458 On the Art of Glass- Pa inimg. 



colouring matter, tlie orange may be converted into red. This 

 conversion of orange into red is, I believe, a matter of miicli 

 nicetj', in which experience only can ensure success. Till 

 within a few years this was the only bright red in use among 

 modern glass-painters; and though the best specimens cer- 

 tainly produce a fine effect, yet it will seldom bear comparison 

 with the red employed in such profusion by the old artists*. 



Besides the enamels and stains above described, artists, 

 whenever the subject will allow of it, make use of panes co- 

 loux'ed throughout their substance in the glass-house melting- 

 pot, because the perfect transparency of such glass gives a 

 brilliancy of effect, which enamel-colouring, always more or less 

 opake, cannot equal. It was to a glass of this kind that the 

 old glass-painters owed their splendid red. This in fact is 

 the only point in which the modern and ancient processes 

 differ, and this is the only part of the art which was ever 

 really lost. Instead of blowing plates of solid red, the old 



• [The barbarous devastations to which the productions of this beautiful 

 art have been subjected are deeply to be regretted. It appears from the 

 interesting " Account of Durham Cathedral '' lately published by the Rev. 

 James Raine, that there was much fine stained glass in the fifteen windows 

 of the Nine Altars which 



" shed their many-coloured light 

 Through the rich robes of eremites and saints;" 

 until the year 1 795, when " their richly painted glass and mullions were 

 swept away, and the present plain windows inserted in their place. The 

 glass lay for a long time afterwards in baskets on the floor; and when 

 the greater part of it had been purloined the remainder was locked up 

 in the Galilee." And in 1802 a beautiful ancient structure, the Great 

 Vestry, " was, for no apparent reason, demolished, and the richly painted 

 glass which decorated its windows was either destroyed by the workmen 

 or afterwards purloined." The exquisite Galilee itself had been con- 

 demned, but was saved by a happy chance. 



The destruction of these 



" storied windows, richly dight, 

 Casting a dim religious light, 

 has not then been the work of the calumniated cotemporaries of our divine 

 poet, but of the successive Deans and dignitaries of the Church. And if 

 Painting and Architecture have to complain of such devastation in our ca- 

 thedrals, the treatment of the sister art has been still more deplorable. 

 The ample funds with which the Choirs were endowed, as distinct corpora- 

 tions established for the cultivation of the highest species of sacred music, 

 and its employment in divine worship, having been misappropriated by pri- 

 vate cupidity, no longer does 



" the pealing organ blow 

 To the full-voiced quire below," 

 but to perhaps a third of the complement prescribed by the statutes, and 

 those often too ill paid and inefficient to realize the poet's beautiful de- 

 scription. As for"£ervicehigh," in many cathedrals it is quite out of the ques- 

 tion, asvery fewof the minor canons, are musicians and the choirs, instead of 

 being " full-voiced," are reduced to the lowest number by which the skeleton 

 or outline of the cathedral service can be exhibited. But bad as these 

 things are, the proposed changes, in the hands of ignorance and barbarism, 

 may yet be for the worse, and the choirs, having been now brought to the 



