20th December, IQ04. 



Professor Johnson Symington, M.D., F.R.S., F.R.S.E. 

 President, in the chair. 



STAINED GLASS. 

 By James Taylor. 



(Abstract.) 



This curious and beautiful Art was so long relegated to a position 

 of obscurity and neglect that it may be said to have altogether 

 ceased to exist. In Oxford itself it had so far ceased to interest 

 even Antiquarians that until a few years ago the many beautiful 

 examples of medieval glass in that venerable City bad never been 

 so much as catalogued. The modern Revival of Stained Glass as 

 a fine art dates back to the beginning of the XIX. century, the 

 same movement which reawakened interest in Gothic Architecture 

 leading to a corresponding interest in what was supposed to be 

 Gothic Glass. At that time, however, glass was merely welcomed 

 as a helpful accessory in an Ecclesiastical Revival, no idea of 

 developing its use for the legitimate expression of artistic feeling 

 having entered the heads of the Revivalists. The glass worker 

 was neither asked nor expected to utilise whatever talent he may 

 have possessed in his particular craft — the demand was simply for 

 windows which were supposed to resemble those of the XIII. 

 century. That was the first great misfortune which befel the 

 Art ; but it was not very long before a still greater misfortune 

 overtook it. Few, if any, real artists were connected with the 

 craft, and as the demand was a growing one, the making of 

 windows fell into the hands of enterprising business houses, who 



