The Story of Glass Part 9

"Of course there is lots of old stained gla.s.s in England, isn't there, Uncle Bob?" Jean ventured.

"Yes, indeed. I am sorry to say, however, that much of it has been destroyed before the public realized its value. At Salisbury Cathedral, for instance, some of the fine old gla.s.s was taken down and beaten to pieces in order that the lead might be used. At Oxford rare Gothic windows were removed and broken up to give room for the more modern work of the Renaissance. But you will still find at Canterbury and in many other of the English churches stained gla.s.s which has escaped destruction and come down to us through hundreds of years. And speaking of how such things have been preserved I must tell you the wonderful story of the east window in St. Margaret's Chapel at Westminster."

"Oh, do tell us!" begged Jean. "I love stories."

"This story is almost like a fairy tale, when one considers that it is the history of such a fragile thing as a gla.s.s window," Mr. Cabot began. "This window of which I am telling you was Flemish in design, and is said to have been ordered by Ferdinand and Isabella when their daughter Catherine was engaged to Arthur, the Prince of Wales. But for some reason it was not delivered, and a Dutch magistrate later decided to present it to King Henry the Seventh. Unfortunately the king died before the gift arrived and it came into the hands of the Abbot of Waltham. Now these were very troublous times for a stained gla.s.s window to be traveling about the land; Cromwell was in power and his followers believed it right to destroy everything which existed merely because of its beauty. So the old abbot was afraid his treasure would be wrecked, and to insure its safety he buried it."

"How funny!"

"Yes, wasn't it?"

"What happened then?"

"After the Restoration one of the loyal generals of the Crown had the window dug up and placed in a chapel on his estate. But the house changed hands and as its new owner did not like the window he offered it to Wadham College. The college authorities, alas, did not care for it, so it remained cased up for many years. Then by and by along came an Englishman who had the courage to buy it and have it set up in his house."

"Was that the end of it?" queried Giusippe.

"No, indeed. This person died, and his son took down the stained gla.s.s heirloom and in 1758 sold it to a committee which was at that time busy decorating St. Margaret's Chapel. Here at last it was set up and here one cannot but hope it will remain. Certainly it has earned a long rest."

"Shouldn't you think it would have been broken in all that time?"

e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jean.

"One would certainly have thought so," Uncle Bob agreed. "It seemed to possess a charmed life. Most of that early gla.s.s was made by Flemish refugees who had fled to England to escape religious persecution. Some was designed for English monasteries. Houses, you know, did not have gla.s.s windows at that time but depended for protection upon oiled paper and skins. Gla.s.s was considered a luxury, and it was many, many years before window gla.s.s or table gla.s.s was in use. Rich English families bought gla.s.s dishes from galleys which, as Giusippe has told us, came laden from Venice. Sometimes this Venetian gla.s.s was mounted in gold or silver. There was, it is true, a little gla.s.s of English make, but no one thought it worth using; in fact when the stained gla.s.s windows were put into Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick it was expressly stated that no English gla.s.s was to be used."

"How did gla.s.s ever come to be made here, then?" inquired Jean.

"Well, in time more Flemish Protestants fled to England and began making stained gla.s.s at London, Stourbridge, and Newcastle-on-Tyne. In 1589 there were fifteen gla.s.s-houses in England. Then, because so much wood had been used in the iron foundries, the supply became exhausted and sea or pit coal had to be used instead. People were forced to try, in consequence, a different kind of melting pot for their gla.s.s and a new mixture of material; in this way they stumbled upon a heavy, brilliant, white crystal metal which the French called 'the most beautiful gla.s.sy substance known.' It was the pure white flint, or crystal gla.s.s, for which England has since become famous. Immediately it began to be used for all sorts of things. In 1637 the Duke of Buckingham had flint gla.s.s windows for his coach, and he had some Venetian workmen make mirrors out of it. So it went. A great many more mirrors were made, great pier gla.s.ses with beveled edges. It is said that some of those very mirrors are even now at Hampton Court. In the course of time the English became more and more skilful at gla.s.s-making, and when Queen Victoria came to the throne they were manufacturing enormous cut gla.s.s ornaments and bowls, and decorating their palaces and theaters with gla.s.s chandeliers which had myriads of heavy, sparkling prisms dangling from them. You will remember that in Venice you saw some gla.s.s chandeliers; and you may recall how delicately fashioned they were and how their twisted branches were covered with gla.s.s flowers in the center of which candles could be set.

But the English chandeliers were far more ma.s.sive affairs than those.

And no sooner did English workmen find what they could do with this new material than they went mad over gla.s.s-making. Why, in 1851 they actually built for the first International Exhibit a Crystal Palace with a big gla.s.s fountain in it. Its builder was James Paxton, and he was knighted for doing it."

"I should think he deserved to be!" Jean said. "Who ever would have thought of making a palace of gla.s.s!"

"This one attracted much attention, I a.s.sure you," said Uncle Bob.

"Later it was reconstructed at Sydenham and to this day there it stands. England now makes the finest crystal gla.s.s of any country in the world; but to-morrow I intend to take you to the British Museum and show you that in spite of all that European nations have done there were other very skilful gla.s.s-makers in the world before any of them made gla.s.s at all."

"Before the time of the Greeks and Romans--before the people who made the Naples Vase?" Jean asked.

"Yes, centuries before."

"Who were they?" demanded both Jean and Giusippe in the same breath.

"The Egyptians first; and after them the Phoenicians and Syrians. All these peoples lived where they could easily get plenty of the fine white sand necessary for gla.s.s-making. In some of the old tombs gla.s.s beads, cups, drinking-vessels, and curiously shaped vials have been found, many of them very beautiful in color. Some of this color is due to the action of the soil and the atmosphere, for science tells us that after gla.s.s has been buried in the earth many centuries and is then exposed to the air it begins to decay and its color often changes. We have in our museums many pieces of ancient gla.s.s which have changed color in this way and have become far more beautiful than they originally were. How these races that lived in the remote ages found out how to make gla.s.s no one knows; but certain it is that the Egyptians could fashion imitation gems, crude mosaics and various gla.s.s vessels. Later the Phoenicians improved the art and afterward, as you have seen, the Greeks and Romans took it up. There is a strange tale of how, during the reign of Tiberius, a gla.s.s-maker discovered how to make a kind of gla.s.s which would not break. It was a sort of malleable gla.s.s."

"Oh, tell us about it, please, Uncle Bob."

"Certainly, if you would like to hear. This gla.s.s-maker made a cup for the Emperor and tried a long time to get an audience at which to present his new invention. Then at last the chance came, and thinking to make himself famous the artisan contrived, as he pa.s.sed the flagon to his sovereign, to drop it on the marble floor. Of course every one thought the gla.s.s was broken, and that is precisely what the gla.s.s-maker wanted them to think. He picked it up, smoothed out with his hammer the dent made in its side, and pa.s.sed it once more expecting to receive praise for his wonderful deed. Tiberius eyed him silently.

Then he asked; 'Does any one else know how to make gla.s.s like this?'

"'No one,' answered the gla.s.s-maker.

"'Off with his head at once!' cried the enraged monarch. 'If gla.s.s dishes and flasks do not break they will soon become as valuable as my gold and silver ones!'

"Despite his protests the poor gla.s.s-maker was dragged off and beheaded. The rulers of those days were not very fair-minded, you see."

With so many interesting stories, and so many things to see, you may be sure that neither Jean nor Giusippe found sightseeing dull. And the next day Uncle Bob was as good as his word, and took the young people to the British Museum, where he showed them some of the old Egyptian and Graeco-Syrian gla.s.s. There were little vases, cups, and flasks of wonderful iridescent color, as well as many gla.s.s beads that had been found upon Egyptian mummies.

"Now, Uncle Bob," Jean said, after they had looked at these strange old bits of gla.s.s for some time, "you must take us to see the Portland Vase. You promised you would, you know."

"Sure enough; so I did. I should have forgotten it, too, had you not mentioned it."

Accordingly they hunted up the Gold Room where the vase stood.

Jean was very proud that she was able to point it out before she had been told which one it was.

"You see," explained she shyly, "it is so much like the Naples Vase that I recognized it right off."

It was indeed of the same dark blue transparent gla.s.s, and had on it the same sort of delicate white cameo figures.

"This vase," Mr. Cabot said, "was found about the middle of the sixteenth century enclosed in a marble sarcophagus in an underground chamber which was located two and a half miles out of Rome. It was taken to the Barbarini Palace, but later the princess of that n.o.ble family, wishing to raise money, sold it to Sir William Hamilton, who chanced to be at that time the English amba.s.sador to Naples. From him it pa.s.sed to the d.u.c.h.ess of Portland, and at her death was sold at auction to the new Duke of Portland. That is the way it got its name.

Now the Duke, desirous of putting his precious purchase in a safe place, and also wishing to allow others to enjoy it, lent it to the British Museum. Imagine his horror and that of the Museum authorities when in 1845 a lunatic named Lloyd, who saw it, viciously smashed it to pieces."

His hearers gasped.

"To see it you would not dream that it had ever been broken, would you?

Yes, it has been so carefully mended that no one could tell the difference. It was this vase which the English potter, Wedgwood, coveted so intensely that he bid a thousand pounds for it; the Duke of Portland outbid him by just twenty-nine pounds. He was, however, a generous man, and when at last the vase was his he allowed Wedgwood to copy it. This took a year's time, and even then the copy was far less beautiful than was the original. Many copies of it have been made since, but never has any one succeeded in making anything to equal the vase itself. You will see copies of it in almost all our American museums."

"I mean to see when I get home if there is a copy of it in Boston,"

Jean remarked.

"You will find one at the Art Museum. And now while we are here there is still that other famous vase which I mentioned once before and which I should like to have you see. It is not, perhaps, as fine as the Naples or the Portland, but it is nevertheless one celebrated the world over. Like the Naples Vase it came from Pompeii, and like the Portland Vase it has been skilfully mended. It is called the Auldjo Vase."

Uncle Bob was not long in finding where this treasure stood. It was small--not more than nine inches in height, and like the other two was of the familiar blue transparent gla.s.s with a white cameo design cut upon it. Instead of having a Grecian decoration, however, the pattern was of vines, leaves, and cl.u.s.ters of grapes.

"The Portland Vase, as I have already told you, was perfect when it was unearthed," Mr. Cabot said. "And the Naples Vase you will remember was also whole except that its base, or foot, which was probably of gold, was missing. But the Auldjo Vase was in pieces, and it was only a single one of these fragments that was bequeathed to the British Museum by Miss Auldjo. Now when the Museum committee saw this single piece nothing would do but they must have the others. They therefore bought the rest, had the vase mended, and set it up here where people can see it. It cost a great deal of money to purchase it."

"I think it is splendid of museums and of rich people to buy such things and put them where every one can look at them!" exclaimed Jean.

"None of us could afford to and if those who owned them just kept them in their own houses we should never see them at all."

"Yes. Remember that, too, in this day when there are so many persons who begrudge the rich their fortunes. Remember if there were not individuals in the world who possessed fortunes the poor would have far less opportunity to see art treasures of every sort. And that is one way in which those who are rich and generous can serve their country.

There are many different methods of being a good citizen, you see."

Mr. Cabot took out his watch and glanced at it thoughtfully.

"I think we shall have time to see just one thing more, and then we must go back to the hotel. We have examined all kinds of gla.s.s objects--so many, in fact, that it would seem as if there was no other purpose for which gla.s.s could be used. And yet I can show you something of which, I will wager, you have not thought."

"What is it?" questioned the two young people breathlessly.

Full of curiosity, Uncle Bob led them through several corridors until he came to a large room that they had not visited. He conducted them to its farther end and paused before a large sand gla.s.s.