We have at hand in the British Museum a collection of glass that has no rival elsewhere; only second to it is the collection at South Kensington. It is in these collections that the history of glass must be studied. I have from time to time in the following pages called attention to the most remarkable examples. I hope that what I have said may assist the student in threading his way through what is a rather complicated history. My best thanks are due to Mr. C. H. Read, who has charge of the glass in the British Museum, for the facilities that he has afforded me in the photographing of the examples in his department; not less to Mr. A. B. Skinner, director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, for similar facilities at South Kensington. I am indebted to Professor Church for much valuable information and for some hitherto unpublished analyses of glass; to Lord Rothschild and to Mr. Vincent Robinson, C.I.E., for photographs of examples of glass in their collections; finally, to Signor Ongania, of Venice, for permission to reproduce from Passini’s great work on the Treasury of St. Mark’s some photographs of the glass there preserved. E. D. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE, v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, ix SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS ON GLASS, xxii KEY TO THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST, xxviii CHAPTER I. Introduction, 1 CHAPTER II. Primitive Glass of the Egyptians and Syrians, 18 CHAPTER III. Later Greek Glass and the Moulded and Cast Glass of the Roman Empire, 43 CHAPTER IV. The Blown Glass of the Roman Empire, 59 CHAPTER V. Early Christian Glass, Byzantine Glass, and the Glass of the Middle Ages in the East and the West, 89 CHAPTER VI. Glass from Anglo-Saxon and Frankish Tombs. The so-called Hedwig Glasses, 107 CHAPTER VII. Mediæval Treatises on Glass, 118 CHAPTER VIII. Glass of the Later Middle Ages in Western Europe, 132 CHAPTER IX. The Enamelled Glass of the Saracens, 144 CHAPTER X. The Enamelled Glass of the Saracens (_continued_), 161 CHAPTER XI. The Glass of Venice—The Origins—Beads, 174 CHAPTER XII. The Enamelled Venetian Glass of the Fifteenth Century, 192 CHAPTER XIII. Varieties of Venetian Glass—Early Literature, 200 CHAPTER XIV. The French Glass of the Renaissance, 220