HISTORY OF GLASS-MAKING.

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rounded or terminate in such small feet that they cannot he made to stand. “Noheel taps,” must have been the motto of the worthy Teutons who used them.'* * * § Aspecimen may be seen in No. 319 (Fig. 73).

Some knowledge of the art of glass-working also seems to have existed amongthe Irish from an early period; for small pieces of mosaic glass,j" and cameo heads,Jare found in brooches, croziers, and shrines of Irish origin; the examples ofmosaic glass display remarkable skill, as may be seen on the crozier of Lismore,belonging to the Duke of Devonshire. It was made for a Bishop Lismore whodied in 1112, but it is of course possible that the glass ornaments may be of anearlier date. Another process of decoration employed was that of cutting into thesurface of a piece of glass and filling the cavity with glass or enamel of anothercolour.

The colours and patterns used in both processes are so peculiar as to render ithighly probable that t-lie objects referred to were made in Ireland. And it is avery interesting question whence this art was derived; there is no indicationthat it was practised at the time either in England, France, or Germany;apparently, therefore, it must have been learnt, at a very early date, either fromRome or from Constantinople, or even possibly from Egypt. This last originmay appear at first sight very doubtful, but it has been observed by Dr. Keller,in his remarks on the Irish MSS. at St. Gall,§ that the style of ornament andcolouring which characterises them has much analogy with that of Egyptian art, andhe points out that there is direct evidence of the sojourn of Egyptian monks inIreland in the mention in the Leabhar Breac\\ of seven Egyptian monks who wereburied in Discrt-Ulidh.

4.—GLASS OF BYZANTIUM AND THE EASTERN EMPIRE.

Turning from the West to the East, we should naturally first direct our atten-tion to Constantinople, where the manufacture of glass was unquestionably carriedon to a considerable extent; one of the gates leading to the port took its name, asM. Labarte has pointed out, from the adjacent quarter in which the glass-houseswere situated. Glass was also made at Thessalonica.^j St. Sophia’s, ivlien built

* For specimens of Anglo-Saxon glass, see Inventorium Sepulchrale, or the Excavations of Dr. Faussettin Rent, edited by C. Poach Smith, PI. xviii., xix ; Akerman’s Pagan Saxondom, PI. ii., vi., xvii., xxv.,xxvi.; Poach Smith, Collectanea Antiqua, Vol. ii., PI. li.; Lindensclnnit, Griiber hei Sehen.

f In the cross of Cong, the Lismore crozier, the shrine of St. Mogue, etc.

| In the brooch called that of Tara.

§ l)r. Keller’s Essay originally appeared in the Mittheihmgen der Antiquarischen Geselhchaft inZurich for 1851, and has been translated by Dr. Peeves, and published in the Ulster Journal ofArcheology for July, 1860.

|| Ihe original MS. is in the library of the Poyal Irish Academy.

li Joannes Cameniata, Be Exeidio Thessalonicemi Narratio, x., p. 501.