ON HORSE-SHOES. 
697 
Torrians’s c Italian and English Dictionary, 5 London, 1688, we 
find mention of lunette, a kind of horse-shoe, called half¬ 
moon shoes. 
“ in my former paper some allusion was made to the horse¬ 
shoe as an heraldic charge, and I have now the pleasure of 
placing before you two singular Flemish carvings, in wood, 
of the latter half of the sixteenth century, on one of which 
the horse-shoe forms a prominent object as an armorial 
badge. These carvings appear to have formed portions of 
the frontal decorations of a cabinet or armoire, and represent 
demi-figures of a lady and gentleman in broad ruffs, sur¬ 
mounting pilasters, on the fronts of which, and upheld by 
the hand of each figure, is a fanciful shield ; that on the male 
terminus is charged as follows :—Party per fesse, a merchant’s 
mark, in chief a flint and fire-iron (or steel as it is now called), 
with issuing sparks. The shield on the other terminus 
bears a large horse-shoe with clips, calkins, and six holes, 
and within a large horse-nail and hammer, bringing to mind 
the seal of Radulph Marshall, the farrier of Durham, given 
in the Archceological Journal (iv, 149), and also the arms upon 
the andirons engraved in our Journal (v, 393). It is no easy 
matter to decide who are intended by these images. The 
emperor Charles V, and Isabella of Portugal; Philip and 
Anne of Austria ; Albert and Isabella of Flanders ; and Philip 
and Mary of England, have each in turn been suggested, but 
the carvings bear but slight resemblance to any of these 
worthies. 
" The shields are in all probability those of two rich guilds, 
and the demi-figures the effigies of their illustrious founders 
or patrons. 
“ We have also seen that an iron hoof pick has been dis¬ 
covered among Roman remains in Bedfordshire, and I now 
exhibit a more modern, yet still an early example of this 
useful instrument. It consists of a thin hook, broad at the 
lower part, and tapering to the handle, which is a large bow, 
like that of some keys of the fifteenth century. The entire 
length of the instrument is five inches and a quarter. It was 
dug up in 1839, from a great depth, in the grounds belonging 
to the old Mansion House at Newington Butts, an erection 
of the middle of the sixteenth century; the pick is, however, 
I think, very much older than the house.” 
