The state-coach of the city of London is a species of heir-loom, or the hereditary property of the city; it is a very large and apparently extremely heavy machine, but superbly decorated with large panels of crystal glass, richly gilt, and elegantly painted with several appropriate designs. In one of the centre panels, among a group of figures, is one supporting a shield bearing the inscription “_Henry Fitzalwin_, 1189,” in the old English, character; therefore we conjecture that the coach was constructed at a period coeval with the above date. SADDLES, BRIDLES, AND STIRRUPS. In the earliest ages it was customary to ride without either bridles or saddles, if the poet be worthy of credit; for we observe Lucan, speaking of the Massillians, says: “Without a saddle the Massilians ride, And with a bending switch their horses guide.” They regulated the motion of the horses by a switch and their voice. It has been observed, that the case was the same with the Numidians, Getulians, Libyans, as well as most of the Grecian people. As the reason of the thing appears to point out the superior expediency of a bridle, they afterwards came into fashion among the Greeks, which they called _lupi_; because it is said the bit of the bridle bore a resemblance to the teeth of the wolf, whence Lucan says of it:-- “Nor with the sharper bits Manage th’ unruly horse.” In the east it would appear that bridles, at least, were used at an early period. For we have a great number of texts in the Scripture, which definitely express as much: in the Psalms, and likewise in Proverbs, the name and application of the bridle is often particularly mentioned, and more frequently alluded to. Virgil, indeed, says, referring to very early times: “The Lapithæ of Pelethronium rode With bridles first,--and what their use was show’d.” The saddle is also of ancient origin, for we read in I. Kings, xiii., 13.,--“And he said unto his sons, _saddle_ me the ass. So they saddled him the ass: and he rode thereon.” And before that period, in the second generation after Noah, the Assyrian empire was established. In its commencement, even as early as the days of Semiramis, the wife of Ninus, the first Assyrian king, who built Ninevah, there were those articles of horse furniture, called _packs_ and _fardles_; for in ancient historians we find the following passage occur in this respect. “Semiramis ascended from the plain to the top of the mountain, by laying the packs and fardels of the beasts that followed her, one upon another.” The same author informs us that this was Mount Bagistan, in Medea, and that it was seventeen furlongs from the top to the bottom. In the first ages, among the Greeks and Romans, a cloth or mattrass, a piece of leather or raw hide, was all they used for a saddle. Such coverings afterwards became more costly: Silius Italicus says, they were made of costly skins.