138 ON HORSESHOES. 



forward an ill-mannered objection, so I held my peace, at all 

 events for the moment ; but I much fear that at luncheon on the 

 same day I must have spoken somewhat unadvisedly, though 

 certainly unintentionally so, on the matter ; I imagine I must 

 have said that iron (of which I believe the shoe was made) was 

 not known to the Romans ; that had it been made of bronze it 

 would have better supported the idea of being Roman, and I 

 think I remember quoting Dr. Smiles as saying in his " Lives of 

 the Engineers," that on their landing on this island the Romans 

 found themselves/0r the first lime in the presence of iron, which 

 had been welded into scythes and fixed on the wheels of the 

 chariots that were driven by the Britons through their ranks. 



I mention this because a gentleman with a much-honoured 

 name most kindly wrote a letter to inform me of long previous 

 iron remains now being in our museums ; but these remains 

 were not of Rome, but of Egypt, and undoubtedly iron was 

 known and was extensively used by the Egyptians, by the people 

 of Nineveh, by the empire of Chaldaea, &c., and these are far, 

 far earlier days than those of Rome ; but they were not days, as 

 now, of speedy inter-communication between nations ; not days 

 of telegraphy, daily newspapers, and special correspondents. 

 The stone ages, the bronze age, and the iron age have existed and 

 succeeded one another in every country throughout the world, but 

 at vastly different periods, and when the Egyptians and people of 

 Chaldaea were well on in the latter, the iron age, the inhabitants 

 of Italy would have been hacking their tyro-days through Nature 

 with chipped flints and bone axes, and I can see no reason to 

 dispute Dr. Smiles's statement already quoted as to their later 

 arrival at the iron age, which succeeds the bronze age. 



I know I shall be told that much turns upon the manner in 

 which I translate the Latin word " ferrum." I am not a 

 dictionary-maker, but I resent the idea that it means only 

 "iron." In the year succeeding the banishing of King 

 Tarquinius Superbus the Etruscans fell upon Rome, and the city 

 surrendered itself to her Etruscan conqueror. " His sovereignty 

 was fully acknowledged, the Romans gave up their arms, and 



