25 DECEMBER 1897, Page 26

Old English Glasses. By Albert Hartshorne. '(Edward Arnold.) —This ponderous

quarto deals minutely with the history not only of glass made in England, but also with that which was imported from Venice and Holland. Besides an introduction dealing with ancient glass in sixteen different countries, there is a large appendix of original documents. The author mentions a curious fact, that in the fourteenth century the glass drinking vessels of English and French Kings came from the East. They seem to have been highly valued, being set in silver enriched with enamels. There seems to be no explanation why the English and French glass-workers who could make painted windows did not turn their attention to making decorated drinking vessels. The present volume has numbers of illustrations, chiefly full-page lithographs. In spite of this cleverness, we feel that lithography is not the right medium. The crumbling line of the lithographer is out of sympathy with the hard brilliancy of glass. The book, with its full index, will no doubt be of great use to the collector.