Glass is used in every home. It is seen in its ornamental forms, and is necessary in almost every department. In kitchen and pantry there are dishes and tumblers and wine glasses and decanters ready for use. Among these there are often found old glasses—that is, glass vessels which from their rarity or age have attained a curio value; indeed, many housewives are unaware that their kitchen cupboard contains what would be valued as interesting specimens gladly purchased by collectors of glass. Many of the old tumblers are beautifully engraved, often having floral ornament and dainty rustic scenes. They are now and then commemorative of events which the glass maker has recorded with his graving tool, and sometimes they have been prepared to catch the passing fancy. The styles of table glass have changed, and their shapes and sizes have altered according to the popular custom of imbibing certain liquors.

When punch ceased to be the customary drink, and lesser quantities of ale were consumed, punch bowls and tankards were less in request. Their places were taken by wine glasses of more delicate forms, and charming tallboys and crinkled vessels of glass took the place of the older mugs and pewter cups. The glasses used in proffering and drinking toasts have changed much during the last century, and the "fiat" glasses of the Jacobite period, and those curious glasses with portraits of the Old Pretender and the Young Pretender upon them, are curios only, for they are no longer needed, neither is the toast of "The King" drunk "over the water." Spirit glasses and decanters have altered in form, but among those which have survived and are still sound are some rare examples of cutting, made in the days when the glass cutter worked with primitive tools, and such methods as the sand blast, chemical etching, and some of the newer processes were unknown.

Waterford, Bristol, and Nailsea.

Among table sundries are glass salts and cruets; the latter, however, have been modernized and reduced in size, and the bottles and curiously shaped oil and vinegar cruets of a hundred or more years ago look quaint when compared with those of the present day. Even the flower vases which formerly adorned the table, and the more decorative dishes used for fancy sweetmeats and confections, have changed, leaving in the process many of the older pieces, relegated to the store-cupboard, where disused glass so often remains until in due time it is rescued from oblivion by the collector of household curios. Among the eighteenth-century cut glass jugs and trifle bowls are many beautiful vessels, for the making of which certain districts from time to time became famous. The old Waterford glass is especially noteworthy, and as a speculation, apart from the interest it possesses for collectors, is worth securing. Bristol glass to the uninitiated appears to be a misnomer, in that the beautiful white milk-like surface upon which so many exquisite floral designs have been painted looks more like egg-shell porcelain, but when held up to the light is found to be of glass-like nature, pellucid although semi-opaque.

Nailsea glass has many peculiar characteristics about it, notably the curiously introduced waved and twisted lines in colours. Many objects which were essentially curios, their utilitarian purposes having always been secondary, were made at Nailsea. There are gigantic models of tobacco pipes, formerly hung up against the walls as ornaments. As fitting companions to the pipes were walking-sticks of glass, some very remarkable designs which might at one time have been carried by the gallants of that day. They were often filled with sweetmeats and comfits, ornamented with bows of ribbon, and presented to ladies of their choice by devoted swains. A few of those curious sticks or shepherd's crooks, as they were called, are to be seen in most representative museum collections. The so-called rolling-pins of glass, made at Sunderland as well as at Nailsea and Bristol, were known as sailors' love tokens, and are referred to more fully in Chapter XIII. In the Taunton Castle Museum there are some interesting specimens of old glass, notably one of the very rare dark bottle-glass linen smoothers which came from South Petherton. Such smoothers were at one time favoured in the kitchen laundry in the days when servant-maids excelled in getting up linen, and prided themselves on the beautiful gloss they were able to impart—in the days before public laundries with their modern glossing machines were instituted.

Some of our readers may have seen the curious glass tubes, one yard in length, into which ale was poured in the days when it was considered a desirable attainment to be able to drink at one draught a "yard of ale."

Of the larger vessels such as wine bottles, the chief collectable feature about them is the old glass-bottle-makers' stamps, very frequently found on fragments of bottles, such stamps often turning up among the oddments of kitchen drawers which have probably been undisturbed for many years. To collect bottle stamps is certainly an uncommon hobby, but one that is not altogether devoid of interest.

Ornaments of Glass.

Of household ornaments in glass there appears to be no end. There are the glass Venetian vases and ewers, beautiful and graceful in form, richly ornamented in gold; and there are the old English and French vases, the colouring of which is not always in accord with modern taste. Cut glass, in whatever form it is met with, is appreciated, in that the workmanship involving so much studious labour is recognized. Continental glass has at all periods been imported into this country, and especially so Bohemian glass, of which there are decanters of ruby, claret, blue, and other rich colours; some remarkable effects have been produced upon red glass by adding tinted colours and white decoration interspersed with gold. Glass lustres have acquired an antiquarian value, and chandeliers and mantelpiece lustre candlesticks are sought after by the collector, who sometimes finds interspersed with cut glass lustre pretty coloured china droppers.

Pictorial Art in Glass.

Stained-glass windows are associated with ecclesiastical edifices. Old English houses, however, not infrequently contain armorial panels, coats of arms in leaden frames, and curious little pictures in colours which can be hung against modern windows where the light will throw up the rich colouring of the old-time painters. Little patches of colour, too, were often introduced in otherwise plain diamond-shaped lattice panes.

There are glass pictures, so-called, oftentimes consisting of coloured prints pasted on one side of the glass, a softened effect being produced by the glass through which they were seen; but they must be distinguished from the more costly paintings on glass sometimes met with.

In many an old house the glass shade with its contents so inartistic, although removed from its place of honour on the parlour table, found a niche where it is preserved. Under such shades were preserved wool-work baskets filled with artificial flowers, among which were often small porcelain figures, butterflies and birds. Sometimes a Parian vase has been filled with wax flowers, the making of which was a favourite pastime half a century ago. The dried plant called "honesty" was frequently covered with a glass shade. Glass ships were exceedingly popular in seaport towns, and little miniature replicas of household furniture in glass are met with; indeed, there seems to have been no limit to the fancies and freaks of the glass blower, who has at different periods provided the present-day collector with curious, if very breakable, curios.

Enamels on Metal.

The art of enamelling on metal has been practised from very early times. In its earlier forms it was chiefly an art applied to jewellery and the ornamentation of ecclesiastical metal work. In time, however, it was applied as a convenient method of decorating utilitarian household articles such as fire-dogs and candlesticks. Those who frequent the more important museums often associate enamels with the costly and rare enamels of Limoges, and the choice bits of Italian enamels seen in the cases of metals where the most valuable curios are gathered together. Such vessels as those marvellous effects produced by the enamellers of Limoges are indeed rarely found among household curios; it is well, however, to note that the processes by which those effects were produced changed as time went on. The earlier translucent enamel of the Italian artists was laid over an incised metal ground, the design previously prepared showing through. In the later Limoges enamels the surface with which the copper base was overlaid was painted, very much in the same way as the miniature painters on enamels operated in after-years.

The process of covering metal with enamels made of a species of glass is very ancient, but the basis of all enamels is the application of fusible colourless silicate or glass in pattern or design, mixed with metallic oxides, the prepared surface being afterwards fired until the enamel adheres firmly to the copper or other metal. The processes varied, but the firing or fusing was the same throughout. The name "enamel" is traceable to the French word enail and the Italian smalto, both having the same root as the Anglo-Saxon word "smelt." The enamels of China and Japan so extensively imported into this country of late years are chiefly made by filling cloisons or cells formed of fine metal wires or plates with coloured enamels and then firing them. As the collector advances in his appreciation of the old craftsmen, he soon recognizes the difference between the antiques sent over by Oriental merchants and the modern works made on present-day commercial lines, and not the work of men whose time was deemed of small account if they acquired notoriety for the beauty of their work.

The household enamels of English make consist chiefly of those beautiful little boxes, trinkets, and domestic objects made at Battersea and Bilston in the eighteenth century. The enamels used for the ground were tinted rose, blue, and other shades, and ornamented with painted pictures and mottoes. A very fine group of Battersea patch boxes is shown in Fig. 63.