The decoration of many of the hand-guns of the sixteenth century was of a most artistic character, the barrels being often enriched with chasings, fine metal incrustations, or damascened, while the stocks were curiously and delicately carved and inlaid. It is generally assumed that the material usually used for inlaying is ivory, but it is really bleached stagshorn, and inlaying with tortoise-shell was also not uncommon.
A great amount of decorative skill was also expended on powder flasks.
There were several diminutives and combinations of the leading hand-guns referred to. Examples of early hand-guns are given in [Fig. 51].
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It is well to furbish up bygone things and ages, and to remember now and then what we owe to cumulative history. Master Wace, the chronicler of the Norman Conquest, says in his retrospections: “All things hasten to decay; all fall; all perish; all come to an end. Man dieth, iron consumeth, wood decayeth, towers crumble, strong walls fall down, the rose withereth away, the war-horse waxeth feeble, gay trappings grow old, all the works of men perish. Thus we are taught that all die, both clerk and lay; and short would be the fame of any after death if their history did not endure by being written in the book of the clerk.”
Fig. 51.—Early Hand-guns.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Dalstrom’s Illustreret Verdenshistorie, vol. i., p. 122.
[2] A similar fragment was found at Cataractonium (see Archæological Journal, vol. iii., p. 296).