It is, however, still difficult to point to surviving examples to illustrate the vessels of English glass made about this period. Certain covered bowls (such as that reproduced by Mr. Hartshorne on p. 238 of his great work) may date back to the end of the seventeenth century. The same author gives an illustration of a fine posset-pot with quilled handles, preserved at Chastleton. This bowl, decorated with roses, masks, and berry-like prunts, may be as old as Charles II.’s reign. When one calls to mind the picturesque pottery—the slip-ware—that was made at the time, it would seem not unlikely that in the local glass-houses something similar may have been attempted in glass. We have, of course, plenty of glass wine-bottles, a few of which may date as far back as the reign of Charles I. These bottles are mostly of a black impure glass and of a globular form, squat and compressed at the sides, reminding one of the leather _botel_ from which our word bottle is derived. Similar bottles are found in the Low Countries, and they may often be seen in Dutch pictures. The introduction of the practice of bottling wine, as far as England is concerned, is generally connected with Sir Kenelm Digby, that universal genius who, in the reign of Charles I., was occupied with so many branches of the arts. Drinking-bottles of this description, dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, are often dug up while excavating the foundations of houses. An extensive collection, chiefly of local origin, may be seen in the Guildhall Museum, and Mr. Hilton Price has a representative series derived also from excavations in the city. The surface of these bottles is often covered with an iridescent scale giving them an appearance of great age. A circular stamp bearing the maker’s name is sometimes found on the shoulder, but these stamped bottles are in all cases, I think, of later date. There is a small collection of these stamps in the British Museum. I have already pointed out that during the reign of Charles II. the prevalent form of the drinking-glass was still of the old Venetian type. The stem was almost non-existent; it was at best represented by a spherical bulb connecting the two cones—the upper one often truncated, the lower very shallow—that formed respectively the bowl and the foot. In the Spanish Netherlands, before the end of the century, another form became prevalent: the stem now assumes more or less a baluster form, divided from the bowl by a distinct shoulder; the knop of this stem is often hollow, and generally duplicated. In some cases a silver coin is found lying loose in this hollow bulb. Such a form we may perhaps regard as the starting-point for the vast and varied series of English drinking-glasses which constitutes the principal element in a collection of English glass.