Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/420

 342 Sloan's Architectural Review and Builders' Journal. [Nov., sworn to the closest silence, with the ounishment of imprisonment for life attached, for divulging aught connected with the manufacture. Everywhere around the establishment was the warn- ing motto: "Be Secret until Death.'" Despite these injunctions and precau- tions ; and even before Bottcher's death, which occurred in 1119, one of the fore- men escaped from the manufactory ; and, going to Vienna, was cordially re- ceived by Charles VI. ; and granted the exclusive privilege of manufacture for twent3^-five years. Thence, the process — no longer a secret one — spread over Europe; and the art, relieved from its cramping restrictions — and with the in- centive of rivalry among various manu- facturers — assumed its proper import- ance; and made its products available to all classes. Of the History op the Origin of Glass we have less positive knowledge. The story of Pliny is familiar to us all. Some Phoenician merchants, landing, near the mouth of the Belus, from a vessel loaded with native soda (then called nitre), used some blocks of their cargo, to support their kettle over the fire, kindled on the sand of the shore, and were surprised to see a vitreous substance produced by the union of the sand and soda. They might well have been surprised, for, in the light of modern chemical research, we may feel assured, that no heat thus produced would be sufficient to bring about that intimate chemical union between Silica and Soda necessary to the production of Glass. This currently received opinion, there- fore, done away, we have no other to supply its place ; and must rest content with the knowledge, that, whatever the origin of its formation, glass was exten- sively manufactured at Sidon and Alex- andria, as told by both Strabo and Pliny, and that the knowledge of its production came thence to Venice, whence it spread into Bohemia, France, England, and Sweden. With the decline of Venetian com- merce, and consequent decay of the power of the Commonwealth, its glass manufactories, which had indeed " done the State some service," ceased to hold their importance ; and the Bohemians became the leading producers of this valuable commodity. In respect, both to the quality of their material for many purposes, and the excellence of finish of their products, this people are without competitors, as will witness the chemi- cal laboratories of the world, wherein Bohemian glass has become the sine qua non of exact research and experi- ment. The Origin of Pottery is coeval with the origin of the race. It was the branch of the Ceramic or Plastic Art first fol- lowed. While it was the child of%eces- sity, its brother, the Porcelain Manu- facture, was born of luxury. The pot- ter's art was an ennobling and honorable profession. " And Jokim, and the men of Chozeba, and Joash, and Saraph, who had dominion in Moab, and Jashubi- Lehem," were the potters, " and those that dwelt among plants and hedges : there they dwelt with the king for his work."* How many of the most beautiful meta- phors of Scripture are drawn from it, symbolizing the Almighty's power over the hearts of men ; and how has it always been an object of royal patron- age — nay ! — royalty itself has not dis- dained its practice. Diodorus Siculus tells us, that when Agathocles, King of Sicily, was showing his vases of gold to his friends, he said to them, "These vases have been made, after the earthen vases which I turned formerly, when a potter." None the less is it associated with the names of characters celebrated in history. What romance is clustered around the career of Bernard Pallisy, and that of the unfortunate Jacquelin of Hainault. Though so ancient in its origin, its manufacture, in Europe, was lost in the Dark Ages succeeding the subversion
 * 1 Chronicles iv. 22, 23.