_Cut Glass._--The introduction of the so-called flint glass--which was, in effect, glass containing a greater quantity of lead than had previously been used--created something of a revolution in the art of English glass manufacture. M. Peligot, a leading French authority, remarks: “To the English should really be attributed the honour of having created, in their flint glass, a new product which by the quality and selection of the materials used in its fabrication has become without doubt the most beautiful glassy substance which we know and which, in my opinion, it may be possible to produce.” But in addition to the beauty of the metal was the fact that it had a greater refractive and dispersive action on [Illustration: ENGLISH “RUMMER” AND DRINKING GLASSES. 18th CENTURY.] [Illustration: A BALLUSTER STEM GLASS SHEWING A COIN BLOWN IN THE STEM.] [Illustration: EARLY ENGLISH BALLUSTER STEM GLASS. FIG. 13.] rays of light than any other kind of glass, and consequently lent itself specially to cutting--the workmanship bringing out the beauty and brilliancy of the metal, and the quality of the metal enhancing the effect of the cutting. It is difficult to fix, with any degree of precision, the date at which glass was first cut by way of ornamentation. There are certainly traces of its employment towards the end of the seventeenth century. At the beginning the craftsmen of Bohemia were probably far superior to those of England, but as soon as the special suitability of the English glass was demonstrated, the native workmen speedily outdid all foreign competitors. The quality of the glass and of the cutting gradually improved, until at the close of the eighteenth century practically all English glass of any importance was ornamented in this fashion, and the English product was famous all over the Continent. In this way the beauty and value of a piece speedily came to depend upon the amount and the depth of the cutting: the more deeply and profusely it was incised the greater its artistic merit was assumed to be and the more highly it was esteemed. In certain instances, undoubtedly, the art was carried to excess; hence those monstrosities of the Early Victorian period--clumsy masses of flint glass cut into hob-nails, facets, pyramids, and spikes of all shapes and dimensions. Of this description are the massive glass chandeliers which depend from the ceilings of country houses and halls built at the close of the eighteenth or the commencement of the nineteenth century. Possibly no better examples could be found than the massy centrepieces with their pendent drops and spiked clusters that adorn the Pavilion at Brighton--that lordly and pseudo-Oriental pleasure-house built by the “first gentleman in Europe,” who afterwards became George IV. Of similar type are the lustres with their jingling drops that ornamented so many mantelpieces in our grandmothers’ and great-grandmothers’ day.