The gentlemans recreation in two parts : the first being an encyclopedy of the arts and sciences ... the second part treats of horsmanship, hawking, hunting, fowling, fishing, and agriculture : with a short treatise of cock-fighting ... : all which are collected from the most authentick authors, and the many gross errors therein corrected, with great enlargements ... : and for the better explanation thereof, great variety of useful sculptures, as nets, traps, engines, &c. are added for the taking of beasts, fowl and fish : not hitherto published by any : the whole illustrated with about an hundred ornamental and useful sculptures engraven in copper, relating to the several subjects.

CHAP. II.

Of the Hours.

AN Hour is one of those lesser Spaces of of Time, into which every Day of the Year is continually divided. It is more parti∣cularly thus defined: An Hour is the 24th part of a Natural, or the 12th of an Artificial-Day.

Note First, That of Hours, some are called Equal; which are the 24 Parts (as have been said) of a Natural Day, otherwise term'd Astro∣nomical, or Equinoctial; because each of them is that Space of Time wherein the Aequator ascends 15 Degrees above the Horizon, or in which the Sun in his Course run through 15 Meridians: Each Hour is divided into 4 Quarters, and every Quarter into 15 Minutes, or Scruples, making in the whole 60.

Note Secondly, Others are called Vnequal Hours by the Greeks. There are 12 Parts as well of Day, as of Night; that is, as well of that Time wherein the Sun is above the Horizon, as wherein he stays beneath it: And they are called Vnequal, not that the Hours of one and the same Day or Night, are unequal amongst them∣selves; but because when as there are 12 equal Parts of unequal Days, that is, of Summer-Days, and Winter-Days, it must necessarily follow, [ 10] that the Summer, and Winter-Hours, are by this means Unequal amongst themselves. They are also called Vnequal, because in the Summer time the Diurnal Hours are longest, and the Nocturnal shortest; but in the Winter time quite contrary. They are also called Temporary, because accord∣ing to the diversity, that is, the Length, or Shortness of Days they have different Magnitudes. Lastly, They are said to be Planetary, in regard certain Ancient Astronomers were of Opinion, [ 20] that the seven Planets ruled the Hours succes∣sively, that is, in such a manner as this, That the first Hour of the Day should be allotted to that Planet from whence the said Day took de∣nomination.

It is to be observed out of Baronius, in his Re∣marks upon the Year of our Lord 34, that the Jews divided as well the Day, as the Night, not only into 12 Temporary Hours, but also into 12 Equal Parts, as it were into 4 Stations, [ 30] each of which contained 3 of those which are called Temporary, and Vnequal Hours; but the 4 Parts of the Night were called Vigiliae, by a Name borrowed from Vigiles. The first began at Sun-setting; the second ended at Midnight, where also the third began; and the fourth ended at Sun-rising.

Now the 4 Parts of the Day were properly called Hours, each consisting (as aforesaid) of •• Temporary Hours, so as that the last part of [ 40] this sort of Hour, that is, the Second, was the Sixth Common and Temporary Hour, which the Third proper Hour of the Jews followed, con∣taining of the Temporary Hours the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth: And according to this Cal∣culation St. Mark rightly saith, that our Saviour Jesus Christ, was Crucified in the Third Hour, that is, in the Third of those Four equal Stations into which the whole Day was divided; where∣as St. John writing, that he was Condemned by [ 50] Pilate in the Sixth Hour, that is, in the Sixth Temporary, or Vulgar Hour.