2-995-977 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Curious musical instruments of the sixteenth century, 1860. An 'an elaborate but nameless instrument of the Elizabethan era' designed by goldsmith Randolph Bull, with artificial bellows to make '...the pipes...to sound forth musically four or five songs without the hand of any person on the keys...a clock...[to show] the true course of the sun and of the moon, and...the age of the moon truly every day, with her increasing and decreasing; and it shall also show the reigning planets every day very truly...an armed man...[to] strike the quarter of the hour upon a fine, loud, and sounding bell... the cock to crow very loud every hour...and the same cock shall be made strong, of metal, and shall be very artificially wrought, and made to flutter with his wings...a great barrel with a chime of very tunable bells...to play a chime at any hour...the figures...to go in the presence and make their obeisance to the Queens Majesty's image, and her personage to move her hand with her sceptre...as they pass before her...the two trumpeters to lift up the trumpets to their mouths and to sound as often as the director shall set the time...open the mouth of the great head, and make the eyes thereof to move and turn every hour at the striking of the clock...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1860.