Glass

Glass is a substance in so many ways connected with the conveniences and amenities of our daily life and the word calls up so many varied associations that I must here at the very beginning make clear with what a comparatively small proportion of the manifold applications of the substance I have to deal.In the first place this is an art history so that with methods of manufacture and practical uses we are only concerned so far as they may influence or help to explain points of artistic interest. Again even on the artistic side it is not with every branch of the varied applications of glass that we shall be occupied in this work. By an anomaly of the English language whose vocabulary for matters connected with the arts is so strangely deficient we have come to understand by the term ‘glass’ when used without further explanation what is called in the trade ‘hollow ware’ the verrerie of the French; in other words—vessels of glass.