The decoration is of two kinds, engraved and cut. The character of the engraving is little to the credit of the native designer or craftsman. Indeed, both as regards artistic design or skilful execution, English glass ornamentation is distinctly inferior to that of the Continental pieces. The usual design is the rose, at first heraldic and conventional, and then more and more natural, with at first a butterfly, which gradually dwindled to a moth, and then finally disappeared. Other designs are based upon the nature of the liquids drunk, or refer to politics, domestic or business affairs, or to some famous personage. The largest group of designs is associated with Jacobitism--“Charlie-over-the-water-ism,” as some one has wittily called it. In rare cases these bore a portrait; more commonly the emblem selected was the use of two buds--the latter explained as referring to the two sons of James II., or to the two sons of the Old Pretender, Charles Edward of “Charlie-is-my-darling” fame, and Henry, who died at Rome in 1807, as Cardinal York. CHAPTER III EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY GLASS The eighteenth century is the “Golden Age” of the collector of English glass. At the beginning of the century glass manufacture was already a flourishing industry. Vessels of all kinds for ornament, keepsakes, and for domestic use were being produced in great quantities, and there was a strong and growing competition between the native craftsmen and the glass-workers of Venice, Bohemia, Germany, and the Low Countries, a competition which, thanks to the superiority of the new English “flint” glass, was steadily trending in favour of the English product. As a result, the collector is at once on firmer ground. His knowledge of earlier periods had been gleaned haphazard from drawings, paintings, tapestries, mosaics, and historical documents, with only here and there a specimen, and that of dubious authenticity, to guide him. From this time he is able to observe at first hand, compare, classify, note differences, excellences, and defects. There is no longer any lack of material, either of the finer sort suitable for the tables of the great and wealthy, or of the coarser kind whose only merit was utility. With the growing profusion, however, came a veritable confusion of types, which renders any attempt at classification a matter of very considerable difficulty. To a great extent this arose from the toping habits of our forefathers in perhaps the most convivial period of our history. There was a vast improvement in social conditions and amenities, and the variety of glasses that sprang into existence affords ample testimony to this, as well as to the variety of drinks in favour and to the ingenuity of the times in devising toasts and sentiments, no less than to the skill of the English craftsmen and the individuality of the various makers.