ch were practically
social events. In the days of Henry VIII. a chronicler tells of
a jouster who "tourneyed in harneyse all of gilt from the head
piece to the sabattons." Many had "tassels of fine gold" on their
suits.

Italian weapons called "lasquenets" were very deadly. In a letter
from Albrecht Duerer to Pirckheimer, he alludes to them, as having
"roncions with two hundred and eighteen points: and if they pink a
man with any of these, the man is dead, as they are all poisoned."

Bronze is composed of copper with an alloy of about eight or ten
per cent. of tin. The fusing of these two metals produces the brown
glossy substance called bronze, which is so different from either of
them. The art of the bronze caster is a very old and interesting one.
The method of proceeding has varied very little with the centuries. A
statue to be cast either in silver or bronze would be treated in
the following manner.

A general semblance of the finished work was first set up in clay;
then over this a layer of wax was laid, as thick as the final bronze
was intended to be. The wax was then worked with tools and by hand
until it took on the exact form designed for the finished product.
Then a crust of clay was laid over the wax; on this were added other
coatings of clay, until quite a thick shell of clay surrounded
the wax. The whole was then subjected to fervent heat, and the wax
all melted out, leaving a space between the core and the outer
shell. Into this space the liquid bronze was poured, and after it
had cooled and hardened the outer shell was broken off, leaving
the statue in bronze exactly as the wax had been.

Cellini relates an experience in Paris, with an old man
eighty years of age, one of the most famous bronze casters whom
he had engaged to assist him in his work for Francis I. Something
went wrong with the furnace, and the poor old man was so upset and
"got into such a stew" that he fell upon the floor, and Benvenuto
picked him up fancying him to be dead: "Howbeit," explains Cellini,
"I had a great beaker of the choicest wine brought him,... I mixed
a large bumper of wine for the old man, who was groaning away like
anything, and I bade him most winning-wise to drink, and said:
'Drink, my father, for in yonder furnace has entered in a devil,
who is making all this mischief, and, look you, we'll just let him
bide there a couple of days, till he gets jolly well bored, and
then will you and I together in the space of