as known to the Egyptians, 109 



pire. Strabo was informed by a glassmaker of Alexandria,* 

 that a peculiar earth was found in Egypt, without which it 

 was impossible to manufacture certain kinds of glass of a bril- 

 liant and valuable quality ; and some vases presented by an 

 Egyptian priest to the Emperor Hadrian, f were considered so 

 curious and valuable, that they were only used on grand occa- 

 sions. 



Such, too, was the skill of the Egyptians in the manufacture 

 of glass, and in the mode of staining it of various hues, that 

 they counterfeited with success the amethyst and other pre- 

 cious stones, and even arrived at an excellence in the art which 

 their successors have been unable to retain, and which our 

 European workmen, in spite of their improvements in other 

 branches of this manufacture, are still unable to imitate ; for 

 not only do the colours of some Egyptian opaque glass offer 

 the most various devices on the exterior, distributed with the 

 regularity of a studied design, but the same hue and the same 

 device pass in right lines directly through the substance ; so 

 that, in whatever part it is broken, or wherever a section may 

 chance to be made of it, the same appearance, the same colours, 

 and the same device present themselves, without being found 

 even to deviate from the direction of a straight line, from the 

 external surface to the interior. 



This quality of glass, of which I have seen several specimens, 

 has been already noticed by the learned Winkelmann^ who is 

 decidedly of opinion that " the ancients carried the art of glass 

 making to a higher degree of perfection than ourselves, though 

 it may appear a paradox to those who have not seen their 

 works in this material." \ He described two pieces of glass, 

 found at Rome a few years before he wrote, which were of the 

 quality above mentioned.§ " One of them,'^ he says, " though 

 not quite an inch in length, and a third of an inch in breadth, 

 exhibits on a dark and variegated ground, a bird resembling a 

 duck in very bright and varied colours, rather in the manner 

 of a Chinese painting than a copy of nature. The outlines are 

 bold and decided, the colours beautiful and pure, and the ef- 



• Strabo, lib. xvii. t Vopiscus in Vita Saturnini, c. 8. 



t Winkelmann Orig. de I'Art., lib. L 2, 19. § Winkelmann, Ibid. 



