Horse-shoeing was not practised for many centuries after the horse himself was in very general use; nor were hoof-protectors essentially necessary until paved tracts and hard roads became more frequent than they were in old times. The first foot defence of the horse seems to have been copied from that of his master. It was a sort of sandal, commonly made of matting, rope, or leather. The Emperor Nero, in his profusion, had his horses and mules shod with silver; and his Empress, Poppæa, was not content with less than gold for the same purpose. These sandals were very insecure, and were apt to be left sticking in the mud; they were, therefore, seldom put on the animal for the whole journey, but only at the worst places. Nor do they appear to have been adequate to protect the hoof from injury; for instance, when Mithridates was besieging the town of Cyzicus, in his first war against the Romans, he was obliged to send away his whole cavalry to Bithynia, because the horses’ hoofs were all worn down, and their feet disordered. Here again, as in the case of the stirrupless saddle, we are lost in wonder at the fact, that men should, for nearly a thousand years, have gone on fastening plates of metal under horses’ hoofs by the clumsy means of strings and bands; and that it should never in all that time have occurred to them to try nails where strings had failed. Next to the inventive powers of men there is really nothing so wonderful as their want of inventiveness, and the stupid way in which they will continue from generation to generation, doing something very absurd from mere force of habit, and utter want of thought! It is humiliating to think, how men have been content to remain for ages separated by the smallest possible partitions from discoveries in the arts, that tend to the convenience and embellishment of life. We have had India rubber ever since America was explored, yet, until a few years ago, we made no use of it except for rubbing pencil marks out of paper! Here follows a charade by no less eminent a person than the great statesman, Charles James Fox. Why do we introduce it in this place? That is a question which the ingenious reader will answer for himself when he shall have solved the charade. The key to it will be found in the preceding pages:— “Inscribed on many a learned page, In mystic characters and sage, Long time my first has stood; And though its golden age be past, In wooden walls it yet may last, Till clothed in flesh and blood. My second is a welcome prize For those who love their curious eyes With foreign sights to pamper; But should it chance their gaze to meet, _Al improviso_, in the street, Oh! how’t would make them scamper!