A. D. 1329. 503 



amply confirmed to them by the king. [Rot. pat. prim. 4 Edzv. Ill, m. 



50-] 



The whole of the old and new cuftoms of all England were farmed 



to the merchants of the company of the Bardi of Florence for a rent of 

 ;^20 per day ; which, if Sundays were not reckoned, amounted only to 

 £6,260 a-year. Next year the rent was raifed to 1000 marks each 

 month, or £^,oqo a-year. [Rot. pat. fee. 4 Edw. Ill, ?n. 7 ; tertia 5 Edw. 

 Ill, m. 4.] We have feen the cufloms for the year 1282 amount to 

 /^8,4i I : 19 : ii^' Had the trade of England fallen off now, or were 

 the king's miniflers very ill informed, or blinded ? 



1330 — The firll clock we know of in this country was put up in an 

 old tower of Weftminfler hall in the year 1288 ; and in 1292 there was 



one in the cathedral of Canterbury.' \Sdden,pref. to Hengham Dart's 



Canterb. Append, p. 3.] Thefe were probably of foreign workmanfhip ; 

 and it may be doubted, if there was even now any perfon in England, 

 who followed the bulinefs of making clocks as a profeflion. There was, 

 however, one very ingenious artifl, Richard of Wallingford, abbat of S'. 

 Albans, who conflruded a clock reprefenting the courfes of the fun, 

 moon, and ftars, and the ebbing and flowing of the fea. That this 

 wonderful piece of mechanifm might be of permanent utility to his ab- 

 bay, he compofed a book of diredions for the management of it. And 

 Leland, who appears to have feen it, fays, that in his opinion all Europe 

 could not produce fuch another *. [Lei. de Script. V. ii, p. 404 ; ColleSi. 

 V. iii, {or iv) />. 27. — Willis's Mitred abb. ap. Lcl. p. 134.] 



The wars in Italy between the Guelfs, who aflerted that the pope 

 ought to be the fovereign of the world, and the GibeUines, who main- 

 tained that the emperor fhould be fovereign of the empire, of which 

 they reckoned Italy a principal part, had now reduced that country to 

 the moll deplorable excefs of mifery. In the principal cities the people 

 waged cruel war againfl their fellow citizens, and at fea they took each 

 other's fliips f . The formerly-flourifhing commercial city of Genoa 



• There is a watch in the pofleflion of his Europe, a clock that flruck the hours was fet up 



Majefty, which has a convex plate of horn inftead in the year 1353, and was a new fight to the Ge- 



uf a glafs, and Robertas B- Rex Scoltorum marked noefe. \_Stell.e yinn. Gen. ap. Muratori Script. 



vipon the dial-plate, and has thence been beheved to V. xvii, col. IC92.] 



have belonged to Robert I king of Scotland. (See -j- During tlie civil wars, the commander of a 

 ylrclijrologia,V. \,p. ^H).) If genuine, it mud have galley, who was chafed by another of fuperlor 

 been made before this time, and it ought to be notic- force in the evening, fet up a lantern on a ihield, 

 fdas the firft known produftion of the chronometnc wliich he left floating on the water, and thereby 

 ;\rl in a more advanced ftate. But it is now known efcapcd in the night from his enemy. \_Sle/ta, cot. 

 that the dial-plate was fabricated by the roguilh 1061.] The fame ftratagem, fomewhat improv- 

 ingenuity of a pedlar, in order to pafs off the ed, was re-invcnted by Commodore Walker in the 

 watch at a high price, as a relique of the great year 1746, (fee his Voyages, V. ii, p. 11) and is 

 King Robert. [Sec Gentleman s Maga-zine, 1785, now common. It is not probable that either 

 p. 688.] It is univerfally allowed that watches Walker or the Italian had read Ammianus Mar- 

 were invented long after clocks : and it is pretty cellinus, [L. xviii] who himfelf managed a fimilar . 

 certain, that clocks were far from being common efcape from the Perfians by a light fixed to a . 

 at this time. In Genoa, where the arts were horfci ■< 

 furely more advanced than in the weftern parts of 



