sixteenth century; for in the seventeenth century the art of casting in metal had arrived at a great degree of perfection, and in the reign of Elizabeth there was a considerable export trade of cast-iron ordnance to the Continent. As “by hammer and hand all arts do stand,” so was the origin of the Blacksmiths’ Guild in the nineteenth year of the reign of Edward III., 1325. Like many others it is a fraternity by prescription, subsequently incorporated by Royal Charter. “The Articles of the Blacksmiths,” dated the 46th of Edward III., A.D. 1372, are enrolled in Letter-book G, fo. 285, preserved among the Guildhall records, and a most interesting and concise translation will be found in Mr. Riley’s “Memorials of London,” 1868, p. 361. The Articles specially provide against the introduction into the City of inferior foreign-made work, and the forging of trademarks was, of course, a serious matter. “Every master in the said trade shall put his own mark upon his work, such as heads of lances, knives and axes, and other large work, that people may know who made them in case default shall be found in the same.” Forgers of such mark were dealt with without delay, and it is interesting to know that one of the earliest of the overseers appointed resided near Holborn Bridge (now the Viaduct), close to the Charity Trust Estate of the present Company. No one was to be made free of the Guild unless he was skilled in his work as an apprentice should be, so that we may be sure the early blacksmiths truly represented their “art and mystery.” “The Ordinances of the Blacksmiths” are enrolled in the Guildhall “Letter-book” H., fo. 292, and will be found translated in Mr. Riley’s “Memorials,” p. 537. They are dated the 18 Richard 2nd, 1394. No smith was to work throughout the night, or to annoy his neighbours, and the hours of work were to be from 6 o’clock in the morning to 8 o’clock in the evening in winter, and from the beginning of daylight to 9 o’clock at night in summer. None to work in his shop on a Saturday, or on the eve of a feast or holy day after the first stroke of the vesper bell, under heavy fines and penalties. Two wardens to be annually elected for their government, and strict search to be made in the City and suburbs for the detection of false wares. No one to make a key for a lock unless he have the lock to make it by, and nothing to be exposed for sale at any fair until the wardens have certified it “good and lawful.” Forty years afterwards we find another enrolment, and among records where such an entry would never be looked for—the Register Book of the Commissary of London, labelled “Liber 3 More, 1418-1438,” folio 455, now preserved in the Probate Registry, Somerset House. We are indebted to Mr. J. R. Daniel-Tyssen for the discovery in 1852, and to Mr. H. C. Coote for editing and printing them in the “Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archæological Society,” Vol. IV., pp. 32-35. They are entitled—