Smear'd her huge dragons with metallic hues, That Earthenware and Porcelain were not uncommon in Europe during the first century of the Christian æra, is evident from the discoveries that were made in the excavations of those cities which were destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius, in the first year of the reign of the emperor Titus. The Romans introduced it into Britain; and in the locality where the Staffordshire Potteries are established, were found, on sinking pits, very evident remains of Roman Potteries, and at a considerable depth below the present surface of the land. It is supposed also, that one of the principal Roman Potteries was on a small island (now sunk) at the mouth of the Thames, from the numerous fragments of Roman earthen utensils which the fishermen often find entangled in their nets. Holland has long been famous for the common yellow earthenware, called Delf, which name it originally received from the place of its manufacture, viz., the town of Delft. In closing this article it may be observed, that England is now pre-eminent in the manufacture of an article, which doubtless, from the commencement of the world, must have engaged the attention of its inhabitants, from its utility for all the general purposes of household' economy, as well as for the medium of conveying down to posterity the progress of the arts and sciences. ORIGIN OF MAKING GLASS. Among the various productions of art, there is, perhaps, none so truly surprising, when we consider the materials from which it is formed, as that of glass. It is the only instance, says Parkes, in his Chemical Essays, that I recollect of a substance perfectly transparent, being produced by the union of two dissimilar and entirely opake bodies. Many of the ancients who wrote on glass, seem, however, to have known nothing of its real nature. Agricola, lib. xii. de metallis, calls it a concrete juice; Vincent Belluascensis, lib. xi., calls it a stone; and Fallopius classes it with the middle minerals. Different opinions have been held respecting the etymology of the word glass. Some have derived the word from its resemblance to ice (glacies), while others suppose it to be derived from glastum, the English woad, a vegetable which is employed in dying blue; glass having generally a tinge of blue in its appearance.* The date of this elegant and useful invention is involved in great obscurity. According to Pliny, the first vessels of glass were made in the city of Sidon; but Loysel asserts that the *"Art of Glass," by H. Blancourt. glass-works of the Phoenicians were in high renown more than 3,000 years ago, and that they had merely depôts for the sale of their glass at Sidon and at Tyre. The Egyptians, however, lay claim to having first made it, and say that they were instructed in the art by the great Hermes. Pliny attributes the invention of glass entirely to chance, and relates that it was first made in Syria by some mariners who were driven on shore on the banks of the river Belus; and who, having occasion to make large fires on the sands, burnt the kali which abounded on that shore; and that the alkali of the plant, uniting with a portion of the sand on which the fire stood, produced the first stream of melted glass that had ever been observed.* It is said that glass-houses were erected in Britain before it was visited by the Romans. This may have been the case, as the Phoenicians had traded with the island long before the Romans took possession of it: it was to the latter, however, we were indebted for that progress which gave the impetus to that superiority in the art which we possess above all other nations. GLASS WINDOWS. It is very uncertain when glass was first employed for the transmission of light and other optical purposes, or how long any of the nations of Europe have enjoyed the benefit of glass windows. Parkes says, the best buildings in Herculaneum had windows made with a sort of transparent talc. Our oldest English historian, Bede, says, that in the seventh century it was not known how to make window glass in England; and that in the year 674, the abbot Benedict sent for artists from abroad to glaze the church and monastery of Wearmouth, in the county of Durham. These men probably came from Venice; for the first glass that was manufactured in Europe was made there. We learn also from Bede, that the agents of the abbot brought several glass-makers with them when they returned, who not only performed the work required by Benedict, but instructed the English in the art of making window glass for themselves, also glass for lamps, and other uses. THE PORTLAND VASE. The famed Portland Vase, which we read and hear spoken of as a beautiful piece of antiquity, was discovered about the middle of the sixteenth century, inclosed in a marble Sarcophagus within a sepulchral chamber, under the eminence called the Monte del Grano, about two miles and a half from Rome, on the road to Frascati. This sepulchral chamber appears to have been the *Pliny, lib. v. cap. 19. tomb of the Emperor Alexander Severus, and of his mother Julia Mammæa, and the vase was no doubt a cinerary urn belonging to the sepulchre. It remained in the Palace of the Barbarini family for more than two centuries, after which it became the property of Sir William Hamilton, from whom it passed to the Duchess of Portland. In 1810, it was deposited in the British Museum by the Duke of Portland. In February, 1845, a young man, a visiter at the museum, wilfully broke the vase into several pieces by throwing a stone at it. The fragments of the vase were afterwards joined together, and the work restored far more successfully than could have been anticipated. The vase is formed of dark blue glass, relieved by figures and devices in white enamel. It is about ten inches in height. THE ETRUSCAN VASES. "Etruria! next beneath thy magic hands Glides the quick wheel, the plastic clay expands; The Etruscans, who were probably a colony from Phoenicia, are noted by the early writers for their excellence in the manufacture of porcelain. The art of painting vases in the manner of the Etruscans has been lost for ages, and this is supposed, by the author of the Dissertations on Sir William Hamilton's Museum, to have happened in the time of Pliny. The honour of the recovery of this long lost art has been given to the late Mr. Wedgwood, and the term Etruscan Vase has thus been continued to the present day. ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF SCULPTURE. Although no remains of Hebrew sculpture are known, they had attained to a considerable proficiency in some of the most difficult processes of the art, as early as the time of Moses. The setting up of the molten calf, and the making of the brazen serpent, are evidences of this.-The earliest recorded names of sculptors are in the Old Testament. Bezaleel the son of Uri, of the tribe of Judah; and Aholiab the son of Ahasimach, of the tribe of Dan. (Exod. xxxv.) They were the artists appointed to make the ornaments of the tabernacle, and their date is therefore about fifteen hundred years before the Christian era. Sculpture derived its lustre and perfection from Greece, where Pericles and a multitude of other excellent sculptors laboured, in emulation of each other, to render sculpture honourable, by an infinite number of works, which have been, and will be, the admiration of all ages. The most eminent sculptors were Phidias, Lysippus, Praxiteles, Myron, Seopas, and Polycletes. The Egyptians were famous for their colossal statues, by whom they are generally supposed to have been invented. Their first monuments recorded of this nature were erected in honour of Moris, king of Egypt, another in honour of his queen, and both were placed upon two thrones, supported by two pyramids, which were raised 300 feet high, in the middle of the lake Moris; so that, notwithstanding the prodigious circumference of this lake, these two statues were conspicuous from its banks. The most eminent of this kind was the Colossus of Rhodes, made in honour of Apollo by Chares, the disciple of Lysippus, who spent twelve years in making it; and after it had stood 1300 years, it was thrown down by an earthquake. The dimensions of this statue are differently stated; but all accounts admit of the fact, that one of its feet stood on one side of the mouth of the harbour, and the other on the opposite side, so that ships under sail passed between its legs. Some of the moderns have doubted whether there was such a statue at Rhodes as the Colossus above described, and, indeed, the extravagant dimensions ascribed to it would tempt one to doubt the truth of the relation; but being mentioned by so many writers of reputation, it is most probable that there was at Rhodes an image of a prodigious size, dedicated to the Sun, though the hyperbolical or figurative expressions used by some writers concerning it may have given occasion to others to magnify its dimensions considerably beyond the truth. The Chinese were also famous in this respect. The monstrous Colossus at Maco is reckoned among the rarities of that country. It is one of their principal idols or deities, is all of gilt copper, and is seated in a chair 70 feet high. No less than fifteen men, they say, can stand conveniently on its head; and its other parts being proportionable, one may from thence form a judgment of its enormous bulk. What Diodorus says of the tomb of Osymandes is remarkable. It was built, says he, of stones, various coloured, and divided into many large apartments; the greater part filled with colossal statues of men and beasts. In one part, the history and exploits of Osymandes was engraved on the walls; in another part was seen an infinite number of statues representing an audience attentive to the decisions of a full Senate; in the midst stood the judge; at his feet was placed the volume containing the laws of Egypt, and round his neck was suspended, by a string, the Image of Truth with its eyes shut. TURNING, which is a branch of sculpture, seems to have been of very ancient invention. Some, indeed, to do honour to the age, will have it brought to perfection by the moderns; but if what Pliny, and some other ancient authors relate, be true, that the ancients turned these precious vases, enriched with figures and ornaments in relievo, which we still see in the cabinets of the curious, it must be owned (however great the excellence of our own sculptures) that all that has been added in these ages makes but poor amends for what we lost of the manner of turning of the ancients. STATUARY is likewise a branch of sculpture, and is one of those arts wherein the ancients have surpassed the moderns; insomuch, that it was much more popular, and more cultivated among the former than the latter. Phidias, we are told, was the greatest statuary among the ancients, and Michael Angelo undoubtedly among the moderns. ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF PAINTING. The invention of painting is generally attributed to the Egyptians, at least as far as the four principal colours. The knowledge they had of chemistry seems to make this opinion certain; besides, the paintings still to be seen among the old remains of the Egyptian buildings, which have so long resisted the injuries of time, and which still retain a fresh and lively colouring, seem to put the matter beyond dispute. Painting, although the accurate virtuoso cannot trace it so high, was (according to Andrews) much used in the eleventh and twelfth centuries to decorate churches by the Anglo-Normans. The monk Gervese celebrates the beautiful paintings in the cathedral of Canterbury, built by Archbishop Lanfranc in the eleventh century; and Stubbs praises the pictured ornaments in the church of St. John, at Beverley, which were of a still earlier date. Peter of Blois satirically lashes the barons of his age (that of Henry II.) for causing both their shields and saddles to be painted with beautiful representations of combats, that they might satiate their eyes with the prospect of what they were too dastardly to engage in. The illumination of books was a branch of miniature painting much followed by the monks, and with great success. The materials which these holy artists employed were so durable, that their missals still dazzle our eyes with the brightness of their colours and the splendour of their gilding. Dr. Heylin says, the art of painting in oil was, till lately, universally attributed to John Van Eyk, a native of Maeseyk, who first mixed colours with linseed and walnut oil, in 1410; but Hessing, a German writer, has found in Theophilus, who lived in the eleventh century, a passage plainly mentioning the mixture of all kinds of colours with oil, for the purpose of painting wood-work. One author, however, contends, that Theophilus had no other idea than that of colouring over in oil, doors, windows, and other objects exposed to the weather, in order to make the colour durable. It is certain, says he, that Cimabue, the restorer of painting in Italy in the thirteenth century, knew nothing of the art. Apollodorus, a native of Athens, carried painting to great perfection, and discovered the secret of representing to the life, and in their greatest beauty, the various objects of nature, not only by the |