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THE FIRST ENGLISH GLASS-HOUSES.
in diameter, and perhaps could not be made much larger. The manufacture of these small artificial gems has been very successfully carried on by Mr. Tassie, of Leicester-square, whose collection is extensive and valuable.
The first English Glass-houses for the manufacture of fine Glass were those of the Savoy and Crutched Friars, established about the middle of the sixteenth century.* It appears, however, that the English manufactures were for a considerable time much inferior to the Venetian; for, in 1635, nearly a hundred years later, Sir Robert Mansel obtained a monopoly for importing the fine Venetian drinking-glasses. The art of making these vessels was not brought to perfection in this country till the reign of William III. Our Glass-manufacture has since made rapid progress; and the white crystal Glass-works of England indisputably excel, at this moment, those of any other country.
The essential and distinguishing qualities of good Glass are, its freedom from specks or striæ, and its near resemblance to real crystal in its brilliant, pellucid, refractive, and colourless transparency. In all these respects, the productions of the British Glass-houses are at present unrivalled. It only remained

* "The Friars' Hall was converted into a Glass-house for making drinking vessels, which, with forty thousand billets of wood, were destroyed by fire in 1575. (Stow's Survaie, 293.) The manufacture was set up in 1557, and was the first of the kind known in England. I may add here, that the finest flint Glass were first made at the Savoy; and the first plates for looking-glasses and coach-windows, in 1673, at Lambeth, under the patronage of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham."—Pennant's "London," 5th edit., p. 377.
Probably these works, either by the use of wood fuel, or some other cause, were not remunerative; and therefore were not rebuilt at the Savoy, or elsewhere.