RANDOM READINGS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 746, 17 February 1915, Page 6

RANDOM READINGS.

CONCERNING WATCHES.

As early as Shakespeare's day, says Maclvcr Percival in tho "Country Home,'' watches were well known, and Queen Elizabeth possessed many of thorn. Indeed, if one-quarter of those that are said to havo belonged to* her were really hers, shet must havo had enough to stock a fair-sized watchmaker's shop. Sixteenth-century watches are often very complicated in their mechanism, and some curious specimens are found, with their works entirely of iron. Tho cases wero often mado of the most singular shapes, such as skulls, vases, crucifixes, balls, animals, and ho on. Instead of glass to protect the* dial they had perforated covers through which tbo figures could bo seen. Glasses, however, were introduced early in tha seventeenth century, at first merely pieces of thick flat sheet; then they went to tbo lextreme, and ara often extremely rounded, like half a glass ball. During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries French watches were most exquisitely and delicately painted with enamel pictures, an art akin to china painting, as the gold was first discovered with opaquo enamel, and the scenes or figures wore painted in fusiblo colors, which woi'o often fired at a high temperature in muffle furnaces. In the eighteenth century chiselled gold cases chased with scenes and groups of flowers wero fashionable, tbo gold being often of differently-tinted alloys, which caused tbo work to be described as a quatro couleurs. /.Diamonds often surrounded tho faces, and • wero set in tho delicately pierced and worked fingers. In simpler forms tho motal was repousse (that is, beaten up out of shoot metal), and sometimes cut steel was substituted for the diamonds, but this is more towards the end of tho century, when money was, pcrhapa, getting scarcer. Tho minute-wheol and hands are snn'd to havo been invented by a London watchmaker named On are, the inventor of repeating watches, which bad an ingenious device for making tho hour strike when required, so that tho timd could bo ascertained at night or without removing the Avatch from the pocket. The Avay of wearing watches had differed according to the fashions of tho' period. Queen Eliztbeth received from tho Earl of Leichcster a present of a watch set in .a bracelet, but the more general plan was to wear them on a chain or ribbon round tho neck as medals or pendants wero worn. However, they were very generally carried in tho pocket, a practice which seems to havo become the most usual about IG3O.

Ono of the earliest fob chains known is now in the British Museum; it is attached to the watch said to havo boon belonged to Oliver Cromwell, who runs Queen Elizabeth hard in the number of watches reputed to have belonged to him. In the eighteenth century a very favorable wnv of carrying tho watch was at the side on a chatelaine, where it shared the honors with other useful and ornamental trifles. Later on in the century ■ ,it bconmo the fashion to wear several watches set in pins, rings, and buttons. Sometimes ono was worn at each side, or a real watch on ono hip was balanced by an imitation one on the other, whioli, though the back was similar to the watch, was in reality a compass, pincushion, or other device. £IO,OOO FOR A BOOK. The late Mr. Pierpont Morgan lias left among - lus vast collection 10$ unique articles the only perfect copy in existence of Caxton's " Morto d'Artbur." It is one of the rarest books in the world, and fell to the late millionaires at the Hoo sale for the tremendous price of £8,560. Thai is to say, each pago is worth about £SO. Some years ago, when the Antwerp Collection was sold at Sotheby's, a great American collector coveted the First Folio Shalcespearo which was included in the sale. His agent travelled 6,000 miles to secure the treasure, and returned to the States with the great book. But he had left behind,hifn the record price, £3,000. In 1812 this book fetched £l2l 16s.