CHAPTER XVII 



SUN-DIALS 



" 'Tis an old dial, dark with many a stain, 



In summer crowned with drifting orchard bloom, 

 Tricked in the autumn with the yellow rain, 

 And white in winter like a marble tomb. 



" And round about its gray, time-eaten brow 

 Lean letters speak — a worn and shattered row : — 

 'lama Shade ; A Shadowe too arte thou ; 

 I mark the Time ; saye, Gossip, dost thou soe ? ' " 



— Austin Dobson. 



CENTURY or more ago, in 

 the heart of nearly all English 

 gardens, and in the gardens of 

 our American colonies as well, 

 there might be seen a pedestal 

 of varying material, shape, and 

 pretension, surmounted by the 

 most interesting furnishing in 

 "dead-works" of the garden, a sun-dial. In pub- 

 lic squares, on the walls of public buildings, on 

 bridges, and by the side of the way, other and 

 simpler dials were found. On the walls of country 

 houses and churches vertical sun-dials were dis- 

 played ; every English town held them by scores. 

 In Scotland, and to some extent in England, these 

 sun-dials still are found ; in fine old gardens the 



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