[ 6o 7 ] 
fifing glafs plates for the ornamenting the walls of 
apartments to that of introducing light into thofe 
apartments, (as we find the lapis Jpecularis was in 
fadt employed at the fame time for both thofe purpofes) 
and confequently it feems realonable to luppofe, that 
the latter of thefe applications could not be long in 
point of time after the former. But it appears from 
the authorities produced above, that the former 
of thefe ufages did a&ually fubfift in the age (23) 
of Pliny ; and therefore before the deftrudtion of 
Herculaneum, where he loft his life (24). From 
whence we may draw no improbable conclufion, 
that the latter deftination of plates of glafs, (viz.. 
for window-fences) did likewife precede the fame 
event. 
Give me leave to add further, that this prefump- 
tive argument in favour of the antiquity of windows 
made of plates of glafs receives an additional force 
from the clofe relation, which muft be allowed to- 
fubfift between them, and thofe compofed of the 
lapis fpecularis. The former muft be looked upon 
as an improvement upon the other, as they aniwered 
(23) Salmafius, (peaking of the cuftom of adorning chambers 
with glafs, fays — J Quod proxim'e at at cm fuam incepijfe fieri narrat 
Plinius. ghium M. Scaurus Ex. Plin. tom. II. p. 854. 
I do not find this exprefly afTerted by Pliny : but it might have 
been fo in fa£t. This fafhion indeed was not begun till after 
Agrippa had km! * 1 his thernue : but if we fuppofe that to have been 
even as date as his third confulfhip, viz. ante Chrift. 27. (Hclvi- 
cus), when he eredded the Pantheon (or at leall its portico), near 
adjoining to thofe therma , there would have been fufficient room,- 
from that period to the birth of Pliny (viz. anno Chrifii 24J, for 
the introdu&ion of this ufage. 
(24.) Plin. Ep. V. 1 . .1 it. 
all 
