"naked — viz., "relieved of all impedi- | seræ ; next to this is a spirited mosaic ments of drapery." The marine deities picture of a biga race. who enjoy this privilege are Neptune and Only one other Roman mosaic is deAmphitrite. scribed, perhaps the most interesting of Old mosaics also abound in England, all, that at Frampton near Dorchester. especially where there were Roman settle-"There are pavements of three rooms of ments. East London abounds in tessel- important size connected by long corri lated floors, evidencing the existence of dors with mosaic floors throughout. The Roman dwellings. The abundance of Ro- description of these is particularly interman remains in Gloucestershire is pointed esting, as showing how a Roman temple, out, and reasons are assigned for the pref- with its mythological and pagan ornament, erence which the Romans showed for this by the addition of the Christian monopart of England: gram was adapted to the requirements of a British church.

It was a tempting site for them. The wide hunting-ground of the Cotteswold country was behind them, and their city Corinium, the modern Cirencester, at the junction of their principal roads, was within easy reach; Aqua Solis (Bath) also and Caerleon, and their "castra exploratoria" on all the points of the hills. The great military establishment at Glevum (the modern Gloucester) lay in the valley below them, on the bank of the meandering Severn; and far beyond, the country of the Silures, the scene of their great campaign, stretched out into the wide, distance, blending the woods and hills of its horizon with the mists of the setting sun.

own.

The second part of this essay treats of Christian mosaic. The change from pagan to Christian art is chiefly in the motive. At first the builders and decorators of sacred buildings were obliged to employ artists who were familiar only with pagan subjects. Hence the motives appear mixed. This may last for centuries, but eventually Christianity developed its own schools of art, and these held their The view taken by Mr. Gambier Parry respecting the relation of early Christian to classical art corresponds in the main to that of Kugler in his "HandHere, at Woodchester, a palace was built, buch der Kunstgeschichte." Both seem which probably was an imperial residence. to agree in fixing the close of the first Claudius's seventh legion was for many period of Christian art about A D. 525. years stationed at Gloucester, and Wood- Henceforth a different class of art prechester afforded precisely the central and vailed at Constantinople and Rome. secure position required for the governor's "Christianity was now free, and the moresidence. A fine mosaic, of the date of saics upon the walls and vaults of its Septimius Severus, was found there, a de- sacred places were spread as vast pictures tailed description of which, with reference illustrating the incidents of its history made to Lysons's "Woodchester," 1797, and faith." Among the mosaics of the is given by Mr. Gambier Parry. This is sixth century the author selects, as typical followed by descriptions of mosaics at of "the poetry of religious intention," Frampton, Harkstow, and Bignor. The" the dignified portraiture of the apse of latter is compared with a famous mosaic Sta. Pudentiana," and "the sacred symat Avenches, in Switzerland (the ancient bolism in that of SS. Cosmo and DamiAventicum). Both are somewhat Pompeian in character, and both agree not only in "the unique circumstance of each having a bath or cistern in the centre," but "in the evidence of both having been in great part taken from the same original cartoons." This appears from the similarity of the figures, which extends even to their faults in drawing and proportion. The mosaics at Bignor, about twelve miles from Chichester, are probably the earliest of any importance in Britain. They contain mythological figures and groups of gladiators. Those at Harkstow, discovered in 1796 near the mouth of the Humber, are described as blending mythological and Christian subjects-Orpheus with his lyre and attendant animals, and the symbol of the cross inlaid in red tes

an "at Rome. The figure of Christ holding a scroll in his left hand was copied about three hundred years after (A.D. 820) in the church of Sta. Prassede, and twice after in the churches of St. Cecilia and St. Mark. When the Roman Empire fell, art became degraded, a proof of which was the repetition of the same design in sev eral churches. And "the edicts of Leo the Isaurian in A.D. 726 at Constantinople gave such a blow to art as it never recovered till the revival in the twelfth century." Then took place a migration of Greek artists to Rome, where they established themselves in a college called Schola Græca, "close to a church which received the name of Sta. Maria in Cosmedin from the beauty of their works in it." In the time of Leo III., the friend of Charlemagne,

the arts revived, but Roman art died out, | Parry: "They surprise us indeed by their and Greek artists had all their own way.

the cameo reliefs of the

in it, and of the firm grasp of artistic prin- | signs in glass ciples which pervades it. Mr. Gambier Portland and Aldjo vases, and the small Parry has not only written a very instruc- blue amphora at Naples. At Athens tive essay, but he has held up as the cameo gems were worn at the best period standard of judgment, from which no art of classic art; and at Rome, under the ist or art critic should deviate, the archi- emperors, "the use of glass for colored tectonic ideal. ornament became universal, and walls, ceilings, and friezes were inlaid with painted panels of it." Examples of these are given, showing that colored glass was much in use among the nations of antiq uity; but we are called upon to notice "that there is neither relic nor record of actual glass-painting depending on translucency for its effect." How translucent glass-painting originated is a matter of uncertainty. As to the date, we know nothing before the tenth or eleventh century.

Even in

The seventh essay is on glass-painting, ancient and mediæval. This is no less instructive than the essay on mosaic; but it is not quite up to the mark of English composition, as it contains some passages of which the meaning is not clear, and the grammar is defective. It contains at the outset a statement concerning the use of glass in the time of Pliny. He appears to have been familiar with its use in decoration, but not with its employment in windows to let in the light. Perhaps he would have understood what we confess Winckelmann's idea is a very possible one, our inability to realize"the employ- that the mosaics in glass, tessere, and sectile ment of opaque enamel to define ornamen- marble marquetry, of walls and floors, sug tal design upon the colors of glass used gested similar designs in windows. transparently.' If this means inserting the eleventh century the employment of glass cameos in opaque color upon transparent in windows was not by any means universal, glass as in the Portland vase, mentioned if we may judge by the employment of transafterwards we can only regret that it parent alabaster in the windows of the south was not more clearly expressed. Objec- Miniato at Florence, at a time when glass aisle of the cathedral of Torcello, and at San tion also may be taken to the interpretation was practically common and glass mosaic uniof Suetonius's expression in describing versal. Horace's bedroom, speculato cubiculo. No one can say in this case that glass was used. Specula, or mirrors, were usually of polished metal. The quotation from that gossip-monger, Suetonius, does not help us to form a clearer notion of the use of glass in the time of Augustus, nor does it increase our respect for Horace, if what his biographer wrote was true.

"The method of painting with glass fused into and upon glass was an art of great antiquity," as Mr. Gambier Parry shows by reference to a relic of Egyptian art, B. C 1600, and to a vessel found among the ruins of Nimroud, date B. C. 722.

"Fusing vitreous enamels on blocks of cement or terra cotta and on tiles " is another ancient mode of painting. Instances are given from Nineveh and Khorsabad, with references to the works of Botta, Layard, and Place. In Egypt and Phoenicia the imitation of gems reached a high state of perfection. Imitative obsidian was made at Rome, and "murrhine," said to have been originally made at Thebes, and highly valued at Rome. It was also made at Alexandria, according to Pliny. It was the most costly of all glass, excepting pure rock crystal, and produced "a rich effect of wavy streaks of indigo, purple, green, and white." Mr. Gambier Parry mentions some of the most effective pictorial de

An interesting account is given of the method of ornamenting windows in Mahomedan buildings in the East. And a quotation from Leo's history of the convent of Monte Cassino shows that the Oriental method of ornamenting windows was employed in western Europe between the years 1050 and 1071, artists being obtained from Constantinople. Limoges, in France, "an ancient city of Roman foundation," was famous for its manufacturers of glass, artificers having been sent to France from Constantinople as early as A.D. 687, and in the latter part of the twelfth century the glass-painting of Limoges was famous; "but long before that date both the arts of enamelling glass-painting had been successfly es tablished in Lorraine and the Fenish provinces of Germany." The rec rds of the Abbey of St Benignus at D on describe "the figure of St. Panch painted in a glass window of the which was rebuilt there A.D. 1001.

Towards the end of the tenth Bernwald, Bishop of Hildeshei cised great influence in promo cultivation of the arts, and estat school with many native pupils, Byzantine artists then living th died in 1021. Cologne becam

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centre for the cultivation of fine arts, and ally, however, they were ingeniously preenamelling was practised there and at served; as, for instance, the records of Verdun. "Glass-painting was an art Newstead Abbey, "which lay for centuries nearly allied to enamelling from the simi- unsuspected in the brass ball of its lectern, larity of the materials and apparatus; and now standing in the choir of Southwell it is to that part of Germany, Lorraine, Minster." Much of the glass was foreign, Alsace, and neighboring Rhine provinces as, eg, the windows for Rivaulx Abbey, that we may look. for the earliest de- which were sent from France in 1140. In velopment of that form of it which was 1303 we come upon the name of an Endeveloped in the Middle Ages." "At glish glass-painter, which is preserved in Neuviller, on the lower Rhine, is a relic the history of Exeter Cathedral, where for of perhaps the oldest existing painted one hundred and forty feet of painted window," which is described as being "of glass, and other such work, "Walter the extreme Byzantine_style." At the Bene- Glazier was paid various sums. A few dictine abbey of Tegernsee, in Bavaria, years after "Walter of Exeter," the name glass-works were established A.D. 1003, in of "Robert of York is preserved, as havmemory of Theophania, a Greek princess, ing been paid in 1338 at the rate of twelvemarried to Otho II. As time went on, pence per foot for his painted glass." He the art of glass-painting was extended painted the great west window of York from Germany to France and England. Cathedral. Another name occurs in the The abbot Suger, A.D. 1147, sent for art- records of Exeter Cathedral, that of Robists in enamel to decorate the cathedral of ert Lyen (A.D. 1391). Men of his craft St. Denis, near Paris. Artificial gems were held in high estimation in former seem to have been employed, rubies and times, being relieved from imposts under sapphires being imitated. But the splen- the emperors Constantine, Theodosius, dor of the abbey brought upon the abbot and Valentinian; and "at Venice, the the wrath of St. Bernard, abbot of Clair- master glaziers of Murano were honored vaux, who attacked his brother, like a by high social privileges, admitting them John Knox of the twelfth century. In to intermarriage with the Venetian nobilspite of this, the strict rule of the Cister-ity, and to the rank of nobles, with their cians against the use of colored glass for titles inscribed in the libro d'oro." church windows was relaxed; and the figure of St. Bernard was painted on panels representing the chief incidents of his life. Mr. Gambier Parry, commenting on the change, says: "The experience of life and human infirmity appears to have taught them, as it has taught others, that fine art, inspired by sacred motive, is most useful, not only to teach the ignorant, but to fill the void of vacant minds."

The destruction of painted glass was in no country greater than in Italy, where this branch of art was little appreciated. Indeed, with walls adorned with mosaics and frescoes, there is more need of pure sunlight than variously colored light shining through glass windows. There was a school of art in Florence, at the convent outside the Porta a Pinti, where monks established themselves in 1383, and where, until the siege in 1529, when it was entirely ruined, they employed themselves in the practice of various arts, and preeminently in glass-painting. "Their prior prepared with his own hands the ultramarine for Pietro Perugino for the frescoes which he painted on the walls of the convent; and for Michel Angelo, upon his undertaking the frescoes on the vaulting of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican." Before the end of the fourteenth century this the glass-painter often embraced in his work art had attained to eminence in northern the whole art of his profession, from the first and central Italy, but it rarely penetrated preparation of the glass to the painting of the the south. Instances are given of glassfinished window; as in the case of the Alsa- painters of Siena and Pisa, among whom tian glass-painter, Jean de Kirkheim, who two, "about the year 1460, filled with executed great works in Strasburg Cathedral their painted glass the arcade on the two (about A.D. 1340), where he is described as sides of the Campo Santo, for the pres Vitreator, factor vitrorum, glasseator, Pictor.ervation of the frescoes there from the In England much destruction of works of action of sea-breezes B. da Scarperia art and of records took place. Occasion- and Leonardo, a Florentine." In the fif

The early windows were marked by simplicity in design and brilliancy of color. In the thirteenth century an improvement in design took place; the architect apparently supplying the figures, if we may judge from the works of Wilars de Honecort, who has left among his drawings scores of studies of figures, draperies, and proportion." In those days there was less subdivision of the arts than is the case now, and so