ers always put in reliable works--there were no such works as those
made by machinery and sold so cheaply to-day!

The timepieces of early Victorian days are scarcely antiques, and few of
them are treasured as such, although undoubtedly curious.

Watches.

The first step towards watches as we understand them was the manufacture
of pocket clocks (many of which show Dutch influence in design), some of
the cases of which were very beautiful. The watches which followed in
due course were at first without glasses, and for the better protection
of the works and of the delicate engravings and ornamentation of the
backs and dials loose cases of metal or shagreen were made. Some of them
were highly ornamental, little studs of gold or silver being arranged in
geometrical and floral patterns on the exteriors. Two very pretty
examples of such cases are shown in Fig. 88.

[Illustration: FIG. 87--SPECIMENS OF OLD WATCH KEYS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 88.--TWO ANTIQUE WATCH CASES.]

Many of the watch backs were chased and perforated and beautifully
enamelled; the dials were covered with painted miniatures, and gold
watches were enriched with jewels. From Switzerland and Nuremberg come
many choice examples; but there were clever watchmakers in England too,
among them John Stevens, of Colchester, a sixteenth-century
watchmaker noted for his pierced and engraved brass-gilt cases.

Classical figures and designs showing Dutch influence became popular
late in the seventeenth century; then fashions changed, and the Court of
the Emperors of France exercised an influence over art in this and other
countries, and watch cases and other lesser objects were made more or
less in harmony. At one time curiously shaped cases were the fashion; at
another octagonal watches, such as were made in the seventeenth century
by Edmund Bull, of Fleet Street, who is said to have made an elliptic
silver watch engraved all over with minute scriptural subjects.

The collection of watches is a hobby indulged in by but few; there are,
however, many single examples included in household curios, and not
infrequently several handsomely engraved old watch cases are seen
exhibited in the modern glass-topped curio tables so fashionable in
twentieth-century drawing-rooms--now and then the interest in them being
increased by the musical bells of the repeaters, many of which were made
a century or more ago.

Watch Keys.

Keyless watches have been invented within th