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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.
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