So far we are on firm ground, nor is there anything surprising when we are told that the large chevron beads have been found in Central Africa,[143] in the South Sea Islands, and even in Canada and the United States. But when we hear of examples being taken from Red Indian grave-mounds and even from ancient Peruvian tombs, we feel some need of hesitation before accepting the statement. So of the specimens found in England, many of them are water-worn and have an air of the remotest antiquity: they have been extracted from wells, from river-beds, and, it is stated, from Anglo-Saxon graves. I may mention that these chevron beads early attracted the attention of English antiquaries. Dr. Stukeley, who had several in his possession, brings them up in his disquisition on Druidical remains, and Bishop Gibson, as far back as the beginning of the eighteenth century, figures them in his edition of Camden’s _Britannia_. Gibson mentions that when he was opening a grave (presumably Anglo-Saxon) at Ash, a worthy friend by way of jest placed one of these _glain nidr_ or ‘serpent’s eggs’ among the genuine ancient beads. I will not say with regard to this attempt at mystification—_ex uno disce omnes_; but the story suggests an attitude of caution in the case of other similar finds. I cannot discuss this thorny question here, and must refer those interested in such subjects as the _Glain Nidr_ or ‘Adder Beads of the Druids,’ or again, the Breton _Ouef rouge du Serpent Marin_, to the exhaustive paper by the late Mr. John Brent in the forty-fifth volume of _Archæologia_. CHAPTER XII THE ENAMELLED VENETIAN GLASS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY In the fourteenth century, as we have seen, the Venetian galleys brought glass ware to the ports of England and the Netherlands. M. de Laborde (_Les Ducs de Bourgogne_) found in the archives of Lille an order for payment, signed by Duke Philip of Burgundy, ‘_pour seze voirres et une escuelle de voirre, des voirriers que les galées de Venise ont avan apportez en nostre pays de Flandres—quatre franc_.’ This is dated from Paris, 1394. Even after making every allowance for the larger purchasing power of money in those days, the seventeen vessels of glass bought by a royal prince for four francs cannot have been of exceptional quality. Again, in the year 1399, Richard II., shortly before his deposition, granted permission to certain traders to sell, on the decks of the Venetian galleys lately arrived in the port of London, their cargo of small glass vessels and earthenware plates (_Calendar of State Papers—Venetian_, 1899-1900). Here again there is nothing to suggest any high artistic value in the glass offered for sale. As we have seen, with the possible exception of two goblets in the British Museum, there does not exist a single example of glass of an earlier date than the fifteenth century, which can definitely claim to be of Venetian origin.