Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/369

 9 th S. V. MAY 5, 1900.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

361

Bridles were also in use in very distant ages. Ancient Thessalian coins often repre- sent a horse with a long rein touching the ground. The young Romans were trained to ride and mount unassisted, but the use of the bridle was known from the first. According to Livy, Aulus Cornelius, in a battle with the Fidense, ordered the Roman cavalry to unbridle before charging, probably to give them more weight. At the battle of the Ticinus, Hannibal's Numidian horse had no bridles, and were drawn up on the wings, while the heavy cavalry, with bridles, were in the centre.

Stirrups were about two hundred years later than saddles, the first mention being by the Emperor Mauritius towards the end of the sixth century. In earlier times the Greeks mounted by means of a cramp-iron attached to the lance, while the young Romans leaped, spear in hand, from either side of the horse. The younger Gracchus adopted the Greek method of placing large stones at intervals along the roads to assist horsemen to mount.

Spurs were probably little earlier than the first feudal times. The great importance of the spur in the days of chivalry seems to point to its having been a late invention. The barbarous goad a single spike, which was the earliest form was replaced in the fourteenth century by the large ro welled spur.

Horseshoes are of uncertain date, and have caused some discussion among military historians. Nailed shoes were not known by the Greeks, for Xenophon gives minute instructions for hardening the hoof. Nor did the Romans use them. Nero had mules shod with a plate of silver fastened by crossed thongs to the hoof. With Poppsea, his later wife, it is said these plates were of gold. The earliest positive evidence of nailed shoes is furnished by the skeleton of a horse found in the tomb of Childeric I. (458-481) at Tournay, in 1653.

No doubt Prof. Oman's book on the * Art of War ' would be an excellent authority on this subject. Davidson's ' History of Cavalry ' is another work that might well be con- sulted. GEORGE MARSHALL.

Sefton Park, Liverpool.

There is a very early instance of ornaments being used on bridles to be found in Homer, 4 Iliad,' book iv. 141 et seq. : l*s 8 ore Tts T' \(j>avTa, yvvrj oiviKi s, r) Kaetyoa, iraprjiov e/t/xevai I

6Tpov, Kocr/ios 0* tinrip iXa-r^pi re KV&OS.

This occurs in the description of the break- ing of the truce by the wounding of Menelaus, and the probable date is B.C. 1183. Liddell and Scott's ' Lexicon ' gives the meaning of Trapyiov ITTTTIOV as "the cheek- ornament of a bridle."

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

THE 'LAW LIST': ANDREW STEINMETZ (9 th S. v. 165). I regret that no mention of him appears in the ' Dictionary of National Bio- graphy.' Can any readers supply a complete list of his published works ? I frequently meet with mention of them in second-hand book catalogues, and from the prices named it seems that they invariably command a goodly sum. Among an extensive collec- tion of works on tobacco I have " Tobacco : its History, Cultivation, Manufacture, and

Adulterations By Andrew Steinmetz,

Esq., of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at- Law. London, 1857."

CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D.

Hanover Square, Bradford.

F. E. ACCUM (9 th S. v. 267). This name is so uncommon in literature that only one possessor of it is to be found, and that was Frederick Christian Accum, whose name in the usual British manner 'A Biog. Diet, of Living Authors,' 1816, pp. 1 and 407, misspells. He was a foreigner, who for imitating another British custom tearing leaves out of library books had to leave the country. As he had considerable reputation as a chemist, and was at 11, Old Compton Street, London, it is very probable that the boy inquired for was his son. I should have thought the registers of Westminster School would have given some information. He died 1838.

RALPH THOMAS.

"BYRE" (9 th S. v. 6, 277). Let me assure ST. SWITHIN that there is not the remotest danger in this instance of his being an- nihilated by the scorn of critics, though I would not positively affirm that he is equally safe from an entirely different and more effective weapon. I do not profess to be a combatant, so that I have some confidence in pointing out to him that he seems to have not fully apprehended the point of the Aberdeen man's onslaught. He thinks the Aberdonian lacks "humour," and goes on to infer what the line " implies." Now the fact is that the Aberdonian is not excited about what the line " implies " ; the fun appears in what it " says " ; and I question if less than ten to the dozen of Scotchmen who saw the line did not have a good laugh at it. No Scotchman would have penned