Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/609

 NOTICES OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS. 427 ami " Non-reticulated, '" — the " reticulated " glass paintings meaning pat- terns painted on white glass, and rendered more distinct by so much of the surface as is not occupied with the pattern being covered with a cross- hatching of thin black lines, and the " non-reticulated " meaning the pattern without the cross-hatched ground, — he selects a feature as indicative of a pai*- ticular style, which is, in fact, common to glass paintings of various styles. For the presence or absence of the cross-hatched ground, constitutes no feature on which the inquirer can safely rely as indicating the date of painted glass. For instance, much of the pattern glass of the latter half of the thirteenth century, and even of the fourteenth century, which Mr. Warrington classes as " non-reticulated," is really " reticulated." This last fact is admitted by him- self, (p. 47) where, describing the glass of the fourteenth century, he says, " Reticulated work was also much used during this period here and on the Continent." In another place (p. 32) his fondness for theory misleads him. Speaking of the " quarries " or " quarrels " of the thirteenth century, he states, " that, as much importance was attached to their shapes in the different epochs as to the shields of heraldiy,^ so in this period the quarrels were elongated and pointed, in conformity with the principles of the style, that is, longer than two cquilatei'al triangles conjoined at the bases ; whereas, in the succeeding styles. they_ became more nearly a square set angle- wise, when the arch became more depressed." Unluckily for this theory the facts are entirely the other way, the earlier quai'ries being in general the squarest in form, and the later ones the more elongated.^ But in truth the length or breadth of a quarry is a circumstance as little to be relied upon as the height or span of a pointed arch can be relied on as a mark of date ; the forms of both being chiefly influenced by motives of convenience. In another place we find it stated, in describing the glass of the thirteenth cen- tury, that " at no time in England were large figures introduced ; " and again, (p. 37) that " in early English glass, figures and canopies were not used, and therefore in strict truth cannot be introduced except upon continental prin- ciples : " an error which we can hardly account for, — since so many fine ex- amples of large figures and canopies, of the early part of the thirteenth cen- tury, actually exist in Canterbuiy cathedral ; and as another still earlier example, copied from the glass in one of the clerestor}^ windows of the nave of York, is engraved in Browne's History of York Cathedral, — unless, as we suspect, Mr. Warrington, in compiling his account of the style, has borrowed cross-hatched patterns mentioned in the text. latcd " of the thirteenth ccntun*, measures Mr. Warrington, by the way, (ib.) erroneously lengthwise, five inches and a quarter; and cites Wells Cathedral as abounding with across, five inches and an eighth. Another patterns of the last description. quarry, of the same date, fioui Lincoln the artists did not leave the fashion or shape eighths in length, and four inches and three- of the escutcheon out of consideration ; but quarters in breadth. Thus, in each cf these they thought that it should be in harmony quarries, the length exceeds the breadth only with the art7t(« of their architecture ; hence by an eighth of an inch; whilst a quarry we find the shields denominated heater.'" The bearing the initial of Henry the Seventh, connexion here stated to exist between the measures lengthwise six inches, and across form of the arch and that of the shield is three inches and five-eighths. The excess of purely imaginary, as a very moderate acquaint- length over bre.adth here being two inches ance with early heraldry will suffice to show. and three-eighths. We could cite numerous Deny's Church, York, which glass is " retitu-
 * Mr. Warrington asserts, ( p. 31.) "that Cathedral, measures four inches and seven-
 * A quarry from one of the windows of St. other instances to the same clfect.