The Book, of Sun-Dials. Collected by Mrs. Alfred Gatty. New
and enlarged edition. Edited by H. H. F. Gatty and Eleanor Lloyd. With an Appendix on the Construction of Dials by W. Richardson. (George Bell and Sons.)—If it be a fact, as suggested by Mrs. Gutty, that man's first want was a sun-dial, and Charles Lamb is correct in saying that they are so ancient that "Adam could scarce have missed it in paradise," then indeed the interest which attaches to a book on the subject becomes equal with that which attaches to the history of man himself and of his wants. Allowing, however, for the enthusiasm of that delightful authoress, there is no question that the collection of mottoes to be found on sun-dials, illustrated by drawings, which was begun by Mrs. Gatty when a girl, and which is now given to the public in a more complete form by her daughter, is most attractive, all the more so that it treats the subject chiefly from the moral and poetical aspect, and is unaccompanied by long scientific explanations as to the merits of a transparent sphere as compared with the cylinder, or as to the best mode of finding the meridian plane. It may be true that "the sun describes his own progress on the dial- plate as clearly as he paints pictures on the photographer's glass," and that to some, dials are "more touching than tombstones ;" but there can be no question that the "Solis et artis opus" owes con- siderably more to art than to the sun in the interest which it creates. The quaint mottoes which generally accompany a gnomon speak more to the heart than the shadow thrown by the style-plate on the dial-plate, and while the light and shade which tell of passing
time produce at most but a regretful or poetical train of thought, according to the mind of each person, the depth of such old sayings as " Tnam nescis " (633); and "The day is thine" (585). open out a world of thought into which man plunges with un- satisfied cravings for certainty and light, or with the unquenchable thirst of research into the unknown. From the days of Ahaz, when the first mention of a sun-dial in the Scriptures is met with —viz., 742 B.C.—to the year 1651, when at Maresfield, Sussex, the cost of a "brazen sundyal " had come down to is., the idea of time meaning rise and fall, birth and death, was the only rational psychological suggestion these instruments of record could put forth, and they were highly prized ; but from the day when com- mercial competition brought down the valued time-giver of two thousand years to is., the sun-dial lost caste, and decayed like the scions of so many other old families. It may be said to have outlived its time, and its motto alone remained to mark its once-honoured existence. It would take too much space to mention more than a few of those which Mrs. Gatty, with such praiseworthy care, has pre- served to us ; but taken at random out of some 750 mottoes, how im- pressive and instructive are,—" A lumine motas " (No. 1), at Sestri Ponenti, on the Riviera; "About your business" (No. 9), on a dial at West Felton, Salop, erected by the owner, an intimate friend of the poet Shenstone ; "Pass on" (No. 18), " Aspice, respice, pros- pies" (No. 32), " Aujourcl'hui moi, demain toi " (No. 36), in the cemetery of Courmayeur. A quaint English motto is that on the porch of East Leake Church, Nottingham," Now is yesterday's to- morrow," and that on the south-west tower of Beverley Minster, "Now or when" (No. 359). Another, at Zurich, " Una ea his" (No. 655). Yet another, at Les Orres, Dauphine, " Quelle heure est-il ?— Peutetre la mienne " (443). We must take leave of this pleasant book, because "flora ruit" (202) ; but we have no doubt that if they "Watch well" (721), those who are in want of a motto, or those who like to peer into this interesting collection merely to while away a little time, will find ample pleasure to repay their trouble. The little pen-and-ink illustrations are charming. We could only wish that there were more of them.
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