the week, the rising and setting of the sun, the signs of the zodiac, &c. It is, however, very probable that this machine was moved like the one of the successor of the Prophet, by hydraulic force, thus being merely a clepsydra, and not a time-piece constructed by the laws of mechanics.

If we are to believe Haften, Moreri, Marlet, President Hé. nault, and Les Annales Bénédictines, Jerbert (Pope Sylvester II.) invented the first time-piece which went without the aid of water, by means of a compact mass of lead, brass, or iron, suspended by a cord to the first wheel of the works, and which, by communicating with a series of wheels working into each other, set the regulator, that is, the escapement, in motion. In the eleventh century, no mechanism had, as yet, been invented to make time-pieces strike; it is, however, certain that the means by which to make them do so was known at the beginning of the twelfth century. The first mention made of clocks furnished with a striking-part is to be found in "Les Usages de l'ordre de Cîteaux," in which book, compiled about 1120, the sacristan is enjoined so to regulate the clock that it may strike and wake him up before the matins. In another passage of the same book, the monks are ordered to continue reading until the clock strikes.

columns, 45 feet in height; on either side are two compartments of 25 feet in width, running the whole length of the building; adjoining these are two Halls of 325 feet in length by 50 in width, with semicircular roofs 65 feet in height. These Halls are separated by compartments of 25 feet in width, on one side from the Machinery Court, a fine Hall of 450 feet in length by 50 in breadth; and on the other from the Fine Arts Hall, 325 by 40 feet. In addition to these, the Fore Court of the Dublin Society's House is surrounded by a large building 300 feet in length and 55 in breadth, being connected with the main building by a Court for Agricultural Machinery, 250 feet by 40 feet on one side; and on the other, by a Corridor leading into the Machinery Court.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, clocks worthy of notice as monumental objects already existed in Germany, in Italy, and in many parts of France; but Paris, the capital of the kingdom, and where the fine arts, the sciences, and manufactures had made such progress, did not possess, in 1380, a single public clock. It is, however, right to mention, that a few sun-dials, rudely traced upon the walls, pointed out the hour to the passers-by; but then this could only be done when the sun was not hidden by atmospheric vapours. It is also true that hour-glasses and clepsydras of more or less costly manufacture were found in most houses; but these machines, which bore a strong resemblance to those used by the Romans in the time of Augustus, were incapable of measuring time with anything like precision. It is, in fact, very probable that when one of these machines marked twelve, another marked two o'clock, when it was really but ten in the morning.

In the fourteenth century, however, a few small clocks furnished with weights were seen in the mansions of the aristocracy; but they were nothing more than curiosities, for they did not mark the hour with any more precision than did the hour-glasses and clepsydras.

Charles the Fifth of France, who well deserved the appellation of the Wise, neglected nothing which might prove useful to the inhabitants of his good city of Paris, and he, therefore, bethought himself of having a clock constructed, and placed in the tower of his palace, so that the public might know the hour both day and night. But as there was no mechanician skilful enough in Paris to undertake such a work, the king sent to Germany for Henry de Wyck, a celebrated clockmaker, with whom he made an agreement for the construction and erection of the precious machine.

The German artist, say the Memoirs of the times, had apartments assigned him in the tower where the clock was to be placed, and he received six sous a day from the king for eight consecutive years-that being the time it took him to execute his work.

Jean Jounence, a celebrated bell-founder, received the order to cast the bell against which the hammer of the clock was to strike the hours; and the clock itself, which, two centuries later, gave the signal for the St. Bartholomew massacre, was carried to the upper part of the tower, and fixed there in the most satisfactory manner.

It would be a great mistake to suppose that the wheel-work of the clocks of the fourteenth century was as complicated as the wheel-work of those of the latter part of the sixteenth century. Froissart, who was contemporary with Charles V., has left a very curious and very exact description of the clocks of his time, and, by the aid of this document, we shall now enter into a few details concerning the primitive construction of these machines.

The Amorous Clock is the title given by Froissart to his description, which is as follows:

"Ou, vail parler de l'etat de l'horloge
La premeraine roe (roue) qui y loge,
Celle est la mère et li commencemens'
Qui fait mouvoir les autres mouvemens.

Le plonk (poids) trop bien à la beauté s'accorde.
Plaisance s'est moutrée par la corde,

Si proprement qu'on ne pourrait mieul y dire ;
Car, tout ainsi que le contre-pois tire

La corde à lui et la corde tirée,

Quand la corde est bien à droit attirée,

Retire à lui et le fait émouvoir.

*

Après, affiert à parler dou dyal (mouvement diurne),
Et ce dyal est la roe journal,

Qui en surg jour naturel seulement,

Se moet (ment) et fait mi tour précisément.

En ce dyal, dont grans est li mérites,
Sont les heures XXIIII d'écrites.

C'est le derrain (dernier) mouvement qui ordonne
La sonnerie, ainsi que elle sonne;

On faut savoir comment elle se fait,
Par deux roes ceste oeuvre se parfait.

Si porte o li (avec elle) ceste premeraire 100,
Ung contre-pois par quoi e se roc (elle se ment),
Et qui le fait le mouvoir, selong m'entente,
Lorsque levée est à point la destente,

Et la seconde est la roe chantore (roue de la sonneril)."

"But the clock's structure I soon will reveal:

The chief thing within is the principal wheel;
This is the spring and the mother of all,

And moveth the others, both large ones and small.
The weight with the nature of beauty agrees,

And pleasure's the cord which holds beauty with case.
For what I assert I have full and just cause,

For in the same way that the well-balanced weight
Draws down the cord, as soon as 'tis drawn,

The first weight, again through the smooth even groove,
Once more pulls the cord back and makes the clock move,

*

At present, 'tis fitting I mention the face,
Which marks, without failing, old Father Time's trace.
The hands that go round in a certain fixed way,
Revolve only once in the space of a day;
And on this same face, which is worthy indeed,
The hours XXIIII you may easily read,
The last movement doth all the striking direct,
And makes the clock strike to a minute correct;
But if the whole process perchance you should ask,
I answer two wheels do effect the same task.
Within the first wheel does contain, you must learn,
A balance which causes it always to turn;
When raised fully up, then the hammer rebounds,
And straightway the second wheel loudly resounds,"

In the above lines, Froissart describes the principal functions of the balance and the watchwheel. He says that clockmakers ought to raise the weights up often-that is, to wind up the clock.

It is evident from the description of the learned historian that the clocks of his time were composed of two sets of wheelwork very simply constructed. The first set, which moved the hands, only comprised three wheels; one to which the weights were suspended, one which communicated with the hour hands, and the ratchet wheel, whose teeth kept up the oscillatory motion of the balance.

The second set belonged to the striking part, the first wheel of which had a weight and fly suspended to it, and acted on a pinion fixed in the centre of another wheel, which drew the flier, that regulated the whole wheel-work of the striking part, along with it in its rotatory movement. The pins that served to lift the hammer, which was employed to strike the hour on the bell, were placed at the extremity of the diameter of the first wheel, and perpendicularly to its plane.

We have entered into these details, because we know that several learned men, and various clock-makers of all countries, have been mistaken in the descriptions they have given of clocks of the fourteenth century. And, to mention that of the Palais de Justice only, we may remark that it has been the subject of a somewhat grave error, committed by a man whose name is an authority in the scientific world. We mean the celebrated Julien le Roi,

This skilful artist saw the clock at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and supposing that it was still in its primitive state, he described it as he then saw it, and accompanied his description with explanatory figures. This description, however, is that of a clock of the seventeenth century, and not of the one which was constructed by the clock-maker of Charles V..

When Julien le Bel inspected the clock, three centuries had passed by since it had been first placed in the tower of the Palais de Justice; and he did not consider that, in the course of so long a time, it had been repaired, modified, enlarged, and improved, some ten or twenty times perhaps. Neither did he perceive, on examining this correctly-made piece of mechanism, that it could not be the production of an artist of the middle ages, when clock-making was still in its infancy, when no tools fitted to make the teeth of the wheels and pinions had been invented, and when the artist, after many an effort, only just succeeded in making the rickety works, which then composed a clock, turn gratingly upon their pivots.

Besides, the clock which he describes was not furnished with either weight or fly, of which one ascends while the other descends; it was wound up with a key like a modern clock.

The dial-plate, too, was divided into twelve hours instead of twenty-four; while the striking part, the detent, the make of the wheels and pinions, the flier, and the parts that guided the hands, were all different in the clock described by Julien le Bel to what they were in the one made by Henry de Wyck. The balance is the only thing mentioned by him which was really contained in the latter machine; and this will be easily understood when it is remembered that the pendulum was only applied to clocks towards the middle of the reign of Louis XIV., and that all clock-makers did not immediately adopt this new kind of regulator, in spite of its incontestable superiority,

It is, therefore, evident that Julien le Roi was not acquainted with the construction of the first clocks, these machines being made, as can be proved on the best of authorities, in the manner described by the author of the " Amorous Clock."

We have but a few words to say with respect to the successive improvements made in the dial-plate of Henry de Wyck's clock. The most important ones took place under Charles IX. and Henri III, Charles IX, encircled it with frescoes and ornaments of the best possible taste, Germain Pilou executed two burnt clay figures, one of which represented Force leaning with one hand on a bundle of fasces, and holding in the other the tables of the law, while the other figure represented Justice, holding a balance in her left, and a sword in her right hand. The first figure was placed on the left, and the second on the right side of the clock.

Henri III. still further increased the splendour of these decorations, and Germain Pilou, who directed the works, finished them in 1585. The following is the description given of them by the historian Rabel ::

"Towards the end of the month of November, of the year 1585, the works of the dial-plate of the palace clock were finished. This clock, with its ornaments, is considered the handsomest throughout France. The director of the works was Germain Pilou, a master statuary, and one of the first in his art. He has executed such beautiful things in our city of Paris, and in other places in France, that his name will be for ever remembered.

"In the first place, there is, at the top of the dial-plate, the figure of a dove, intended to represent the Holy Ghost; beneath this, there is a crown of laurels, with two other crowns placed over the escutcheons of France and Poland; the whole of which is enriched with a collar of the order of the Holy Ghost, created and instituted by the present King Henri, while below is written :

QUI DEDIT ANTE DUAS, TRIPLICEN DABIT ILLE CORONAM. He who has already given two crowns will give a triple crown. "On one side of the dial-plate, Piety is represented holding an open book, on which is written:

SACRA DEI CELEBRARE PIUS REGALE TIME JUS.

O pious observer of divine law, Respect royal right.

"And on the other is Justice holding a balance (the figures are called by Corroget, Force and Justice). Underneath the dial plate is written:

MACHINA QUE BIS SEX TAM JUXTA DEVIDIT HORAS,
JUSTITIAM SERVARE MONET, LEGESQUE TUERI.

"These inscriptions were written by Jean Passerat, Royal Professor of Eloquence."

The last inscription is not quite complete. Rabel, moreover, does not tell us that the ground of the frame-work was studded with golden bees and fleurs-de-lis.

A hundred years later, Louis XIV. had the dial-plate of the clock again altered: but neither this prince nor his predecessors thought it necessary to mention, by an initial or inscription, that Charles V. had been the projector, and Henry de Wyck the constructor, of this monumental machine. Though the sovereigns who restore old monuments worthy of

intend presenting to our readers, has pictured a truly English scene, and has done so in his own inimitable style. Nature was his teacher, the woods were his academy, and he was an apt disciple, an ardent lover of art, a keen observer of all that surrounded him, and an accurate copyist of his models. His models came not from the antique; they were found in villages, and fields, and poor men's homes. His excellence was his own, the result of his own particular observation. Whatever he undertook he executed in a manner peculiar to himself; and whatever might be the object of his study, whether the form of a woodcutter, a peasant child, or a girl attending pigs, he did not attempt to raise the subject, nor did he lose any of that natural grace which was so eminently characteristic of his designs. If, in his excursions, he found a character that he liked, and whose attendance was to be obtained, he ordered him to his house; and from the fields he also brought into his painting room stumps of trees, weeds, and animals of various kinds, and drew them, not from memory, but immediately from the objects. He even framed a kind of model of landscapes on his table, composed of broken stones, dried herbs, and pieces of looking-glass, which he magnified and improved into rocks, trees, and water; all exhibiting the solicitude and extreme activity that he had about everything relative to his art, so that he wished to have everything embodied, as it were, and distinctly before him, neglecting nothing that could contribute to keep his faculties alive.*

He was ardently devoted to his pursuits: this feeling he cherished even to his dying day. Art and artists occupied his thoughts, and the last words he uttered were characteristic of this love:-"We are all going to heaven, and Vandyck is of the party."

IN THREE PARTS.-PART THE FIRST.

THE chapel of the content of St. Augustine at Pisa had lately been decorated and repaired, till it now rivalled in magnificence the splendours of the cathedral itself. In place of the simple rails which had surrounded the great altar, there rose a costly sereen around the sanctuary; pillars of variegated marbles, sculptured friezes instinct with noble forms, graceful columns, solemn monuments laden with the pride of heraldry, silver lamps, and all that art and wealth could devise to subdue the mind and enthrall the senses, was there lavished in full pomp and panoply.

It was mid-day. The chapel was deserted, the air was yet heavy with perfumed incense, the last tones of the organ vibrated through the aisles,-the echoing footfall of the latest loiterer had scarcely died in the distance, then silence and solitude alone remained.

Yet one man was there. He was standing behind a pillar, occupied upon a fresco. His dress was of the humblest, and his work of the most unambitious description, yet there was a power in his face, and a dignity in his appearance that promised something higher than the serge doublet and ill-paid drudgery of the inferior workman; poverty, toil and discontent were written on that pale and thoughtful brow. He stopped frequently at his work, and seemed wrapt in gloomy thought-he resumed his pencil again and again with desperate resolution, and as often threw it down again with impatient scorn,-at last, as if overcome by his emotions, he descended hastily from the scaffolding, and paced rapidly the centre of the church. Then the agitation which possessed him appeared gradually to become quieted, his steps calmer, his brow clearer, and finally he sat down beside the reading desk, and laid his burning forehead upon the Bible which laid open before him. When he raised it the whole expression of his countenance had become changed, his cheeks glowed, his eyes seemed inspired with an unearthly brightness:-" Father!" he exclaimed, "I thank thee! Thou hast breathed Thy spirit into mine. Thou wilt aid me to portray Thy glory upon carth: the Bible in all its majesty, in all its power, shall be the subject of my labour: angels and demons in countless multitudes, heaven and earth, punishment

and reward. Thy glory and the life eternal shall speak Thy praise from the canvas of Thy servant! I feel it—my hand will not fail me- the past shall be forgotten-poverty, neglect, fatigue shall not be remembered-envy and injustice shall touch my soul no more, in the brightness of the coming fame!"

A deep sigh near him roused Marcello from his golden dream, and, turning with alarm, he saw a brother of the convent standing by his side. This old man, austere and venerable, was regarding the painter with a look full of compassionate benevolence. My son," said he, "I have heard you, and

66

you are suffering." "More than I know how to tell you, father." "And yet you have invoked the aid of God? you have faith?” "Faith, but not hope, my father," said the painter, "and without hope life is a long and weary day-a sterile land—an accursed tree whose fruits are dust and ashes when we gather them!"

"Alas! my son, you are young," said the monk, kindly, "and but a few moments since you dreamt of a future full of divine glory and prosperity! Dream and hope again."

"You mistake me--I am no longer young. Time writes the age of man upon his heart. I have desired, and it has been denied unto me; I have tasted of anguish and bitterness; my soul is worn with hope, as the lute of the minstrel is worn with age, and whose strings at length give forth but harsh and broken sounds. I have dreamed of a work which shall immortalise my name, but have I courage to undertake all that I design? Oh that, like my father, I had remained an humble fisher, casting my nets upon the ocean for my daily bread! Father, while yet a child, there came a painter to my lowly home; that man recognised in the rude outlines which the fisher-boy had traced with charcoal on the walls the germs of natural genius, and offered to become my protector. I fell at his knees-I kissed the hem of his garment-I worshipped him as a divinity, and prayed, with all the eloquence of passion, for the permission of my father. It was granted; sublime was the concession of that poor fisherman: he deprived himself of the active arms that aided him in his employ, that mended his nets, and cultivated his scanty garden. He had but one son, and he loved him well enough to part with him. But ere I went, my master said to me,' Boy, hast thou courage and constaney?-canst thou endure hunger and cold, and vow thy youth to a martyrdom without rest or reward?-canst thou venture all for the love of thy divine art and the future glory? The bread of the artist is watered with tears.' And I have found it so. He died, and from an artist I became an artizan. The world believed me not when I sought to justify my claims. All that I had done had gone forth with the name of my master. I was branded as an ignorant pretender, when I pointed out to them my share in his paintings. Obstacles surrounded, disappointments met me at every turn, and the flower of hope withered in my heart. Still I have faith-still I believe in glory, and believe that it may yet be mine!"

"Glory!" repeated the monk, in a tone of sorrowful pity; and, without combatting the fatal delusions of that word, pointed solemnly to a grave stone on which the painter was standing, and which bore this inscription:

"HIC JACET CAPPERONI, PICTOR."

The characters were well nigh obliterated; soon they would be distinguishable no longer, and the spot would be forgotten. Marcello looked down upon them mechanically; but he was wrapt once more in his dream, and he comprehended them

not.

PART THE SECOND.

Two years had passed away: the glorious luxuriance of an Italian summer clothed the earth with a gorgeous mantle of verdure and flowers. Pisa had all the appearance of a festival, Perfumes floated on the air; noble lords and ladies thronged the public walks; others, followed by their retainers, with. falcons on their wrists, went forth to the chase; nobles and commoners, soldiers and peasantry, gave themselves up to