It was my good fortune when recently in the city of Philadelphia, to obtain access to a rare work over which I spent some very delightful hours. Its author was a William Warrington, himself a designer and producer of windows, and a reverent student of ancient examples, who published his great folio in London, in 1848. From him I learned many things about the beginnings and progress of the art. Great were the difficulties of the eleventh century pioneers. They had to contend with defective methods of manufacture; not understanding glass-blowing they fused their glass in pots and crucibles, and cast it to about the required shape, in pieces not more than four or five inches in diameter. Cutting with the diamond was not known till the sixteenth century. They designed and made and erected their own work. When great orders were to be executed, artists were brought together from the different countries, and by a sort of “free-masonry” they worked together in perfect agreement as to styles, rules, and principles. In the course of time, different countries produced slightly differing schools. As in heraldry, the colors of the glass were intended for colors of precious stones; the representations of figures and objects were not meant to be pictures, but being also strictly symbolical, the drawing was conventional, with no intention to reproduce nature in color, or form, or position and perspective. The figures which excite ridicule on the part of one who is without the clue, justify themselves by this principle; nor is it quite true to say the men of that time did not know how to draw――their ability in this respect was not that of artists to-day, but if their object had been to produce a figure or a scene for the sole purpose of a picture, they might certainly and would certainly have given us something very different from what they did. While the small separate pieces are often very minutely pencilled, all such work being afterward burned in――there is no “shadowing,” as in a picture, supposing the light to fall from a certain direction; but a kind of “relief” shading, making the view suitable to any aspect. In a word, the drawing is the same as in MSS., tapestries and heraldic designs. Ruby and sapphire were the ground colors. And in all the work the primitive colors were adhered to. In York Minister there is to be found the largest and finest specimen of thirteenth century glass in England in a group of lancets known as the “Five Sisters.” The lancets are each six feet wide and fifty feet high, and each divided into thirteen compartments or squares of different patterns. Their designs being largely of an ornamental character, they escaped destruction by the Puritans. It is a curious fact that English stained glass at no time had large figures. In the thirteenth century Continental art in this respect diverged from ancient and English, under Italian influence.