Respecting the quality of Grecian cutlery it must be acknowledged that our information is exceedingly scanty, though we may reasonably infer, that it often possessed the greatest excellence and beauty from the perfection to which they had undoubtedly brought the manufacture of arms. In this branch of industry the Delphians would seem to have obtained celebrity, though the form and uses of their knives, alluded to in a comparison by Aristotle,[889] can be looked upon only as matter of conjecture. It seems to me, that, like Hudibras’ dagger, they would serve for a variety of purposes, as a poignard for example, as a sacrificial instrument, and as a common knife: When it had stabbed, or broke a head, It would scrape trenchers or chip bread, Toast cheese or bacon, though it were To bait a mousetrap ’twould not care. ----- Footnote 889: Polit. i. 1. ----- There was a very elegant sort of knives among the Athenians, adorned with ivory handles, delicately carved with the figures of animals, among which was that of a crouching lioness.[890] For this purpose the ivory was frequently stained of different colours, as pink, or crimson, or purple, according to the fancy of the workman. Knife-handles were sometimes also made of the roots of the lotos,[891] which, no doubt, took a fine polish and were beautifully clouded. Their scissors, bodkins, sailmakers’ needles, common needles, pins,[892] and other articles of this description, would seem to have been manufactured with much neatness. ----- Footnote 890: Schol. Aristoph. Lysist. 231. Footnote 891: Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 3. 3. Footnote 892: Poll. ii. 37. ----- But the most flourishing trade in Greece was probably that of the armourer,[893] which, at almost every period of her history, was in constant request. Many, probably, of the useful arts owed much of the progress they made to the passion of the Greeks for arms, which led them industriously to study and invent whatever could add to their splendour or efficiency. We need not now go back to the times when sticks and stones and pointed reeds formed the national weapons.[894] Among the very first steps in civilisation were improvements in the art of self-defence; for, wherever men have found it necessary to create property, they have felt it to be equally so to invent weapons for protecting themselves in the enjoyment of it. Accordingly the Greeks, long before the birth of history, had surrounded themselves by numerous instruments of destruction, and learned to cover their bodies with armour infinitely varied in materials and workmanship. ----- Footnote 893: See an elegant representation of a columnar anvil which we may infer was used by armourers. Gemme Antiche, Figurate di Leonardo Agostini, pt. ii. tav. 36. Footnote 894: Goguet. i. 165. -----