less
recognized in the ordinary affairs of rural and industrial life. He
was, as it were, the rivet that held society together. Nothing could
be done without him. Wherever tools or implements were wanted for
building, for trade, or for husbandry, his skill was called into
requisition. In remote places he was often the sole mechanic of his
district; and, besides being a tool-maker, a farrier, and agricultural
implement maker, he doctored cattle, drew teeth, practised phlebotomy,
and sometimes officiated as parish clerk and general newsmonger; for
the smithy was the very eye and tongue of the village. Hence
Shakespeare's picture of the smith in King John:

"I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news."

The smith's tools were of many sorts; but the chief were his hammer,
pincers, chisel, tongs, and anvil. It is astonishing what a variety of
articles he turned out of his smithy by the help of these rude
implements. In the tooling, chasing, and consummate knowledge of the
capabilities of iron, he greatly surpassed the modern workman; for the
mediaeval blacksmith was an artist as well as a workman. The numerous
exquisite specimens of his handicraft which exist in our old gateways,
church doors, altar railings, and ornamented dogs and andirons, still
serve as types for continual reproduction. He was, indeed, the most
"cunninge workman" of his time. But besides all this, he was an
engineer. If a road had to be made, or a stream embanked, or a trench
dug, he was invariably called upon to provide the tools, and often to
direct the work. He was also the military engineer of his day, and as
late as the reign of Edward III. we find the king repeatedly sending
for smiths from the Forest of Dean to act as engineers for the royal
army at the siege of Berwick.

The smith being thus the earliest and most important of mechanics, it
will readily be understood how, at the time when surnames were adopted,
his name should have been so common in all European countries.

"From whence came Smith, all be he knight or squire,
But from the smith that forgeth in the fire?" [21]

Hence the multitudinous family of Smiths in England, in some cases
vainly disguised under the "Smythe" or "De Smijthe;" in Germany, the
Schmidts; in Italy, the Fabri, Fabricii, or Fabbroni; in France, the Le
Febres or Lefevres; in Scotland, the Gows, G