CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Book of Sun-Dials. By Mrs. Alfred Getty. (Bell and Daldy.)— This is a handsome volume, full of interesting matter, to be dipped into, of course, rather than read, in which everyone will find some piece of knowledge which is new to him, some felicity which he will not willingly forget. An introductory notice gives us the history of dials, the earliest of which recorded by history is the "sun-dial of Ahaz." There is a curious fact mentioned about Greek dials. The hours from noon till four as marked by the letters made the word "live," from which it was inferred that nature bade men work till noon and then enjoy themselves. Some men of note have had a liking for sun-dials. Howard the philanthropist wished on his death-bed that a sun-dial might be placed over his grave. Sir William Temple ordered that his heart should be put into a silver case, and buried under the sun-dial in the gardens of Moor Park. The greater part of the volume consists of what we may call a catalogue raisonne, of sun-dials hero and on the Continent. Here are some of the mottoes :—" A lumina motas;" "Amide quaelibet hors ;" "Non rego, nisi regar ;" "Aspiciendo senescis ;" "Begone about your business," a motto accidentally suggested, it is said, by the answer of an irritable old gentleman to whom the painter applied (it used to stand on the dial at the east end of Inner Temple Terrace). "Ehen ! fuga.ces," is a happy adaptation, but there is nothing, to our mind, quite so good as the "Perennt et imputantur " which we owe to Martial.
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