It is therefore with eighteenth-century glass that we are chiefly concerned, and as the great bulk of eighteenth-century glass consisted of drinking glasses, a great portion of our space will be devoted to these.
At the outset some attempt at classification is desirable. We may refer the reader to the very exhaustive list of varieties which that great authority, Mr. Albert Hartshorne, has made in his standard work on this subject. For our purpose it will be sufficient, however, to make a broad and simple division of drinking glasses into wine glasses, ale and beer glasses, and cordial or spirit glasses. It is the custom, too, to draw a distinction between the rude vessels made for common household or tavern use and the finer and more highly finished examples designed for the use of better-class people. Here, however, the distinction is rather one of quality than of kind.
The three great groups to which we have referred fall into various classes according to the diversity of shape in bowl and stem and, to a less degree, of foot.
The bowls are variously funnel-shaped, with straight sides, or waisted, that is, with the sides curved inward to form a waist, bell-shaped, and ogee or double-ogee shaped—the last named showing in section the ogee curve, so widely employed by the architect for his mouldings.
The stems are of two great classes—drawn stems or stuck stems. The former are parts of the same lump of molten glass of which the bowl is formed; the latter consist of a separate piece fused into the bowl.
As regards shape, stems may be plain rods, rods with knops, rib-twisted, faceted, air-twisted, air-drawn, or opaque-twisted. We shall deal with each variety in its appropriate place.
With regard to the foot, the generality were folded, that is to say, the edge of the rim was turned under to form a fold or welt, so that the glass stands on the rim, and not on the flat of the foot. Apart from this, the only variations are those bearing on the flatness of the foot and its diameter. In old glasses the feet were never quite flat. There is always a perceptible slope from the centre to the rim, and very often the central portion rose up into a dome. The foot was also wider in comparison with the width of the bowl than in the modern type.
The decoration is of two kinds, engraved and cut. The character of the engraving is little to the credit of the native designer or craftsman. Indeed, both as regards artistic design or skilful execution, English glass ornamentation is distinctly inferior to that of the Continental pieces. The usual design is the rose, at first heraldic and conventional, and then more and more natural, with at first a butterfly, which gradually dwindled to a moth, and then finally disappeared. Other designs are based upon the nature of the liquids drunk, or refer to politics, domestic or business affairs, or to some famous personage. The largest group of designs is associated with Jacobitism—“Charlie-over-the-water-ism,” as some one has wittily called it. In rare cases these bore a portrait; more commonly the emblem selected was the use of two buds—the latter explained as referring to the two sons of James II., or to the two sons of the Old Pretender, Charles Edward of “Charlie-is-my-darling” fame, and Henry, who died at Rome in 1807, as Cardinal York.
CHAPTER III
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY GLASS
THE eighteenth century is the “Golden Age” of the collector of English glass. At the beginning of the century glass manufacture was already a flourishing industry. Vessels of all kinds for ornament, keepsakes, and for domestic use were being produced in great quantities, and there was a strong and growing competition between the native craftsmen and the glass-workers of Venice, Bohemia, Germany, and the Low Countries, a competition which, thanks to the superiority of the new English “flint” glass, was steadily trending in favour of the English product.