Transcriber's Notes When italics were used in the original book, the corresponding text has been surrounded by _underscores_, and when boldface text was use, the corresponding text has been surrounded by =equal signs=. In two instances, the letter N has been printed with a macron above it. This has been represented as [=N]. Superscripted letters have been preceded by ^ and when multiple letters are superscripted they have been surrounded by {}. Subscripted letters and numbers have been preceded by _ and surrounded by {}. Fractions have been separated from whole numbers preceding them with a dash such that 1-1/2 represents one and one half. The letters represented as H./W.E. were originally printed with the H. directly above the other two letters. Some presumed printer's errors have been corrected. These are listed in a second transcriber's note at the end of the text. THE CONNOISSEUR’S LIBRARY GENERAL EDITOR: CYRIL DAVENPORT GLASS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: _PLATE I_ ENAMELLED GOBLET VENETIAN OR FRANCO-SYRIAN. CIRCA 1300, A.D.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ GLASS BY EDWARD DILLON, M.A. [Illustration: The Connoisseur’s Library] NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS LONDON: METHUEN AND CO. 1907 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PREFACE It is now nearly thirty years since the late Mr. Nesbitt wrote the introduction to the catalogue of the glass at South Kensington. Some years previously the description of the glass in the Slade collection had been intrusted to the same gentleman. Since that time many works treating of special departments of the history of glass have been published in France, in Germany, and in Italy. Much fresh light has been thrown upon the primitive glass of the Egyptians; our knowledge of the glass of both the Near and the Far East has been revolutionised; abundant fresh material has been provided for the history of Byzantine glass, and the wanderings of the glass-workers from L’Altare and Murano have been traced in full detail. Mr. Hartshorne, in his _Old English Glasses_, has exhaustively told the story of our native glass from the documentary side, and has described with the minutest detail the wine-glasses of the eighteenth century. Apart, however, from the introductory chapters of the last work, I know of no attempt of recent years to give a general account of the history of glass—using that term in the narrower sense—as viewed from the artistic side.