But the pulling of the evil one’s nose was but a part of the transaction, for our blacksmith then and there pulled out his parchment and made the enemy sign that famous declaration, never in future to molest Holy Church or Holy men, and keep aloof of all buildings in which hang the horseshoe. It is not many years ago that in two streets in London this emblem of protection or “luck” may have been seen—Dudley Street, St. Giles’s, and Dean Street, Fetter Lane—the latter place not a thousand miles, but only a few yards, from where this account is printed. As for the hammer, anvil and tongs of St. Dunstan, Mr. Lower in his notices of the ironworks of Sussex, gives woodcuts of the three articles, said to be “the famous originals, preserved at Mayfield in that county, so noted for its iron. The anvil and tongs are of no great antiquity, but the hammer with its iron handle may be considered a mediæval relic.” A few years ago we attended a sale of curiosities of more than the usual interest, and which were the lifelong attention of Mr. Snoxall, Charterhouse Square. One of the lots was the original anvil and hammer of the “Harmonious Blacksmith,” from which Handel composed his celebrated song, and we can endorse, from a trial we made, the assertion of the MS. description that Powell’s anvil produced B and E notes, as few anvils have done, or are likely to do again. St. Dunstan is the patron saint of the Goldsmiths’ Company, and he figures in their hall both in picture and in statue. The legend was a favourite one in their Lord Mayor’s Show, especially in that of 1687, when in the trade pageant the prelate seated on a chair of State, having a golden mitre on his head, a crozier in one hand and tongs in the other, surrounded by forges and anvils and blacksmith at work, taught the devil the oft-repeated lesson not to intrude on forbidden ground. We might multiply evidences of the popularity of the famous legend, but we have said enough, and must proceed with our Company’s history. In the first year of the reign of Henry VII. (1485) both the Blacksmiths’ and Spurriers’ guilds will be found in the list given by Campbell, vol. i. p. 4; and a few years later, in 1502, standing in precedency the 36th Company, the Blacksmiths had a livery of sixteen, and the Spurriers, standing the 46th, had six. When Henry VIII. and Queen Katherine “shall pass by towards their Coronation,” the same Companies sent members to represent them, and in the eighth year of that King’s reign, 1517, it was settled that in precedency in the future the Blacksmiths should be the 41st Company and the Spurriers the 46th. There were then about sixty Companies in the City, but of these ten were not in the “clothing,” that is to say, had a livery. [Illustration: ST. DUNSTAN GIVES A PRACTICAL REMINDER OF THE POWER OF THE HORSESHOE.]