It may be safely asserted that no department of art has, from its earliest period, attracted so much attention and investigation, none involved so extensive a range of inquiry, or been productive of more ingenious, interesting, and beautiful results, than the manufacture of glass.
The question of the origin of glass goes back to the remotest antiquity, and is involved in almost entire obscurity. All that modern writers on the subject are enabled to do, is to glean hints and indistinct statements in reference to the subject, from the very brief and unsatisfactory accounts of the ancients. These, however, throw but a feeble light upon the precise point of the origin of the manufacture; and little is proved beyond the fact of its great antiquity.
That the subject held a very prominent place in the technological literature of the ancients is clearly proved; Pliny, Theophrastus, Strabo, Petronius Arbiter, Berzelias, Neri, Merrit, Runket, and others, referring constantly to it. The writings of all these demonstrate the deep interest existing upon the subject at their various times, but still fail to present us with any connected or detailed account of the rise and progress of the art.
When it is considered that the elements involved in the manufacture of glass are derived from the earth,—not one of its components being in itself transparent, but earthy, opaque, and apparently incapable of being transmuted into a transparent and brilliant substance,—when it is considered that from these a material is produced almost rivalling the diamond in lustre and refractive power, and sometimes so closely resembling the richest gems as to detract from the value of the costliest; can it be wonderful that in the earliest ages the art was invested with a mysterious interest attaching to no other mechanical department?
From the earliest periods, up to the eighteenth century, the art, from the peculiar knowledge and skill involved, could only minister to the wants or pleasures of the luxurious rich. The rarity of the material rendered the articles greatly valuable, as tasteful ornaments of dress or furniture; indeed, it is well known that the glass of Venice, at one period, was as highly valued as is the plate of the present day; and the passion for possessing specimens, promised in England, at least, to excite a spirit of speculation fully rivalling that exhibited in the tulip mania, so ridiculous, as well as ruinous, in Holland.
It has been reserved for the present age, however, to render the art of glass-making tributary to the comfort of man,—to the improvement of science,—and by its moderate cost to enable the poorest and humblest to introduce the light and warmth of the sun within, while excluding the storms and chilly blasts; to decorate his table with the useful, and minister to his taste, at a cost barely more than that of one of his ordinary days' labor. That which once was prized and displayed as the treasure and inheritance of the wealthy, and which, with sacred carefulness, was handed down as of precious value, may now be found in the humblest dwellings, and is procured at a charge which makes the account of the former costliness of glass to partake almost of the character of the fabulous and visionary.
That the art of glass manufacture is destined to greater progress and higher triumphs cannot for a moment be doubted; and the time will arrive when, from increased purity of materials and progressive chemical development, the present position of the art will fall comparatively into the shade. It is no undue stretch of the imagination to conceive that lenses shall be perfected whose purity will enable the astronomer to penetrate the remotest region of space; new worlds may perhaps be revealed, realizing all that the "moon hoax" promised—
"The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky
And spangled heavens"——